T42 weird keyboard/touchpad events on bootup

[robert99]

T42 2373-WAS
XP SP2, 40Gb HD, 1Mb RAM

Hello,

I am new to this Forum and to Thinkpads.

I have just bought a refurbished and data wiped T42.
The supplier has, I presume, reset all software and drivers back to original.
I have set my keyboard to UK English.

The issue I get is that on first booting up or on taking out of standby, two things happen:

1. the keyboard can only type 5 strange characters a, e, i, o and u (with acutes) that appear on the screen.

2. the trackpad left mouse acts as a right click mouse, and cascading folders open and close within a split second - so you cannot get at Start/All Programs, but luckily you can get at the Start icons on the left hand side of Start. (For these icons the touchpad mouse fortunately works as normal)

To work around this, I open the onscreen keyboard - type a few characters into Notepad, then switch off onsceen keyboard. Once that has been done, the keyboard and touchpad work absolutely fine. It is as if the closing of the onscreen keyboard (temporarily) resets the normal keyboard and touchpad.

If the T42 goes into standby, or on reboot, I have to go through all this again.

Is this a software / driver issue and if so, can anyone suggest what might need reinstalling / updating?