Help... Shift Key is virtually stuck...

[wawipack]

hi .. I have a HP envy 4 , and just recently, the most annoying thing happened to it.
The shift keys are virtually stucked.. i could not type decently and enter passwords correctly. It seems like they behave like they are depressed.. sometimes they go back to normal, sometimes they trigger again.

i've gone to other forums and tried the solutions they suggest:

upgrade bios
uninstall synaptics touch driver
press shift key twice while the virtual keyboard is on display
press shift key when wifi is off
i even tried using with other HDD with win 7 , and then the same thing happens

i dont think its a hardware issue.. its working fine... i dont know what triggers it.. i started to notice this when i installed ofice 2013 plus.. i even uninstalled it.. but the issue is still there... this is driving me nuts...

can anyone help me please....?????? to HP , i've seen this a lot on this forum... dont you have a fix and rootcause??

[wawipack]

And to add, after i uninstalled some drivers... it will not boot correctly anymore... sometimes it says boot device not found.. i ran the diagnostics and it passed... sometimes i interrupt it.. check the system logs in bios.. then press enter, and it will show the windows folder... what is going on here.....

[SuperJava]

Hi wawipack,
Assuming the information you provided is correct, can you verify the manufacturer/make and model series of the ENVY 4 like what version you have? No Serial Number is needed, but this would help us out to narrow down the issues/offer better solutions for you quicker.

1st-I gathered your user guide for an HP ENVY 4 here for your laptop
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03282135.pdf for review.

2nd- Can you review the symptoms you are receiving with more clarity. For example you state: The shift keys are virtually stucked.. i could not type decently and enter passwords correctly. It seems like they behave like they are depressed. Are you saying that everytime you type by depressing your finger you get the 2nd characters, like upper case and special characters because the shiftkey is already depressed or does the computer randomly repeat these letters or characters that are not being entered or re-repeating the characters you are entering when the key  is depressed.

3rd- to verify you can pull up a word document, or a wordpad or notepad and try testing the same USERNAME and Password 4 times, once normal, then again after hitting caps lock, then again removing caps lock and hitting numbers lock and again plain. Because some websites hide your password you can not see what it is you are actually typing when you see bullets. This way there's no doubt about what you are typing and what you are receiving as a result.

4th- After reviewing what your keyboard has typed clearly in a document and assuming you can see which button keys are messing up (other than shift keys)
Knowing the keyboard is messing up the best solution is to try another good keyboard if you have those symptoms still if not then you will need to check the keyboard for issues.
The next step is to make sure you have removed the shift keys or affected keys carefully to verify there is no debris anywhere and it has been wiped cleaned or vacuumed out at the corners/plastic areas so that nothing is being pinned down making those keys stuck. Have you done this already?  

5th-Assuming you did whether this fixes the problem you will know but either way  I believe you need to redo what you have already done, as this did not help it seems and since these  things were not the cause these things could develop new issues for you when you fix your keyboard. So from your list:
     A. Upgrade bios- did you upgrade the BIOS to a newer version? Was there a newer, improved, stable version available to download and not a trial? This was from the official manufacturers website for the BIOS? Remember I asked you to provide the manufacturer make and model? These manufacturers for example could be from companies like Asus, Amstrand, Acer, etc.. So it would be from your BIOS company to confirm what you need is correct.- Keep this in mind because if you experience problems related to this action down the road you may want to revert to a better BIOS version like what you initially had installed.
     B. uninstall synaptics touch driver- did you reinstall this synaptics touch driver? You will need to or you may need to rollback the driver to a working one. There's a process for this.
     C. press shift key twice while the virtual keyboard is on display- What was the result from this activity?
     D. press shift key when wifi is off- What was the result from this activity?
     E. i even tried using with other HDD with win 7 , and then the same thing happens- Instead of this activity- again have you tried to plug in another known good keyboard? This would tell us for sure in isolating the source of the issue is or is not the ENVY 4 keyboard.
F. And to add, after i uninstalled some drivers... it will not boot correctly anymore... sometimes it says boot device not found.. i ran the diagnostics and it passed... sometimes i interrupt it.. check the system logs in bios.. then press enter, and it will show the windows folder..
Do you know for sure which drivers were uninstalled, it seemed the driver you should have only uninstalled would be for the keyboard itself. So you would need to consider to remember which drivers were affected.
You can revert back to a time using system restore when the keyboard was last working well and before all of these things started to create these typing issues, but at this point you need to be able to boot into the computer and have windows load.
Do you happen to have a repair disk? Do you happen to have your factory CDS/DVDs? Did you back up your system to CDS or an external storage drive? If you can log into the BIOS you can set it to boot from one of these resources and get you back into your pc.
Also here a troubleshooter guide to assist you once you identify which HP Envy4 you have.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/support-search.html?tab=2#/qryterm=ENVY%204&searchtype=s-001

Please review the User Guide at top and the link so you can update this thread once you find a solution or need further asisstance.
Have a great day!
-SuperJava-

[SuperJava]

Hi wawipack,

The best solution is to contact HP tech Support

If you are calling within North America, the number is 1-800-474-6836 and for all other regions, click here: click here

That would be a good place to start as well if it seems too confusing.

Have all of your documentation together.

[wawipack]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this..

Here's my reply:

My system is  HP ENVY Sleekbook 4-1047tx

2nd- Can you review the symptoms you are receiving with more clarity. For example you state: The shift keys are virtually stucked.. i could not type decently and enter passwords correctly. It seems like they behave like they are depressed. Are you saying that everytime you type by depressing your finger you get the 2nd characters, like upper case and special characters because the shiftkey is already depressed or does the computer randomly repeat these letters or characters that are not being entered or re-repeating the characters you are entering when the key  is depressed.

Its acting like something is triggering it..   Here’s sample of what I would get when I type:

“eeeeTYUIIUWERYUIeeEIUIIU!@#$%”

Sometimes, if I use the virtual keyboard.. it will show the correct entries..

3rd- to verify you can pull up a word document, or a wordpad or notepad and try testing the same USERNAME andPassword 4 times, once normal, then again after hitting caps lock, then again removing caps lock and hitting numbers lock and again plain. Because some websites hide your password you can not see what it is you are actually typing when you see bullets. This way there's no doubt about what you are typing and what you are receiving as a result.

“This usually starts after booting the OS (Windows Logon Screen)” 

When I see the Logon Screen , there’s already a notification if I want to disable the sticky keys”

When the audio is turned on , I could hear some short beeps, meaning the shift keys are trigerred. It’s like morse code..  I have to wait until there’s no more beep sounds, and I quickly type my password so I can login. 

4th- After reviewing what your keyboard has typed clearly in a document and assuming you can see which button keys are messing up (other than shift keys)
Knowing the keyboard is messing up the best solution is to try another good keyboard if you have those symptoms still if not then you will need to check the keyboard for issues.
The next step is to make sure you have removed the shift keys or affected keys carefully to verify there is no debris anywhere and it has been wiped cleaned or vacuumed out at the corners/plastic areas so that nothing is being pinned down making those keys stuck. Have you done this already?  

This is my  last resort..    Since the shift keys are trigerred like morse code , It might be a software issue..

5th-Assuming you did whether this fixes the problem you will know but either way  I believe you need to redo what you have already done, as this did not help it seems and since these  things were not the cause these things could develop new issues for you when you fix your keyboard. So from your list:
     A. Upgrade bios- did you upgrade the BIOS to a newer version? Was there a newer, improved, stable version available to download and not a trial? This was from the official manufacturers website for the BIOS? Remember I asked you to provide the manufacturer make and model? These manufacturers for example could be from companies like Asus, Amstrand, Acer, etc.. So it would be from your BIOS company to confirm what you need is correct.- Keep this in mind because if you experience problems related to this action down the road you may want to revert to a better BIOS version like what you initially had installed.

I used the BIOS from  this link:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?os=4063&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=5279...

     B. uninstall synaptics touch driver- did you reinstall this synaptics touch driver? You will need to or you may need to rollback the driver to a working one. There's a process for this.

     I haven’t done the rollback.. will try this..

     C. press shift key twice while the virtual keyboard is on display- What was the result from this activity?  - nothing happened
     D. press shift key when wifi is off- What was the result from this activity? – nothing happened

     E. i even tried using with other HDD with win 7 , and then the same thing happens- Instead of this activity- again have you tried to plug in another known good keyboard? This would tell us for sure in isolating the source of the issue is or is not the ENVY 4 keyboard. – I haven’t used another keyboard..  still have to try this

F. And to add, after i uninstalled some drivers... it will not boot correctly anymore... sometimes it says boot device not found.. i ran the diagnostics and it passed... sometimes i interrupt it.. check the system logs in bios.. then press enter, and it will show the windows folder..

Do you know for sure which drivers were uninstalled, it seemed the driver you should have only uninstalled would be for the keyboard itself. So you would need to consider to remember which drivers were affected. – only the synaptics touchpad  driver
You can revert back to a time using system restore when the keyboard was last working well and before all of these things started to create these typing issues, but at this point you need to be able to boot into the computer and have windows load.
Do you happen to have a repair disk? Do you happen to have your factory CDS/DVDs? Did you back up your system to CDS or an external storage drive? If you can log into the BIOS you can set it to boot from one of these resources and get you back into your pc.
Also here a troubleshooter guide to assist you once you identify which HP Envy4 you have.

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/support-search.html?tab=2#/qryterm=ENVY%204&searchtype=s-001

- I will probably try reinstalling everything If i dont get some solutions... i have the recovery disk with me,..

[wawipack]

I tried calling them..   Since my laptop is out of warranty , they routed my call to the remote service..  which takes forever....

[SuperJava]

Hi, wawipack,

let's wait until you get another known good keyboard to test, hopefully a USB type.

When this happens you will know for sure whether the issue is hardware ( Keyboard) or software ( ENVY 4).

Keep us posted and good luck.

-SuperJava-

[wawipack]

I tried using a Bluetooth keyboard , and same thing happens.

Well apparently.. Im stubborn..  I formatted my old ssd drive, and wiped it clean. Booted the laptop using the recovery disk and got the blue screen of death for iaStor.sys 

I just noticed it though, since I switch HDDs, and the issue exists in both..  Could it be somewhere in between.. my BIOS is corrupted?  I was ruling keyboard hardware issue because it was working fine.

Any idea how to restore the BIOS to its original state?   

I only have the recovery disk. I read somewhere you can  restore BIOS on this link.

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02693833

I tried this , but its just blank…

Any suggestions?

[SuperJava]

Yes, Have you run the HDD diagnostic tests from the HP Advanced Diagnostic Menu when you received the stop error aka bsod for iaStor.sys ?
There is a thread of the process to do this for HP Envy models. Search the forums using iaStor.sys as I can't post the link but here's the details of one HP Envy 4 thread to use as a guide but read the threads first to make sure this is correct for your HP 4 Sleekbook 4 ~1047tx :

Press the power button and immediately begin tapping the Esc key. In the menu that appears, select the F2 key to invoke the HP Advanced Diagnostics menu and then click on the hard disk test. If the test fails, then contact Customer Care