Keyboard occassionally not working when Win2000 has started

[Daar]

Hi!
Sometimes when W2K Pro has started up the keyboard doesn't work. I can't
even turn on/off the Caps Lock mode, ie. the led on keyboard doesn't get lit
at all. Shutting down the computer and starting up again fixes the problem,
but it's very annoying.

My system specs:

Intel P4 processor
ASUS P4S8X motherboard
256 MB DDR RAM
IBM PS/2 keyboard (quite old) and optical Logitech USB mouse
Windows 2000 with SP3 installed

 

[Bob I]

Bad keyboard, cable or socket on motherboard.

 

[Daar]

Bad keyboard, cable or socket on motherboard.

In that case, wouldn't BIOS complain of not being able to find keyboard
during power-on test and stop there? I've never seen it complain anything.
To me it seems as if the keyboard stops working during Win 2000 startup.
BTW, I used to see 'i8042prt service failed to start' errors in event viewer
when this occured.

 

[Bob I]

The motherboard supplies the power to the keyboard. I do not know how
much "testing" is done before the POST continues happily on its way.
"Most" keyboards will toggle the indicator locally and send a signal to
the PC for toggling the "software" indication. From "this side of the
monitor" you go with the "High return" suggestion. I have seen keyboards
where the cable was damaged at the keyboard and you could "make" it work
by pressing a little harder on the keys. That was real intersting
because the work request was that "some" keys don't always work!