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Toshiba S505-5988 laptop outputting zeroes

This laptop had a non-responsive keyboard. I plugged in a USB keyboard, and that worked. However, whenever I get to a spot where I can enter text (search box or URL line in a browser, anywhere), a never-ending string of zeroes starts up. As the keyboard wasn't working, I thought perhaps it needed to be replaced to fix the problem. No dice...new keyboard didn't change a thing. I even booted up the computer with Sysrescue CD and once I got to a spot to type something here come the zeroes.

I can't figure out what to try next...help?

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Dave Baldwin

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Gary Case

From your description, the keyboard controller on the motherboard is likely defective. As noted above, that means you'll need a new motherboard => probably not an economical repair unless you can do-it-yourself.

However ... just to be SURE this isn't corruption in the OS, boot to a standalone Linux distribution that runs from your optical drive [e.g.http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html ] and confirm that the keyboard still doesn't work. If you load a text editor under Knoppix and can type normally, then the issue isn't the hardware.

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nobus

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