It is starting to assign random characters to the
keyboard. k is now "2" and so on. i want to restart
but the preinstalled security software requires
a password with a k. im tapping this out on
my phone.

if you are running a modern windows machine (xp or vista) you should go with the mouse to the control panel and click on "Ease of Access" or something to that effect. you are looking for the "on screen keyboard" which is available in the ease of access control center.
then you can use the on screen keyboard with the mouse. I do this all the time since my laptop has a faulty keyboard.

Um ...
I think maybe you have the 'Numbers Lock' on?

yeah

did you download or install anything recently?

numlock is not your friend.

num lock is off. the only recent install was a
java update. thanks for the relies i'll try the
on screen keyboard.

"Did you try switching it off and then on again?"

Funny, but a lot of the tech support calls I had when I did help desk work involved folks panicking that their computers suddenly stopped and I would need to recover their hard drive and blah, blah, blah...

You know what the problem was? Folks were wiggling their monitors around so much that the AC cord came loose... Two seconds of shoving the cable back in and suddenly I'm being called a "genius."

And specific to this, if you are using a notebook computer, hook up an external keyboard and see if the same error happens on the keyboard. And if this is desktop machine and you are using an external keyboard, just swap in one that you know works and see what happens.

If it's indeed the keyboard, that's less than $50 to fix via a new keyboard. Simple and easy.

if you get the same result with a different keyboard then you've got something in your computer. rolling back java is a bit of a pain but you might want to try that as well. if you're on a desktop, it's like MZ said, check the connection. if you have one of those fancy gaming keyboards, check for new drivers.