Toshiba Laptop keyboard problem

Hello. My wife has a Toshiba Satellite C855-1M1 Laptop. She decided to clean the keyboard today just using a soft cloth with the laptop turned off  but since then the keyboard is completely non functional. The mouse pad is working fine but nothing else , none of the keyboard keys. Thanks in advance for any help.

think the first thing i'd do is check every key to make sure it isn't stuck down, seen similar problems when a keyboard had a stuck key.

I have to ask… was the soft cloth dry?

Hello. Thanks for your replies. terry 1966 just tried your suggestion about the keys and they seemed ok and the keyboard is still not working. Tomk, she said she used a soft dry cloth because it was just a little dusty.

it's not unheard of for the keyboard cable to work loose needing it taking apart to fix.

lets see if some simple things can fix the problem, hold the power button down until it powers off, remove both the battery and the power cable, press and hold the power button again for 10 seconds.

now turn the laptop upside down at an angle and gently shake it to get rid of any debris and dust that may have accumulated under the keyboard.

now connect power and start up the laptop, keep tapping whatever key it says to enter either settings or boot options and see if it brings up those menus if it does then it's working and just probably needs uninstalling from windows to get it working again in the os.

follow the troubleshooting guide from hp :- http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03843122#AbT0

to uninstall the keyboard then restart and see if that fixes things.

if still no joy and tapping the correct keys didn't bring up any menu's during boot it is looking more likely to be a hardware problem, needing taking apart to test and fix.

a simple work around tho is to just connect an external keyboard and use that.

terry1966. Thanks for a very comprehensive answer. I have taken your last bit of advice and bought an external keyboard and that works fine. I will start working through your other suggestions over the weekend. Thank you again.

Hello terry1966. Tried everything you suggested but no go so it would seem to be a fault with the keyboard itself. I will take it to my local repair shop tomorrow and get them to take a look at it. Thank you for your help. Regards.

ok.