V, B, Z and Spacebar drop out every once in a while

[slagter.maarten]

Dear all,

I've been experiencing a nuisance while trying to finish up a big report.
Every once in a while (1 or 2 minutes) my V, B, Z and Spacebar drop out, meaning that they don't function anymore.
I found a non-specific, random, way to fix it, namely by successively hitting combinations of Ctrl, Fn, Windows, L-Alt (on the left side of spacebar) and Alt Gr, Menu and R-Ctrl (on the right side of spacebar). Thing is, I can't find out what specifically causes the said keys to freeze, so I also don't know how to prevent it in the future.

I'm pretty sure that this is not a hardware problem, as I tried to use an external keyboard and experienced the same problem at the exact same keys.

Am I hitting some key combinations by accident that expects me to hit the said keys? Nothing happens though...

If you have any input, please share it :), my annoyance with this thing is increasing by the minute...
Oddly enough, while writing this post, I have been unable to recreate this 'bug'.

Ubuntu 12.10, using Gnome fallback and writing in GVim, but the error affects all typing boxes.

Thanks!

[slagter.maarten]

Never mind, turns out it's a hardware defect in the laptop keyboard after all.
The external keyboard seemed to suffer from the same bug, while actually the computer must have been acting very slow at that at particular point in time, causing me to think the 'bug' was operational again.

[Yougo]

if pressing literally every key on the lowest row on your keyboard fixes it temporarily, methinks you have some loose or eroded contacts or dirt in there, and pressing all these buttons actually presses the lower end of the keyboard to the electric contacts.

if you don't mind tinkering with your laptop, the keyboard often can be lifted off (how depends on your brand an type), so you can clean things up under there.