Long beeps at boot - problems with keyboard

[Luke227]

Hello,

I seem to be happening random problems with an Acer laptop booting up.

When trying to boot the laptop one of the following will happen:

1 -- Long beeps prior to booting Window (just after the BIOS screen) and will not go any further.
2 -- PC will boot into Windows but the as soon as it gets to the log on screen it starts typing random numbers and letters. Sometimes I can type but for every key I press about 5 random characters appear.

Laptop is running Windows 8.1 without any recent hardware or software changes. I have tried booting into a virtual machine and BIOS, and the random character thing also happens there which leads me to believe this to be a hardware.

Just as I was about to attach a USB keyboard to test this, I rebooted the machine and it booted up without any problems at all. This first happened last weekend and then just randomly started working the next day and the same seems to be happening.

Not sure if anyone has had this issue before or can recommend anything to try? Would replacing the laptop keyboard be the next option?

Other than the issue above the laptop runs fine so I am keen to fix this rather than replace the machine.

Thanks
Luke

 

[Borealis]

What model of Acer laptop is it? The number of beeps and their pattern will be linked to a specific error.

If it's doing it in the BIOS as well, I would say that it's quite likely a keyboard issue, but it would be good to diagnose the root cause before replacing the keyboard just in case it isn't.

 

[Luke227]

Hello,

Thanks for the response. It is an Acer Aspire 5742

The beep is a continuous beep but this does not happen every time. The sound is consistent with a stuck key (the noise that would be made when a key is pressed during boot).

The problem has occurred again with the 'q' key the number 6 is shown. However it does not seem to happen every time (example below):

6q6q6qqqqqqqqq6q6qqq6qqq6qqqqqqq6q6qq6666qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq6

After a short while it then works fine again. I have also plugged in a USB keyboard whilst the fault was occurring and it worked fine.

Thanks
Luke