Knoppix saves the day

[turbine]

I got this Dell laptop running winxp. I use it primarily to run the Garmin car
navigation system.

The other day an app got hung and I had to shut the machine off to get out of it.

When I powered back up the keyboard had problems. Certain keys, when pressed, would
produce double entries of different characters than the one pressed.

The symptom persisted over several reboots. I ran Dell diagnostics which is independent of windows and it flagged that set of keys as being bad. Said it was a hardware issue. I called Dell tech support and they agreed to send me a new keyboard.

When the keyboard arrived, before installing same I decided to give the pc one more try. Only this time I loaded up my Knoppix 4.02 dvd. System behaved beautifully, no keyboard problem of any kind. Couldn't believe my eyes. I then rebooted into winxp os. Keyboard worked perfectly, no problems. I mailed the new keyboard back to Dell.

[foamrotreturns]

Great story! Next time, sell the replacement KB on eBay!
::evil grin::