Started to install a printer, and bricked my laptop!
December 21, 2013 6:50 AM Subscribe
Help!
My family member ask me to help install a printer (a Lexmark x5470) on her laptop. I installed the drivers and then, when I restarted the computer the MOUSE AND KEYBOARD DONT WORK. I can't login! I can't do anything! It even happens in safe mode, I am running windows 7 family premium, 64 bit on an hp laptop. Help me not ruin Christmas,
Do the mouse and keyboard come good if you unplug the printer cable from the computer?
posted by flabdablet at 7:04 AM on December 21, 2013
posted by flabdablet at 7:04 AM on December 21, 2013
If so, it's a faulty printer or faulty printer cable. If not, it's yet another instance of a Lexmark driver screwing things up and you should be able to get going again using these instructions.
posted by flabdablet at 7:08 AM on December 21, 2013
posted by flabdablet at 7:08 AM on December 21, 2013
Have you tried plugging an external mouse and keyboard into it? If they work, you might be able to figure out what the problem is with the internal ones. My guess is that the Lexmark driver software did something to the drivers that support them.
posted by double block and bleed at 7:10 AM on December 21, 2013
posted by double block and bleed at 7:10 AM on December 21, 2013
Best answer: Do you mean laptop touchpad or external mouse? If you have an external mouse, try restarting while leaving it unplugged and plugging it in only after the computer has already fully loaded up. See if it works. If it does, you can disable the printer driver using the mouse, and restart again and see if the keyboard starts working too.
If that doesn't to anything, you could probably use the instructions linked to recover the system to the last known good configuration, as flabdablet has said.
If that doesn't work, you could use a bootable OS disk, (the link is for Linux, but you could make a windows based one too) to see if the input devices start working when it loads. Hopefully with it you will be able to access and delete the offending drivers, at worst, you can use it to access and then backup all your data, and reformat as a last resort. A bootable OS (especially a Linux one) can be really handy to have on hand to troubleshoot all kinds of stuff; it's saved me from computer woes more than once.
posted by Dimes at 8:12 AM on December 21, 2013
If that doesn't to anything, you could probably use the instructions linked to recover the system to the last known good configuration, as flabdablet has said.
If that doesn't work, you could use a bootable OS disk, (the link is for Linux, but you could make a windows based one too) to see if the input devices start working when it loads. Hopefully with it you will be able to access and delete the offending drivers, at worst, you can use it to access and then backup all your data, and reformat as a last resort. A bootable OS (especially a Linux one) can be really handy to have on hand to troubleshoot all kinds of stuff; it's saved me from computer woes more than once.
posted by Dimes at 8:12 AM on December 21, 2013
Unplug the printer and reboot.
Then never fix people's shit over the holidays.
posted by Sphinx at 10:29 AM on December 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Then never fix people's shit over the holidays.
posted by Sphinx at 10:29 AM on December 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Not sure this applies, but similar thing happened to me tonight: I updated Windows 7 and my keyboard stopped working. I had to use the handicapped keyboard to login and updated the keyboard drivers and it worked again. You don't specify which version of Windows you have, but in the Windows 7 login screen, there is a little wheel you click with options and a visual keyboard is one... but you need a mouse to use it, so maybe you'll need to try to update or roll back your drivers in safe mode.
posted by AppleTurnover at 10:48 PM on December 21, 2013
posted by AppleTurnover at 10:48 PM on December 21, 2013
Response by poster: OK! Thanks all for your help.
I tried everything. Safe mode - mouse/keyboard didn't work. Taking out the printer cable, and rebooting. Still didn't work. Taking out the battery, still didn't work. Mucking around in the BIOS, that didn't help.
I was literally one foot out the door to go out and buy a USB keyboard to try and see if that would work when another family member thought he'd give it a try and...
So what finally worked was that there was a WEIRD LITTLE BLUETOOTH RECEIVER PLUGGED INTO the side of the computer that I hadn't noticed. A clever uncle had the idea to take it out and then safe mode worked and the mouse worked and success!
posted by cacofonie at 5:04 AM on December 24, 2013
I tried everything. Safe mode - mouse/keyboard didn't work. Taking out the printer cable, and rebooting. Still didn't work. Taking out the battery, still didn't work. Mucking around in the BIOS, that didn't help.
I was literally one foot out the door to go out and buy a USB keyboard to try and see if that would work when another family member thought he'd give it a try and...
So what finally worked was that there was a WEIRD LITTLE BLUETOOTH RECEIVER PLUGGED INTO the side of the computer that I hadn't noticed. A clever uncle had the idea to take it out and then safe mode worked and the mouse worked and success!
posted by cacofonie at 5:04 AM on December 24, 2013
That weird little Bluetooth receiver could well be for an external mouse and keyboard.
Laptops usually have a function key that lets you disable the inbuilt trackpad when there's an external mouse plugged in to replace them, which with that receiver in place and a Bluetooth mouse driver installed it would think that there was; sometimes there's an unobtrusive dedicated button that does the same thing. It might actually have been an accidental button press that rendered the machine unresponsive, rather than anything to do with the driver installation.
posted by flabdablet at 12:46 AM on December 25, 2013
Laptops usually have a function key that lets you disable the inbuilt trackpad when there's an external mouse plugged in to replace them, which with that receiver in place and a Bluetooth mouse driver installed it would think that there was; sometimes there's an unobtrusive dedicated button that does the same thing. It might actually have been an accidental button press that rendered the machine unresponsive, rather than anything to do with the driver installation.
posted by flabdablet at 12:46 AM on December 25, 2013
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posted by cacofonie at 6:50 AM on December 21, 2013