phantom keys - characters appearing repeatedly eg 1,2,8,/

windows 10, version 20H2 on lenovo laptop

characters appear repeatedly while i'm not pressing any keys, usually it's 1,2,8 or /.

i've tried multiple 'solutions'. it's still happening. never know when. roughly half the time it's doing it. very frustrating.
i don't think it's windows because i've wiped my hard drive and installed everything again. same problem.
i've updated bios.
sometimes, even at start up, before windows has loaded, you can hear the beep repeatedly because it thinks keys are pressed.
i've tried these:

1) installed gpedit.msc
i changed it as follows:

i uninstall the driver for the laptop's keyboard (PS/2 Keyboard), then restart. it installs the driver again.

2) pausing updates

it installs the driver again.

3) wushowhide.diagcab file
Hide or Show Windows Updates in Windows 10
the problem is, the driver never properly shows as uninstalled.
whenever i uninstall it thru device manager, as soon as i restart it's there again.
so it never shows as missing, except just after i've uninstalled it with device manager, before restart.

HID is my USB keyboard, which i bought so that i could uninstall the laptop keyboard.

it's taking forever to type anything, like this because i'm having to delete all the characters.
i've put a 2 second delay on repeated keys otherwise it would be even worse.
so regularly now, when i'm typing i'll get the character i want to type then 1,2,8 or /.
it will come out as:

f2o2r2 2e2x2a2m2p2l2e2

if i take off the number lock, the cursor keys active so my screen can suddenly go up or down.

hope someone can help.

[edit: forgot this part]
when i look in windows update, it doesn't even show that the driver has updated:

i've tried it at least 8 times, different ways in the last 2 days and none of them are shown.

[one more bit of vital info]
when it's happening, sometimes, i stress only sometimes, if i press lots of keys fast, it can stop it.
other times, it has no effect, and it just keeps going.

Have you tried cleaning your keyboard keys?

Most people seem to recommend blowing compressed air underneath them.
I just use a tiny brush [the sort that most electric razors come with] that I can slip underneath the keys from the side and, if that doesn't fix the problem I take the risk of pulling off the key and brushing inside its works [this went wrong once and that key never fitted properly again].




All the best,
Denis

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Hannah,

The mechanism inside a key is fairly sophisticated and small things can disrupt it. Here's an example -

Both the upper & lower white frames are moving parts and so is the round blob in the middle. They are all very small so it doesn't take much to disrupt them.

Best of luck,
Denis

Hannah,

I'm glad it has been sorted out.

I've just had to repair one of my keys as well.
- My T key was not working correctly every time - sometimes it would, sometimes it wouldn't, sometimes it produced a double tt
- I lifted off the key cover & brushed around inside [it looked just like my sample photo above] but the fault remained so I had to try again
- I eventually cleaned it using a very narrow nozzle I'd made [out of milk bottle spouts] to fit on my vacuum cleaner
The fault disappeared. So now I can write about making lots and lots of pots of tea without then having to go back tediously correcting almost every word.

At no stage did I see anything gumming up the works even using a powerful magnifying glass. But something must have been there.

All the best,
Denis