Is this a virus? Wich one?

[Tefler]

This morning my PC is playing up. It seemed fine at first, then I clicked an e-mail link to Genforum.com (a known and trusted site - and the link appears to have been genuine). The link didn't work, but just seemed to freeze the computer, with the little 'Hand' icon sitting there.

I closed down the computer and rebooted. When I went to both IE and Firefox and tried to put a URL in the address bar, it just came up with a long series of 7s. These wouldn't stop printing themselves into the address bar until I closed down the relevant search engine. I tried opening IE and clicking into the search bar - again, a repeating series of 7s.

Once again, I closed down and rebooted the machine. Now, if I put an address into IE, it simply goes to IE History. Putting an address into Firefox just closes the search engine down.

The PC is running XP and an Avast! full system scan has produced no culprits. I've Googled the problem but can't find any mention of it anywhere else.

Can anybody advise me what to do next?

[VHG]

Well the simple answer is that the "7" key may be stuck down. Press it a few times too see if you can loosen it up.

Type all the letter on the keyboard into a word processor to see if they all work.

If it is NOT as simple as that then it may be malware / spyware.

Avast mainy looks for viruses not malware so you neeed to tool that JUSAT looks for malware.

If you can try to download malwarebytes (free version). Download it, install it, update it, then run it with a full scan (not a quick scan)

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

[jake-the-peg]

I'd agree this doesn't sound like malware

Malware more typically tries to redirect your browser not shut it down!

Try a different keyboard first

[ChuckFickens]

The obvious one is to try and see if you can type normally in anything else other than a browsers address bar.

[Tefler]

Firstly, apologies for the typo in the title of my question - very remiss! Secondly, thanks for the responses. Thirdly - I'm now feeling quite stupid. Some time ago, our wireless keyboard started to misbehave, so I plugged in an old wired one, leaving the wireless beast down by the side of the computer. Unbeknown to me, something fell onto that keyboard and, as I had not disconnected it, the problems I was having were caused by this.
Had I not had your replies, I would still be convinced that there was some kind of mystery virus attacking the computer, so thank you for saving me a lot of anguish, hassle and, ultimately, money - the blushes are worth it!