Bad Keyboard Causes Big Problem

You turn on your computer only to see it freeze at the manufacturer’s splash screen (Dell, HP etc. logo) and some boot options with the progress bar only at the very start. Nothing happens after that no matter what you do with the mouse or keyboard. The same thing happens even after you decide to do a hard shutdown and turn it off as a last resort. Your thoughts go between the dread of lost data and the price tag of a new computer.

As it turns out, the problem was a faulty keyboard which is a very easy and inexpensive fix for what seemed to be a pretty bad computer situation. If you end up with the frozen screen described above, try unplugging the keyboard from the computer and try rebooting again. (or better yet, plug in another keyboard if you have one) If your computer moves further in the booting process and then shows a message that says “keyboard error” then there is a good chance that your issue is simply a faulty keyboard because that error message now means it is looking for a keyboard and cannot find it where before it was freezing before it got to that point. Plug in a working keyboard and if the keyboard was the issue it will boot normally now.