It would be a long while before I had another machine to try it on. All I have is the one machine and the laptop.
Do you really think it's a computer problem? I've used that adapter before to connect the ipac to my laptop fine (sorry for not saying before). Plus, when I swap out the ipac and connect the keyboard directly to the pc, it's fine. Swap them back and nothing.
I did notice something different. When I boot the pc without any keyboard connected then connect the ipac after the OS has loaded, the ipac will blink about 30 times (flashing very fast, maybe 4 times per second).
When I repainted, I didn't actually remove the ipac. All the wires still went to it. I just needed the pushbuttons out of the way. The ipac was still in the cabinet and I'm pretty certain it wasn't physically touched.
To be sure though, I did a visual inspection and continuity test (multimeter). All the traces I can see are unbroken, all the solder joints are still firm on the board, each of the inputs and serial lines still have a good electrical connection to where they are supposed to go.
The whole thing reads me like a software problem, but I have no idea how I can force the ipac to reprogram.