I've been having this problem for years, on multiple computers. If I select a record in the table view, it isn't recognized by arcmap. I can't select multiple records in the table view. the work around I've used is to right click on the record and chose "Select/Unselect" on each row I want selected.
Otherwise the select by attribute works.
I kind of wonder if it's a graphics driver issue. My last to computers have had ATI/AMD graphics cards with multiple monitors.
It would be nice if someone would fix this.