Some keys on external keyboard not working

I've got a user with a MacBookPro5,3  She has a USB iMac keyboard attached, which has worked for a long time.  Last week, she couldn't log in.  I saw that the "L" key wasn't working.  Bad keyboard, right?  Swapped it out, and all was well.  Today, same problem.  Fiddling around shows me that 9, 0, O, P, and L at least aren't working.  Because of the pattern they make on the keyboard, I'm suspecting that something is trying to pretend that there's no number pad and it's trying to "fake" one, like on some laptops you'd hold down Fn or similar to use a series of keys as a number pad.  Oh, and we have zapped the PRAM.
1) Is there a plist or preference or somethign that could be deleted or reset for the keyboard?keys as a nuymber pad or some alternate use?
2) Is there a known function that would try to use some

Anyone?
90- op[ l;' ./  are the keys that don't work.
I plugged the keyboard into a different MacBook and it's doing the same thing.  But when this first started happening, we swapped keyboards on the first computer.  ***?  Can the Mac somehow set the keyboard permanently?

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