HP EliteBook 8560p keyboard issues

I have had several interesting weeks, 5 to be exact, since getting a new laptop. I believe I finally have it figured out so I thought I would share my experience with you to hopefully save you some of this frustration if you happen to have a similar issue.

Issue: CTRL and/or SHIFT key acts like it is sticking so the keyboard types CAPS all the time including the special characters such as ‘><@%’ to name a few examples.

Symptoms: If you are just typing along and all of the sudden everything is typing in all CAPS even though the “caps lock” key is not pressed and you are not holding down the “Shift key”.

Steps I have attempted in order to troubleshoot the issue:

• Replaced keyboard
• Upgraded BIOS
• Attempted to work without the docking station
• Attached an external keyboard
• Disabled the touchpad
• Swapped laptops but kept hard drive
• Applied the latest replacement driver based on some research and input from another one of my team members

“Fixes an intermittent issue where the CTRL key is locked in the "pressed" state which causes the system to interpret all keyboard input as CTRL + [key].”

• Disabled Sticky Keys
• Unloaded the Synaptics Pointing Device Driver v15.3.25.0 (restarted computer)

• Stopped CAPS lock behavior but then all sorts of other odd key activity started
• I downloaded an older version 15.2.16.6 (sp53265.exe)
• Installed this version of the driver and restarted my computer

This appeared to fix this issue for almost 2 days, then all of the sudden. IT WAS BACK AGAIN!

• Unloaded the Synaptics Pointing Device Driver v15.2.16.6 (restarted computer)

• I downloaded an older version 15.2.16.5 (sp52860.exe)
• Installed this version of the driver and restarted my computer

IMPORTANT NOTE: One thing to look out for that was causing me to think this was fixed and then it wasn’t. After I had it working with 15.2.16.5 for a while one morning it started acting up. I did some research and realized that it once again was updated to the newer version. It turns out that Windows Updates and the HP Support Assistant were both trying to install the latest driver. I have set both of these tools to ignore this update.

Status update…I almost don’t want to say it, but we may have a solution!

I will keep you posted but we may have a fix for this issue. Again I really hated to say that out loud.