My laptop at home is freaking out and I'm hoping someone here can help address the problem so that I don't have to system restore and set it back t ground zero. Here's the problem; the "A", "Q", "1", and "~" keys are all producing strange characters when pressed. For example, when I hit the "A" key, what shows up in any program I try to type in is ";()k", Pressing the "shift" key with any of the 4 problem keys nets a different result. Can anybody help?

Have you restarted the machine? Do you have another keyboard you can plug into it to see if you get the same results? Have you googled this problem?

Look in Control Panel > Regional & Language Options and make sure everything in there is set to English (US)

Yes, I have reset the computer, and no I do not have an extra keyboard to plug into it. I have made sure that everything is set to english in the regional language settings and it still does it. Keep in mind, it is only those 4 keys that are causing problems, the rest of the keys work fine. Thanks.

Well, if it's isolated to that small section of the keyboard, the keys don't have marking on them that indicate they have special alternate functions, and the rest of the keyboard is working 100%, the you can probably conclude you have a broken/breaking keyboard.

I don't know how much you paid for the laptop or how "feature rich" it is, but this time of year a brand new laptop can be had for $300-400 (basic models).

Is it still under warranty? Check with your laptop manufacturer and see how much a repair would run and do a cost analysis, may be better to just replace it. Do the math.