I'm trying to fix my in-laws laptop, it's a Dell Studio 1745 that's running Windows 7 64 bit.

The problem is that most of the keys on the keyboard do not work. The function keys work and the caps lock and numpad keys work, but no other keys do.

If I hit the F2 key enough times when starting up, I can get to the BIOS, but after that even the function keys stop working.

If I let it go all the way to the Windows login screen, I can see that the caps lock and num lock work - little images on screen actually appear, but they don't toggle the state of the key, i.e.,capslock is always off, numlock is always off.

Using the fn+function combo works, so changing the brightness, etc. works fine. I'm stumped. I've tried disconnecting power and battery and leaving it for an hour or so before starting up but that hasn't helped either.

Also - this might be a red herring - the touchpad is failing as well, the MS Device Manager says that it's failing with status 10, "unable to start device"