Windows 10 21H1 keyboard and WiFi not working (urgent help needed, laptop used for university online courses)

T3STY · November 15, 2021

Hello

I need urgent help with the issues in the title, on a laptop device, an ASUS M515D.

The first issue is the keyboard. It does not work on any windows interface elements such as the search bar, the WiFi password input, Settings app, and mostly anything that deals with the Windows UI.

The keyboard does work on the classic Win32 apps. Shortcuts like CTRL+Shift+Esc. Win+X or Win+R also work. Typing in Edge works. Desktop and explorer also work (arrows to move selection, ect.).

EDIT: The on-screen software keyboard utility from windows presents the exact same issues. And no, there are no stuck keys on the keyboard (typing in notepad works fine)

In safe mode, the keyboard works correctly in every place, including those mentioned above as not working.

What i have tried until now:

-Device Manager > Keyboard > uninstall device, remove driver, manually select driver

- Disabled start-up softwares (Messenger, Teams, and a few others)

- Tampering with dubious registry keys in HKLM > SOFTWARE > Control > CurrentControlSet (can't remember exactly which keys )

- Disabling fast boot

- Uninstalled antivirus software (BitDefender free)

- changed Language input settings to both fixed language or auto switching (EN-US, RO-ro)

- Settings > Accessibility > enabling / disabling Filter keys

The second issue is that the WiFi has stopped working. It will successfully connect to the WiFi, but when you start navigating in the web browser, it will fail to load any website.
Windows Update also fails to connect to check for updates.

What i have tried until now:
- Device manager > Network adapters > uninstall device (on the WiFi adapter), then restart (windows picked up the same driver it has before the restart)
- Disabled windows VPN settings

- CMD > ipconfig /release then ipconfig /renew

- connecting via USB Hotspot (Windows does not see the USB Ethernet adaptor, host device is an iPhone 12)

- Removing all known WiFi connections

- Disabling the network card, then restart and then re-enabling it

I'm kind of out of ideas for troubleshooting network issues

Since i mentioned above that in safe mode the keyboard works, i very much suspect that the issues are due to any updates in the past week. There are no windows updates however that have been installed recently, the most recent being on Oct 22nd 2021.
There are however driver updates for a bunch of AMD - System and Realtek SoftwareComponent (obviously, Windows Update is not kind enough to specify what exactly) installed since the beginning of November (last update on Nov 3rd).

Searching on the web brings the shameful articles about disconnecting and reconnecting your USB keyboard (good luck on a laptop) and other useless stuff (really? Try windows troubleshooting? Done that, said everything was working fine).

I wanted to try a system restore to a previous point, but apparently, there is no restore point available.

It seems i can't uninstall driver updates from windows update, and I have exhausted ideas for troubleshooting this. I don't want to reinstall Windows, this laptop is property of my sister in law, and she uses it for university stuff, including online lectures. She has documents and platforms set up.

Can anyone help me with this? I need to get it back up by tomorrow evening (that's like 24h from now), otherwise I will be forced to reinstall windows as a measure of quickly getting rid of the issues...

Thank you very much in advance.

da na · November 15, 2021

OK, a couple things.

1. Open Command Prompt as an administrator, run sfc/scannow, wait, restart.

2. Install all drivers

3. If that doesn't work I think best next step is reset the OS.

T3STY · November 16, 2021

Update:

I tried sfc /scannow, no luck, it said that could not repair the system. Same if started from an Windows install USB drive. Multiple other troubleshooting options from the troubleshooting menu, failed. Some other solutions from the web failed as well.

So i had to go the hard way. Made a backup of important data, and proceeded to reinstall Windows.

After installation, everything went fine, installed windows updates, no issues.

I then ran the manufacturer's Drivers disc (ISO in a small secondary partition), just to verify if there were any missing drivers. Indeed, there were some realtek ones (networking related), and some AMD system drivers (i guess these are the equivalent of Intel's chipset drivers). Missing? Let's get them installed.

Have i never done that... After the installation, a reboot was required. On reboot, the pc has completely lost the ability to login into windows. The login screen appeared, there was a "login" button, but every time i pressed it, a small loader appeared, and then the login sleep screen would slide back down. Safe mode same. Again, sfc /scannow failed.

But this time i was lucky to find a system restore point from before i installed the latest windows updates. Did the restore (unfortunately, i had to setup a user account again, go through the "windows is preparing the system for you" part too), and now the system has been up and running for the past 2 hours, with no issues.

So yeah, sorry, long story, unpleasant adventure at the most inappropriate time (it's 5:15AM, my sister in law needs this laptop at 7:00AM today), and definitely not a nice experience. But at least i managed to get it working again.

Stilll a better situation than Linus removing the entire desktop environment in Linux while installing Steam though

Have a nice day guys, i wish you to never have to deal with these issues.

T3STY · November 16, 2021

Another update: Microsoft edge does not work. It would not start at all. Internet explorer won't let me see the chrome download page because "this site works better with edge".

Why... Why you do this to me, Microsoft...