Computer help forum: CTRL Key stopped working on my laptop. Please help!

Is it possible that you could have accidentally reset the "standard" keyboard setup to a different set up? Ever wonder how you can customize your keyboard to type different types of things? (example European, Asian, International, Mathematical symbols)?

Just hope you don't have "dead" keys, laptop keyboards are expensive. Before doing this do what the other person said, try an external keyboard.

This could also be the hardware of the keyboard itself. i recently had to order and replace the keyboard for a customer on a laptop and was very surprised with the ease and the cost of the keyboard replacement part. One dell i did this on cost 25 dollars from dell and they even sent me a screwdriver in the pakage to remove it with and a link to the guide to replace it online. but a very similar dell cost around 54 dollars. All in all it seems it cost me less to replace a laptop keyboard than my personal keyboard on my desktop.

You have made an update, installed a new software, or have gotten some Malaware that has disabled your Ctrl-key. You get them working again, by going into the control panel of your Operating System (2000, XP, Vista) and disabling your keyboard manually and then starting-up again. Here's how you do it:


01. Go to Settings ---> Control Panel ---> Performance ---> System.

02. In the System dialog box, choose Hardware.

03. Go into Device Manager.

04. Find Keyboard in the list.

05. Click on Properties.

05. Disable the Keyboard.


Now you must restart your computer. When it starts up again, it will automatically recognise your keyboard as a 'new' device and re-apply the drivers from your XP operating system, as they were before you got them messed up.

It will again ask you to restart. Click yes. When your computer starts up again, it will magically restore whatever keys that got stuck, or wouldn't work. Tada!