Dell Studio XPS, media keys activate on their own

[Doctor Diabolical]

My laptop is a Dell studio XPS 1340, running Windows Vista. The model comes equipped with touch sensitive "media keys" (which do things such as controlling the volume, playing or stopping media, and other things...) which are located between the keyboard and battery.

Lately, these keys have seemingly activated on their own, very inconveniantly turning on and off the laptop's wireless adapter (also controlled via media-key), as well as other less-annoying but still troublesome things such as automatic muting/unmuting and ejecting (this is why I think my problem is indeed with the media keys as opposed to, say, a wireless problem, as all these unwanted functions are controlled by said keys).

The problem occurs often and unpredictably; as I can access the internet from my laptop now, there are times everything seems to be fine. Besides the annoyance at being randomly disconnected, I would not worry about this as much as I do, but my laptop-startup has also been running slower than usual from time to time, and on one occasion my laptop needed a system-restore before starting up. I fear that there is a connection between these problems (my computer suffered a crash with similar "symptoms" some months back and needed a harddrive replacement, during the time leading up to that, the media keys did not malfunction like they do now, but they did malfunction, often blinking on and off and being unresponsive).

I could not find help concerning this specific problem anywhere else, and could use some prompt advice (before things possibly get worse), hopefully something that could be done at home, or at least not warrant my system being out of commission for a long while. I thank you guys and girls in advance.

[grandpa_simpson]

So there are 3 primary issues you are having..  laptop functions randomly activating, intermittent connection problem and slow start up...

My first hunch is that this is a software problem.  I would boot into Safe Mode with Networking and run scans with Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy(download and update them first, obviously), to check off a possible malware issue.. To get to safe mode w/ networking, restart the laptop and repeatedly tap the F8 key until you see advanced boot options.. select Safe Mode with Networking..

If no malware turns up(or if this doesn't fix your problems), type RUN into the vista search box from the desktop and run it when it appears in the menu.. Type MSCONFIG into the RUN box and press ENTER.. Go the the "services" tab and tick the box that says "hide microsoft services", click disable all, click apply, OK, then go to the "start up" tab, click on disable all, click apply, click ok, and restart into normal mode..

If this fixes your problems, then you know that one or more of those start up or non-ms services are causing conflicts.  If these suggestions don't help, try looking at the mfr. documentation or reviews, for possible known issues with your model..

[Doctor Diabolical]

I think I was having 2 problems. The disconnect issue seemed to be simply caused by faulty hardware, as switching control of the wireless switch away from the media keys using Windows Mobility Center pretty much solved that problem (media keys still seem to malfunction with the messed-up eject and all, but since the wireless media-key doesn't control wireless anymore, the disconnecting is done away with).

As can be inferred, this has no effect on the startup problem. However, when the programs are disabled as you advised, it boots up pretty quickly under those conditions. So thank you for your help! I'll try and root out problems with individual programs sometime later, for now things are going good. I'll check back if more troubles arise