Sometimes Caps Lock comes on and stays on for no apparent reason

On this computer, my HP Pavilion laptop, once in awhile the Caps Lock
comes on by itself and stays on until I reboot.

A few minutes ago that happened when I was entering some data in
Quicken. It stopped me from entering any amounts. I had to close
Quicken and then reboot.

I am running WinXP Pro or Media Pro, whatever they call it.
I have plenty of memory and hard drive space.

The keyboard is clean. I blow it out with canned air whenever it looks
dusty, etc.

Any ideas of why this happens and more importantly what I can do to
prevent it?

Thank you for all of your help.
--

Grandpa Chuck
-ô¿ô-
~
Americans killed in Iraq as of November 06, 2006 is 2837. United Kingdom = 121 Other = 119.
Non-Mortal American casualties 44,779 as of September 30, 2006.
Over 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. Most by so-called insurgents.
As of November 7, 2006 it has been 1284 days since Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished."
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis

 

And you can't hit the caps lock key to turn it off?

And you can't hit the caps lock key to turn it off?

Possibly a short.

Are any other keys affected?

 

What I'm reading between the lines is that you can't just bump the Caps
Lock key again and get out of it. "Once in a while" seems to be the key
here. Some combination of events which inadvertantly triggers a Caps
Lock - and can only be undone by repeating that action, if only, ehh?
You could have a 3rd party software issue, if it's isolated to
occurring only during use of, say, Quicken?

Windows Logo+S: Toggles CAPS LOCK on and off on some configs...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324553/en-us?spid=1173&sid=global


http://www.download.com/KeyState/3000-2094_4-10479636.html

Program shows state of the Caps lock, Num lock, Scroll lock keys in the
tray and/or in small panel. It works in Windows 2000, XP. Panel has
three levels of transparency. Program saves its location and
transparency in system registry. It requires no installation, just
unpack files in any folder.


In your situation this is what I'd first investigate:

http://www.brainsystems.com/capsunlock/

This is actually a control interface. Now, this might be like putting
bubble-gum on a tire puncture, but it might help you discover what's
underlying the problem.


I'd also look around here:

http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en/support.html

See if they have any updates for your flavor of HP laptop.

You can also bang around in there, since only you know the model number
of your box, and they have a technical knowledge base, etc.

Best regards.

--

A good way to threaten somebody
would be to light a stick of dynamite.

Then call-up the object of your wrath on the telephone
and hold the burning fuse up to the mouthpiece.

"Hear that?" you could yell, "You'd better watch it."
"That *is* *dynamite*, you [pick an expletive] pathetic fool."

 

Go to a yard sale and buy a keyboard for $2.00 , maybe less.

 

When's the last time you've seen a laptop keyboard at a garage sale?

 

No. The only way to type lower case letters is to hold down on the
shift key. However that does not allow you to use any punctuations or
numbers that are normally in the lower case mode.

What other keys do you mean? Keys such as "enter" "backspace" "ctrl"
and "alt" work just fine.

--

Grandpa Chuck
-ô¿ô-
~
Americans killed in Iraq as of November 06, 2006 is 2837. United Kingdom = 121 Other = 119.
Non-Mortal American casualties 44,779 as of September 30, 2006.
Over 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. Most by so-called insurgents.
As of November 7, 2006 it has been 1284 days since Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished."
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis

 

No. It has happened when I was using a number of different programs
all the way from Microsoft Word to emails to posting here. In other
words it seems to be entirely random. When I was writing my original
question here it happened and then corrected itself a few keystrokes
later.

I will check out all of the links you posted below.

--

Grandpa Chuck
-ô¿ô-
~
Americans killed in Iraq as of November 06, 2006 is 2837. United Kingdom = 121 Other = 119.
Non-Mortal American casualties 44,779 as of September 30, 2006.
Over 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. Most by so-called insurgents.
As of November 7, 2006 it has been 1284 days since Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished."
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis

 

For a laptop that is less than six months old? I don't think so.

--

Grandpa Chuck
-ô¿ô-
~
Americans killed in Iraq as of November 06, 2006 is 2837. United Kingdom = 121 Other = 119.
Non-Mortal American casualties 44,779 as of September 30, 2006.
Over 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. Most by so-called insurgents.
As of November 7, 2006 it has been 1284 days since Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished."
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis

 

Methinks it's hardware.

 

Okay. How do I determine if that is what it is and more importantly,
what do I do to fix it? It ain't bothersome enough to take it to the
shop and be without it for several days.

--

Grandpa Chuck
-ô¿ô-
~
Americans killed in Iraq as of November 06, 2006 is 2837. United Kingdom = 121 Other = 119.
Non-Mortal American casualties 44,779 as of September 30, 2006.
Over 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. Most by so-called insurgents.
As of November 7, 2006 it has been 1284 days since Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished."
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis

 

Then don't do anything. I agree it's likely the keyboard.

 

Something that would be interesting to try is in Control Panel,
Accessibility Options, then on the Keyboard tab, select "ToggleKeys" I
am curious if it will beep when your system decided to do Caplock.

 

Ok, sounds definitely like hardware then. Depending on the laptop,
some you can easily replace a key, but this sounds more like a short -
something electrical is tricking the computer into thinking the caps
lock is on.

Well, I mean does num lock randomally come on?

 

Not that I have noticed, but then I have never used it. I don't even
know what its purpose is. I still use an electronic printing
calculator for most things that I can't quickly figure by myself.

--

Grandpa Chuck
-ô¿ô-
~
Americans killed in Iraq as of November 06, 2006 is 2837. United Kingdom = 121 Other = 119.
Non-Mortal American casualties 44,779 as of September 30, 2006.
Over 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. Most by so-called insurgents.
As of November 7, 2006 it has been 1284 days since Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished."
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis

 

Thank you. I just set that. It will be very interesting to see if I
hear it when the problem pops up.

--

Grandpa Chuck
-ô¿ô-
~
Americans killed in Iraq as of November 06, 2006 is 2837. United Kingdom = 121 Other = 119.
Non-Mortal American casualties 44,779 as of September 30, 2006.
Over 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. Most by so-called insurgents.
As of November 7, 2006 it has been 1284 days since Bush declared, "Mission Accomplished."
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, and carrying a cross." --Sinclair Lewis

 

You rang? Could you send me some of that canned air?

Altie

 

Well, a external usb keyboard might help if the issue is a b0rken keyboard
controller on the laptop. Or at least it may identify the problem as
software-related (oh damned synaptic touchpads ... I never know which new
surprises they offer), and it is a ergonomic relief as well.

 

It's good to discover that your 'Caps Lock sticking' issue happens
randomly, while typing in various programs. At least that shows it's
not isolated to Quicken, because lordy, lordy, I knows I wouldn't want
to trudge thru this ole whirrled without my Quicken. (o;

Actually, that's why I posted the Microsoft link. They are addressing,
several, and further link to additional, software glitches and hardware
configs that might be inadvertantly triggering your Cap Lock function.

It would be interesting to see if */capsunlock/ would give you access
when it occurred again... Or possbily, if you isolated the cause, help
keep it from happening.

I have an HP ze5570us, and I can plug standard external keyboard via a
PS2 port - and there are several makes of USB keyboards. You likely
have a PC which could loan you a keyboard? You don't mention an
approximate time period between epsisodes, so you may have to set up
and experiment with each situation for a while.

I've heard of faulty keyboards sticking and glitching, but I can't
recall one specific key sticking that can't be unstuck by a bit of
careful manipulation, and there are a bunch of software glitches which
target specifically the Caps Lock key, which prompts to think of some
sort of software or driver conflict. Thus the HP support link. I found
a patch there for mine which repaired some sort of touchpad mysterious
activity, but it's been a really long time, and the fix was definately
permanent.

HP's Support site is rather extensive, and not altogether intuitive,
but I bookmarked the paths to my situations, and now I patrol there
regualarly for various updates and patches, even if I'm not having
problems on mine. I see what's going on with others who have the same
make and model. The point here being is that it would be unlikely that
*you* are the *only* person with that make and model having *that*
particular trick.

Hope it's something easy to overcome. Don't want Quicken to think
you're "SCREAMING" at it. (o; Thanks for the well written OP. It's
refreshing to see that some folks are still able communicate by
articulating full thoughts.

Best regards.

--

At first I thought, if I were Superman,
a perfect secret identity would be "Clark Kent, Dentist,"
because you could save all that money on tooth X-rays.

But then I thought, if a patient said, "How's my back tooth?"
and you just looked at it with your X-ray vision and said,
"Oh it's okay," then the patient would probably say,
"Aren't you going to take an X-ray, stupid?" and you'd say,
"Aw *skrewwwhh* *you*, idiot -- get outta here,"
and then he probably wouldn't even pay his bill.

 

cap lock stuck on

hey... i have the same shitty HP and it happens to me but i figured it out... hit ctrl + shift + caps lock... then the blue light next to the caps lock will come on... hit it and then the lowers will come back on... i think what causes it is that the mouse pad is located in a horrible place and your thumb is constantly hitting it and while hitting all kinds of keys it has like a mini crash... on every other computer in the world the mouse is located to the left to avoid this problem... HP in all their glory put it right smack in the middle... I hate my HP and will never buy another one... EVER!!! I know this feed is really old but maybe someone like me is too broke to buy a new one and still uses this crappy machine and this bit of info can help.