unsolvable?????

Hi guys
this is to be my last attempt to fix this problem or the vaio gets binned.
about a year ago my son bought a used sony vaio pcg873m pentium 3 laptop running windows xp home. from the beginning he noticed that the backspace key didn't backspace but brought up a save as dialogue box, he then found that when he typed @ he got " and visa versa.
the weird thing is that the backspace key only behaves abnormally in an office based programme and will run fine in notepad for instance.
after looking on untold amounts of forums for the past few months to find the problemi have come to the end of patience and am seeking help.
although it's running windows xp home and office 2003 there is a sticker on the bottom saying it is running 2000 pro and i thought that this was the problenso i used killdik to clear the hd and did a clean install of 2000 pro and office 2003,same old problems.
i cleared the hd again and installed win 2000 and office 2000, same old problems
cleared the hd again and loaded all the variations of windows from win 95 to xp pro with all combinations os office, same old problems.
the only thing that i can see after almost a year of research is that it not the keyboard as it works fine in notepad. (good aint i).
i hate giving up i thought anything could be fixed with time and patience but i can't think of anything else to try.
anybody got any ideas before i trash the so and so.

Mick

Could be bad keyboard.

Has your keyboard been cleaned before?

http://www.centricorp.com/papers/howtocleankeyboard.htm

it can't be my keyboard as it works correctly in windows but not in office

Do you have the Sony bundled support software at all? There may be some support issue with the implementation of keyboard handling in Office that the standard Windows keyboard driver doesn't have.

This discussion has a response that may help:

http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/thread25715.html

The short part is:

'POSSIBLE PROBLEM #2- I'm using the normal keyboard that's part of my laptop, but whenever I try to type on the right side of my keyboard, (or sometimes) the letter that should come out on the screen (such as 'm') is not there, and instead there's something different! (Like 0 for 'm', or 2 for 'k', or 3 for 'j') I've tried installing new drivers and other stuff, and it's still not working! WHAT'S GOING ON???

ANSWER!
Here's yer problem, buddy. Your computer thinks you have the 'Fn' key (otherwise known as the function key) held down right now, even though you don't! You can tell that this is the problem if the letters/numbers which come out on the screen are the ones which are noted on the lower part of the keys you're pressing. And you'll notice that if you actually hold down the 'Fn' key, your computer's keyboard acts as it normally does.

So why does the computer think the 'Fn' key is being held down, even when it's not? Because you have 'Num Lock' on! When you have the 'Num Lock' key on, your computer perpetually thinks that the Fn key is held down.

Here's how to turn 'Num Lk' off if you want your keyboard acting normal again: hold 'Fn' and hit the 'Num Lk' button. (You have to hold Fn while doing this, because otherwise, the computer would think you were trying to press 'Scr Lk', or scroll lock. I don't know the layout of every keyboard of every computer sony has ever made, so it might be different for you.), after that, everything should work normal again. For some reason, Sony Vaio laptops, on the rare occasion turn their 'num lock' on by themselves. It's easy as it can be to turn it back off, it's just that it can be very confusing for someone who doesn't understand the problem.'

thanks for your guys, but i don't have any sony softwareand sony cannot supply me with any.
it's also not the num lock key as this does not seem to do anything at all but thanks for your help

Quote:

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Originally Posted by badgermo

i don't have any sony softwareand sony cannot supply me with any.

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There did seem to be a considerable shortage of anything on the Sony or Vaio websites... (although I suspect the Vaio site needs to detect a Vaio before it will offer you anything).

If the problem is due to the need for special software, the only solution may be to find someone who has the support disks for the model and borrow them. Probably not an easy thing to score.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321498/en-us

The keys being the wrong way round would suggest it has the incorect country designation for the keyboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Archer

The keys being the wrong way round would suggest it has the incorect country designation for the keyboard.

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Hence my reply...

This might be an idea
http://www.majorgeeks.com/KeyboardTest_d329.html
It will show what your keys are actually mapped to allowing you to see if it's the keys or software support that's in error.
Personally my first thought goes along with the two previous posters about country\language settings since your description of the interchanged @ and " are exactly what happens when you have the wrong language support, ie US instead of UK English.

thanks for all your help guys especially to archer as it turns out he was right about the language not being english uk. i reloaded xp 9 times before it would except and run english uk (weird or what).
thanks to gemstone for the link on major geeks the keyboard tester showed that when i am in a windows based prog. like explorer and notepad everything works correctly, but when in an office prog. and press the backspace key the keyboard tester shows that i have pressed the backspace and the f12 keys together which brings up the save as dialogue box. the other problem is when i press the "6" key it does a spell check.
would anyone know what this problem could be.

mick

Well thanks but I think half the $20 fix fee belongs to MobilePCPhysician :cool:

The other issues may be a stuck key perhaps?

Just a thought... has it got a usb port? does a full size usb keyboard behave the same?