Computer Troubleshooting/Help Master Thread

[etech0]

Your alt or Ctrl button may be getting stuck..

+1
It happens to me too sometimes. You might want to try pressing alt or control a few times in a row, and see if that fixes it.

Also see if you have "Sticky Keys" turned on.

[Moishel]

To make sure it's a physical problem you can connect another keyboard and see if that ones causes the same dialog box to open, or if you don't have one try the on screen keyboard.

[DH Data Recovery]

That may not help without disconnecting physical keyboard first, I see this very often with laptops that had some liquid spill on them. The keyboard can short and continuously press a specific key. The only fix in that case is a new keyboard.

[churnbabychurn]

Recently, when I come back to my computer when the screen/monitor is off/in standby, parts of the screen are black for a few seconds and then get filled in.
What does this mean?

[DovtheBear]

My keyboard shortcuts don't work. I can't seem to find where to turn them on.
I'm sure its a simple thing...

General. Crtl+C etc.

I still haven't figured this out. Any new ideas?

[etech0]

I still haven't figured this out. Any new ideas?

You might want to try using the other control button on your keyboard. maybe one is broken?

[DovtheBear]

You might want to try using the other control button on your keyboard. maybe one is broken?

Nope. Neither of them work.
It might be a driver issue, as Not Anonymous suggested, but I don't see how to uninstall the keyboard.

[etech0]

Nope. Neither of them work.
It might be a driver issue, as Not Anonymous suggested, but I don't see how to uninstall the keyboard.

Did you try the On Screen Keyboard? Does restarting fix it? You might want to try it in safe mode.

[DovtheBear]

Did you try the On Screen Keyboard? Does restarting fix it? You might want to try it in safe mode.

The on-screen keyboard works fine.

[Mutty]

The on-screen keyboard works fine.

May sound weird but try running a full malwarebytes scan and see if there are things to fix. Regards

[etech0]

The on-screen keyboard works fine.

You should also probably try Safe Mode.

[DovtheBear]

May sound weird but try running a full malwarebytes scan and see if there are things to fix. Regards

Thanks!

You should also probably try Safe Mode.

What do I gain in Safe Mode?

[etech0]

Thanks! What do I gain in Safe Mode?

Lots of things are disabled; easier to narrow down the problem. If it's a virus (which malwarebytes might help find), safe mode would probably work.

[Mutty]

Lots of things are disabled; easier to narrow down the problem. If it's a virus (which malwarebytes might help find), safe mode would probably work.

+1

[srap]

Help please. Monitor is too difficult to read in order to do research on Google.

 HP laptop monitor went bonkers:  very poor resolution where I can see 50% of the pixels, all letters/words are in normal black but surrounded by a thin white outline and then all background is bright pink (most white spaces are now bright pink), colored pixels around words flicker on and off, all colors are off.   

All I did new was install Total Defense which would not have a bearing on this.     Any suggestions? 

[DH Data Recovery]

Just do system restore to get back to previous state. Prob the easiest option for you

[srap]

Ok.  I'm looking up how to do that. 
Will it erase all of my added programs that did not come with the computer?  If so, I'll need to figure out how to backup everything first since I probably don't have original disks and certainly have irreplaceable data.
             
TY!  I was disappointed to see you were offline when I wrote.  Glad you're back.

[etech0]

Ok.  I'm looking up how to do that. 
Will it erase all of my added programs that did not come with the computer?  If so, I'll need to figure out how to backup everything first since I probably don't have original disks and certainly have irreplaceable data.
             
TY!  I was disappointed to see you were offline when I wrote.  Glad you're back.

You can hopefully do a system restore to how it was yesterday....
but a backup is always a good idea.. trust me, i learned the hard way!

[srap]

You can hopefully do a system restore to how it was yesterday....
but a backup is always a good idea.. trust me, i learned the hard way!

Maybe I can learn from your mistake.  It sounds like I need to make a b/u of pix, documents, pdfs?, music).
But how?   I have about 90GB on drive C: and 20GB on D:   Can I just copy these two entire drives to my new PNY 128GB flash (TY Dan!)?  It comes with 119 free GB.    9GB extra should be more than enough, right?

15GB Desktop will go on different drive.  Anything else I need?  Just everything under "This PC"?
 

[dsw193]

A system restore won`t erase You`re files.