Keyboard and Mouse won't work at Vista login screen

[crazy stumped]

Hello all.

I have an Acer 3050-1733 Inspiron notebook running Windows Vista Home Edition. A few hours ago, I tried to log into Vista and realized that my keyboard and mouse would not work.

I have use of both the keyboard and the mouse if I am NOT at the Vista logon screen (for instance, the keyboard works in BIOS and both work at the Vista Recovery Console).

What could cause these problems? I've read about battery issues in other forums. I have tried to remove the battery and start up on just AC power. No luck.

I'm leaning towards a registry problem, but I don't know where to look or what to change.

Vista Recovery doesn't list any Startup problems (probably because it loads up to the logon screen??).

If this were my desktop, I would just do a clean install. However, I have information (Calculus II homework!) that I would rather not lose. Is there any way, I mean ANY way possible to bypass the login so that I could pull my saved work to my desktop via my wireless network? I also would not want to go out and purchase a USB keyboard and mouse "just to see" if it would work.

All I need to do is to log into the laptop and I think I can handle the rest. Any and all help is appreciated.

 

[frozenlead]

Odd problem.

I would take the HDD out of your notebook and hook it up to your desktop, save your files, then repair/reinstall windows.

 

[dwellman]

Right. This is strange that this happens with a laptop. . . Windows 2000 and Windows XP would get confused by swapping PS/2 keyboard with USB and refuse to load the USB driver for the keyboard or mouse. Then again, have you tried an external keyboard and or mouse?

 

[squeechfl]

I have an ACER Aspire 3050 laptop and had the same problem with the touchpad and keyboard.
I know this may seem simplified...but before you run through all the issues/processes offered to help your keyboard/mouse react again, try charging the battery for a night or two.
The laptop did not work at full function right away (after the first night of charging) but did show some signs of improvement, like some aspects of the keyboard reacting.
I had not used my laptop in a while due to a programming issue. By the time I had it fixed, the battery went dead. If the keyboard works without the battery in, after you finish working on the laptop, try keeping the laptop powered on with the battery in it when you are away or asleep.
This will very likely charge the battery again and restore function to your keyboard.
I am using the laptop keyboard to write this with what I originally thought was a corrupt battery, now functioning just fine.
Remember, I noticed the night before that some keystrokes were showing, where there was no reaction before. The battery took more than one night to be up at full power...but it is fine now.
I saved myself more than $40.00 by not purchasing a replacement. Hope this helps.

 

[shabaa]

Hmmmmmm,
go to the acer site and download the drivers for your keyboard and mouse for the laptop and put them on a jump drive... put the usb stick in the laptop and boot it up in safe mode and reinstall them while you are in safe mode... then reboot.... they should now function now.....

otherwise do like frozenlead says ... it is the cure-all.....

 

[Guest]

I had the same issue, and most of the info I found online wasn't much help (with the exception of Shabaa's post above).

I did however find a solution myself. Maybe this will help someone else.

After Windows update from last night, my Acer Aspire 5515 (Windows Vista 32bit) wasn't recognizing my keyboard or my touchpad mouse. It would however recognize a USB mouse (and I assume a USB keyboard, although I just used the on-screen keyboard through the "Ease of Access" center).

In viewing the device manager, I saw that it was showing a driver error for both my processor and my sound card. I also noticed that neither the keyboard nor the touchpad were even listed in the device manager. My computer simply wasn't recognizing them, despite the drivers being installed (I found the drivers online and verified that they were already there).

For some reason, reinstalling the drivers for my sound controller and my processor fixed the issue with the keyboard. I had to go to Acer's site (http/www.acerpanam.com) and download the appropriate driver for the touchpad. After a quick reboot, all was well again.

 

[stromm]

Wow, my wife's Acer Aspire 5050-5954 encountered the same builtin keyboard/touchpad issue. Guess what? It started this morning after the 3/11/09 updates were applied.

Oddly, they work fine in safe mode. I guess I'll get the drivers mentioned and install them through safe mode from a flashdrive.

 

[wikas]

Hello

I encountered the same problem under win XP and also tryed to recover the battery but the problem is a bad battery and the Api for controlling the battery condition
When you disable the Api in Hardware -> Batterycontrol you can start up again on mainpower
If you want to enable it again you have to replace the battery for a new one.
Most likely that this will solve your problem

 

[stromm]

So, I emailed Acer and they said that since the laptop is out of warranty, I have to give them $99 for them to even talk about this problem.

I find it hard to believe that the battery is dead. Until those updates hit, there was no indication of a bad battery. It charges, it holds it's charge, it never gets hot.

Anyone know of any way to diag Acer's battery? Some laptops I've supported had a "refresh" ability. Something like that?

 

[westin]

hi, i just had that problem with my brand new acer also..and took it back and got new one thinking it would solve my problem... but if u can get an external keyboard and mouse..preferebly usb..u can still get into your computer and pull your saved work out. I have done this myself.

 

[brownswa]

Hello

I encountered the same problem under win XP and also tryed to recover the battery but the problem is a bad battery and the Api for controlling the battery condition
When you disable the Api in Hardware -> Batterycontrol you can start up again on mainpower
If you want to enable it again you have to replace the battery for a new one.
Most likely that this will solve your problem

I have an acer aspire 5000 that I have a brand new power cord and battery, however, the battery has run down and it will not recognize only the ac power. How do I get the battery to charge, or just startup using ac power?
Thanks Bob

 

[raiksahn]

I have an acer aspire 5515 running windows vista. The laptop is a whopping 6 months old, and I never had any indication that the battery might be going out, or that anything at all was wrong with it. Just woke up yesterday morning and tried to use it, and the touchpad and keyboard wouldn't respond at all.

I used a usb mouse, and the on screen keyboard to log in to the laptop to kind of poke around to see what could be causing the problem, when lo and behold, in the device manager, six or seven devices had little exclamations next to them. Every single item said "Windows cannot initialize the device driver for this hardware. (Code 37)."

I had windows vista try to update the drivers, thinking that for whatever reason, they had gone bad.
Nothing.
I tried disabling them, and reenabling them.
Nothing.
I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the devices.
Nothing.

Finally, I struck upon the idea that maybe a recent system update had bumfuzzled my machine. So I did a system restore to just before the system update that my laptop recieved the night before.

......

......

It WORKS!

 

[davy_096]

i have a recent update and i need to restart my pc to install them... (im vista sp2)


after restarting, my keyboard automatically stops working on vista log-on screen...



but it works fine on BIOS screen and anything before the log-on screen...


anyone can help?

 

[MAXXL]

i have a recent update and i need to restart my pc to install them... (im vista sp2)


after restarting, my keyboard automatically stops working on vista log-on screen...



but it works fine on BIOS screen and anything before the log-on screen...


anyone can help?

I also have an acer aspire 5515...
i am able to type one key at login then the keyboard touchscreen stop working. Safe mode also loads to the log in screen wich allows me to type one key then keyboard touchscreen stops working. I cannot load and drivers from a usb jump drive because i cannot even log onto my computer. I took the battery out run straight off of plug for power all with same results. I have removed the hard drive and by using a usb to ide/sata adapter kit i copied some files that i needed. i reinstalled the drive and am now considering to use the alt+F10 function to do a full recovery. I have no disks. does anyone know if I am supposed to have disks? or is the os and all the drivers already on the recovery partition?

 

[MAXXL]

Acer Aspire 5515 keyboard and touch pad stops working at vista log in screen. Update... on my findings. The keyboard and touch pad would not work after the recovery console was started. I found a different usb keyboard and mouse than the ones i had tried earlier. this time the new ones worked. I am now running the laptop with a factory fresh install. I am running the countless updates from vista. I also noticed a touchpad driver from the acer website. Will try that update then let you all know what is going on. I hope this info helps someone.

 

[MAXXL]

Well the external key board and mouse works but acer says to send it in to them. Its under warranty so we are all good.

 

[lord_mur2002]

Acer laptops are horrible!
Aspire 3050

Never in my 10 years of computer repair have I seen so many issues like this.

If you battery is low or dead you loose the keyboard/mouse function how pathetic is that.

The fix is to remove the batt to do your install and get things set up, charge it later when you have time.
Second thing you could do if you need the unit working sooner is to use a USB keyboard and mouse plugged into the USB ports.

Regardless who came up with the killing of the keyboard/mouse on low batt even while plugged into the wall?

I'll keep recommending HP laptops at least if your warranty runs out they will give you some online support no matter how old the system is and not tell you to pay $90+ .

This acer has me mad!
And no Win 7 support? Are they crazy? Win 7 runs great on these units and outperforms Vista with ease.

And before someone says oh the key/mouse issue is win 7 related just read above, it happens to all OS's.

Well Linux works fine and but people reading here need windows help.

 

[lord_mur2002]

Not mine fixing for a customer.

Ok I played around and came up with something else.

From Start go to All Programs -> Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select “Run as Administrator"
Then enter: powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_BATTERY BATACTIONCRIT 0
So your system won't shut down on you while you do this:
Plug in the Batt and unplug the power cord and let the battery run down, if you watch in the task manager the CPU load will be jumping from 60% to 100%.
The battery icon in the system tray turned from no battery to 3% when I assume it hit 3% I then plugged in the ac adapter and instantly the mouse and keyboard began working and the battery now shows as charging.
Basicly this seems to have refreshed the battery.

Now to see if this problem happens tomorrow after an overnight charge.


Edit: This only worked till the next reset. Also the battery never charged and is fubar. How a dead battery can cause loss of key/mouse and cause the cpu to experience a massive steady load is beyond me.
For now the customer will use the system plugged in until the new battery arrives. (better then not being able to use it at all for the last month)

 

[Charles B]

Be advised with Acer 5515 laptop after a system restore or a complete rebuild from hard drive partition, (using a USB mouse and or keyboard), the touch-pad is disabled after reboot. You have to hit Fn touch-pad icon on f6 or f7 or close to (not in front of me) to enable the touchpad. This is the first laptop I have seen with a touch-pad disable on Fn keys..

Hope it prevents someone from unnecessary full restore (only to find a no joy) apparently.

Regards
Charles Brown

 

[JGalt]

I would first check the laptops battery. After replacing the keyboard and removing the battery from the mother board to reset the bios nothing had worked. (thought like others have stated it works in bios) Then I got the idea that maybe somehow the laptops battery was preventing the bios from losing charge. Suddenly keyboard worked again. It worked fine until the next windows update i.e. reboot. This time I unplugged the battery straight away (while system was still running plugged in) what do you know it works. I have used this method several times. Can't say if a new battery will fix the problem haven't tried that. By the way I don't leave the battery out I check that the keyboard is working again and plug it back in. Could be bad battery or bad connection. I know my battery isn't completely spunk because I do unplug on occasion and move the system around the house. You may not want to be a hot shot and remove the battery while still running. (I don't even take it all the way out just enough to break the circuit) So you might try doing it before your cold start then sliding it in until seated after you boot. Can't say if that works.
The thing that troubles me though is that with years of building computers and repairing them I can't even begin to imagine why this has an affect on the keyboard and touch pad and apparently nothing else on the system.