Okay, so this is one of the more annoying PC problems I’ve had over the years and one I’ve never had before.
Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that certain random keys are (briefly) being held down intermittently, regardless of what I’m doing. It’s enough to cause major problems, but not enough to track easily. Last night it was while I was playing Overcooked with some friends, bringing up Big Picture in the middle of us playing (Shift + Tab? Alt + Tab? Alt + Return?). The other night it was my character briefly strafing left in Soma (A) then later the game leaving fullscreen (Alt + Return) and exposing my desktop. Dirt 3 did the same last week a few times while I was racing with friends (I lost those races). I’ve had strange behaviour in Windows too, like dragging a file and it duplicating it repeatedly (as if Ctrl was being held down), or typing not working (perhaps due to an input bottleneck) or Netflix leaving fullscreen in Firefox (Esc maybe?).
When the problem arose I thought it was my 13+ year old PS/2 keyboard giving up the ghost so I indulged in one of these from a local shop (for cheaper than expected actually)…
…And the problem persists, and that’s through USB too. When I had the PS/2 keyboard, I knew when a key was being held down because my computer would occasionally beep as if it was receiving too many inputs. With the new sexy keyboard above, there’s some sort of on-board processor or something that prevents that from happening so the problem is trickier to perceive now when it’s not wrenching me from games and what have you.
I’ve tried running a bunch of anti-malware/virus/rootkit software and they turned up nothing.
I installed a keyboard tracer last night in the hopes of it logging exactly what was being pressed but after about 5 minutes in Battlefield 1 it reached the trial cap so… I’m back to square one. I might have to try another bit of software but this time just leave my computer on all day and see if anything gets picked up then.
The problem is so intermittent, brief and practically invisible that it’s very hard to work out what’s happening exactly, what’s causing it and what the solution could be. Anybody any advice? It’s driving me mad.
Do you have any keyboard macro tools installed? Does the key unpress if you press and release it? Does the keyboard model you have require drivers? AutoHotkey is free and logs all your keypresses (go to “View/Key history”). Does the keyboard behave the same way in another computer. Have you tried a third keyboard?
Also try and think out of the box, I once spent 30 minutes tracking down ghost keypresses only to find my mobile phone slightly touching one key on the laptop (sitting in a dock)
No keyboard macro tools installed prior to the Corsair keyboard, and there are none set-up for it either.
It isn’t just one key being pressed, and they’re only being pressed briefly, sometimes continuously for a short period of time before releasing (hence the PS/2 keyboard ‘beep’). From my observations, the keys that I think are being pressed are Ctrl, Alt, Return, Esc (perhaps) and A, but this is just me trying to work backwards from what’s happening.
My USB Corsair keyboard needed drivers to get all the fancy stuff working, but my 13+ year old Fujitsu Siemens PS/2 keyboard has always just worked. My gut instinct is that it’s nothing to do with the actual keyboards themselves, the hardware. If it was hardware related I’d have expected the move from PS/2 to USB, from one keyboard to another, to make some sort of difference.
I’m pretty sure it’s a software thing, I’m just not sure whether it’s driver or OS related. I looked in my Device Manager and there seems to be five or six HID compliant keyboard devices. I uninstalled them all but Windows re-populated it on refresh so, huh.
It’s definitely not me accidentally pressing anything, my hands are the only things near the keyboard!
I’ll take a look at that AutoHotKey, could be just what I need to help diagnose this. Thanks @Fortitudo!
I don’t suppose you have a touch screen device … or maybe you have one of those modern mouse. But yeah, that’s pretty strange to see random and phantom key press. Those modern keyboards are able to take in multiple key press (N-key roll over, it’s called) so it does make it harder to troubleshoot.
Yeah, I did full scans with EmsiSoft, 360 Total Security, Windows Defender and TDSS Killer, and use a DropMyRights protected Firefox with SpywareBlaster and WinPatrol installed. None of them turned up anything. While I was doing that I uninstalled a load of stuff and did a hard drive and registry clean using CCleaner too. No change.
I managed to get AutoHotKey working last night but forgot to leave my computer running to log any presses. Will try and do that tonight.
i have this phantom problem but only in a remote session to my one pc via teamviewer where the mouse input is intermittently sending a stuck click. i’ve changed the mice and keyboard to no effect.
I think this problem has kind of… sorted itself out, or something. Haven’t noticed any unexpected inputs in the last few days, despite sinking a lot of time into Titanfall 2 this weekend, plenty of desktop use, as usual, and the odd turn on Chaos Reborn. If anything crops up, I’ll be back, but I’ve no idea what was causing it and what (may have) solved it.
Sorry I didn’t see this before Geggis. If I were you, I would highly suggest you return the corsair keyboard and go with a different brand. They are notorious with these kinds of problems. That’s why I had to go with the Logitech keyboard I have now. I love Corsair, but they’ve been doing something weird with their keyboards since they started. It’s just not worth the hassle of trying to get one that works with your system. I was very angry at all the money I spent on my K90 non-RGB a few years ago only to find out it would never be fixed, then to my amazement they keep screwing things up with follow-up boards.
I have seen phantom key presses before, but I doubt you are a particularly large bosom-ed woman who gets close and enthusiastically bouncy to her keyboard when typing.
The problem existed before I got my Corsair USB keyboard unfortunately. It was the reason I got my new one, thinking it was an issue with my 13+ year old Fujitsu Siemens PS/2 keyboard. I honestly don’t think this is a hardware problem – two different keyboards, two separate interfaces, same problem. I think it’s OS or driver related or something. Besides, I’m past the point of no return with my keyboard now and I really do like the feel of the keys and the subtle back-lighting you can achieve with it!
I’ve been tracking key presses using AutoHotKey while my computer’s been idling through the day and night over the last week or so and it’s picked up diddly-squat in that time, yet when I’m using it the problem rears its head again. My next port of call is tracking key presses while playing games as that’s mostly when the problem hits me. This will be disruptive but I want to work out what specifically is being pressed.
Oh, I also uninstalled my graphics tablet driver and software last night, just in case. That was installed fairly recently so it’s a potential culprit. We’ll see if that makes a difference.
None, really. The problem’s only started in the last month or so, and nothing’s changed as far as my set-up goes, or the way I sit and use my keyboard. Hell, when I was playing Overcooked with friends, we were all out of reach of the keyboard and there’s no shortcut on our controllers to get back to the desktop! That’s a keyboard combo like Alt + Return doing that.
If I can’t sort this out then I’ll probably end up making a hard disk image, formatting then reinstalling Windows 10.
Is there a touchscreen? It or maybe your touchpad could be giving a false input to switch apps, most of them support things like three-finger swipe left/right, which could switch apps as keyboard shortcuts do.
The only touch devices I’ve got installed is the Steam Controller and a Wacom graphics tablet (which I uninstalled last night). I’ll unplug the Steam Controller dongle tonight and see if that makes a difference.
