Keyboard acting up

[thewolfe]

A friend e-mailed me this. "I was using my keyboard and then certain parts of my computer screen started to flash. I thought I got a hacker on my hands. I shut the computer down immediately and then re-booted again. Same issue. I couldn't figure out what's going on so I ran MalWare check. Nothing came up. I unplugged the keyboard and substituted it with my old wireless. All seemed normal again."

Any ideas?

[Krom]

Parts of the screen flashing is usually an indication of a GPU glitch, changing keyboards making it clear up was probably just coincidence (or it cleared up because he had the machine off for a longer interval while changing keyboards). I can't think of any realistic ways that the keyboard could cause an issue like that which wouldn't immediately BSOD the system. However, a glitch in the GPU could cause bits of the screen to flash without immediately causing a BSOD and by typing on the keyboard stuff on the screen would update which under a corrupted GPU could easily change the pattern of flashing. I've seen similar behavior from one of my GPUs that was defective once.

Running various stress / burn in / torture tests on the main system components (CPU, GPU, Memory) might reveal the issue more easily.

[Foil]

Another possibility: Did a key which controls window activation (like Alt-Tab or the Windows key) get stuck? If so, and Windows starts flipping between windows, it can look like "things are flashing!" to some users.

Not likely, but it's the only keyboard-causes-glitchy-looking-flashes possibility I can think of.

[Krom]

Could always set BIOS to halt on all errors, instead of the usual default of "All but keyboard". Would sniff out stuck keys pretty quickly.