My computer has two problems. Firstly, no matter what kind of program I am in, the keyboard and/or the mouse will regularly freeze up. If I unplug the keyboard and then plug it back into the computer it will usually work but the mouse will not come back until I reboot. I’ve taken the computer back to the dealer and they simply replaced the keyboard but could find nothing else wrong. What could be causing this? The motherboard perhaps? Secondly, I’ve noticed from time-to-time that my screen will look awfully dark and then upon rebooting the screen will generally return to it’s natural state (the colour of the screen is not affected - it is like the brightness has been turned down). Could this be a problem with the graphics card or the monitor? My system is running on Windows 98 SE and is a Pentium III 733MHZ processor. Any advice you could provide on these very annoying problems would be greatly appreciated.

As your keyboard has been replaced and the problem persists, we can assume that the keyboard and mouse themselves are not the cause of the problem. Let’s firstly narrow the problem down to either Windows or hardware such as your motherboard. When you boot your computer and the ‘Starting Windows 98…’ message is displayed, press the F8 key. In the menu that appears, select the option ‘Command Prompt Only’. You are now in DOS. Leave your computer running at the command prompt for a while to see if your keyboard is still responding. If so, type ‘edit’ followed by enter. This will open the MS-DOS editor. If things are still running ok at this point, the problem is probably to do with Windows. The problem may be due to a conflict between your keyboard and mouse or one of these and another device. To check this theory, go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Settings’ > ‘Control Panel’ and open ‘System’. In the window that appears, click the ‘Device Manager’ tab. This will bring up the device list where you now expand ‘Keyboards’ and double-click on your keyboard. In the properties window, click the ‘Resources’ tab to see whether any conflicts are present. Do the same for your mouse (except you will find your mouse under ‘Mice and other pointing devices’ in the device manager). If there are conflicts with either device, save all of your work and close all applications. Go back to the ‘Device Manager’ main window, right-click on the affected device, and click ‘Uninstall’. Now reboot your computer. When your computer restarts, it should detect the device and reinstall so it does not conflict with any other devices. However, if there are no conflicts, the only other option I can think of to prove whether the problem is being caused by Windows is to backup all of your important data and reinstall Windows. If the problem then persists, it is more than likely a hardware problem. Similarly, if the problem occurs in DOS, then it is probably hardware related. In this case, I suggest you contact the dealer again.

In response to your second question about your screen going dark, I think that this would be a hardware problem rather a software problem. However, the only way to test this would be to plug another monitor into your computer. If the problem persists, the problem is more than likely caused by the video card. Once again, your dealer might be the best place to offer the support in resolving this problem.