keyboard help

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mivey

mivey

Senior Member
I have noticed my different computers having a delay in what I type appearing on the screen and characters are frequently being dropped. It is not just a problem at the MH post screen but in everything.

Anyone else having this problem? Is this a problem with wireless keyboards because I really don't recall if it is a problem with my laptop built-in keyboard (it may be but I really don't use it enough to remember)?

Maybe a virus, virus protection, or some new Windows "feature" that causes a terrible delay? This can be a real pain and time-killer when I am typing a report because I have to keep going back to be sure what I typed actually showed up.

How do I determine what is causing the delay?

Thanks
 
There is a pretty big variety of possible causes, ranging from poorly designed or worn out keyboard, to software issues, including too many processes or applications running at a time and slowing down the performance of your computer, some of which you may not even be aware of.

If you are certain it is not a hardware issue like worn out keyboard or improperly functioning keys, try shutting down some applications you don't need, restart your web browser, and some things like that. Next steps may be restart your computer, run some general maintenance tasks like disk clean up utilities, defragmentation utilities, and registry cleaning utilities, and use an adware/malware scanner frequently.

If you primarily use your computer for work and business purposes, I have found that viruses are not generally too much of a threat, but if you use your computer for entertainment frequently viruses are going to be a bigger threat. Adware and malware is also higher threat for entertainment uses but does sneak in for almost all types of uses to some degree.

Anything that is using system resources will take some of the availability of those resources from your active application.

Set virus scanners and other maintenance scanners to do their scheduled scans at a time when you are not using the machine, then they do not add to the workload of the machine and take some system resources away from your active applications.
 
Thanks kwired.

One keyboard less than a year old, the other about 1.5 years old. System scans are scheduled for wee hours of the morning but I wonder if the real-time virus scans are a problem. I have jumped over to the task manager before and shut down non-essentials but still get delays. I do have a tendency to hibernate instead of re-starting and I may go days to weeks without re-starting. I try to keep a check for viruses but have not run Ad-Aware lately.

I have noticed that for severe delays that jumping in and out of Taskmanager seems to clear the bottle-neck. I wonder if my keyboard or the USB port somehow have been assigned a low-priority on the task scale. Is there a way to give them a higher priority assignment?
 
I was having kind of the same types of problems for weeks on end, nothing ever showed up in any virus scans and adware didnt detect anything, while I don't use a wireless keyboard I would expect some delay with one, but my Internet was getting very slow and noticed many packets running from my computer through my network but they were encrypted and couldn't track down what was sending them, after running a program called combo-fix it did show a possibility of a rootkit virus which would explain everything, root kits are almost un detectable by most virus scanners and hide at the end of the hard drive, most encrypt its coding and are hard to catch as they are ever evolving, Kapersky's free rootkit killer is about the only one I found that will get rid of them but can be tricky if you don't follow the instructions.

if you down load it save it to your desk top don't try to run it after down load.

turn off any anti-virus scanners then run it, the first window that opens click on "change parameters" and select loaded "modules" this will force a reboot as it loads this module into a TSR (memory) when it opens after the re-boot again open "change parameters" and continue selecting the bottom two check box's this will turn on all detection modes for finding very hidden TDSS rootlits, also again turn off any virus scaners.

it don't take a long time to run 20 min's or so.

once it has run if it finds anything make sure you select the choices for what you want it to do as it will not do it automatically I selected delete for the 15 files it found contaminated, my printer driver was the only driver I had to reload as it is a network printer.

to keep it from coming back turn off system restore, this will erase any restore points that might have this virus in it.

To turn off System Restore:
Start/Programs/accessories/system tools/ System Restore / then click on system restore settings in the window that opens it on the left as a link, in here check the "turn off system restore" box this will turn off system restore and erase all restore points, after doing this make sure you reboot and recheck that your system is clean, then go back and turn on system restore and create a new restore point.

the reason for the above is when windows creates a restore point it saves many files and some could have been infected, if you don't erase them and later you try to restore your computer to one of these points you will install the virus right back on your computer.
 
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I need to point out that I mentioned Combo-Fix above and maybe I shouldn't have as it is not a program for most computer users, it can wipe out drivers and you will have to know allot about rebuilding driver sets and or system files if you have an infected machine that has infected drivers and system files, it also wipes out temp files many which include your log on info that you use for various sites, if you don't have this info written down it may cause you to not be able to log on to some sites, it also resets windows to default settings and can cause problems with some programs, so if your not a computer savvy person don't run it!!!

I use Combo-Fix as a last resort when I get a virus that stumps me.
 
hurk27 said:
I need to point out that I mentioned Combo-Fix above and maybe I shouldn't have as it is not a program for most computer users, it can wipe out drivers and you will have to know allot about rebuilding driver sets and or system files if you have an infected machine that has infected drivers and system files, it also wipes out temp files many which include your log on info that you use for various sites, if you don't have this info written down it may cause you to not be able to log on to some sites, it also resets windows to default settings and can cause problems with some programs, so if your not a computer savvy person don't run it!!!

I use Combo-Fix as a last resort when I get a virus that stumps me.
Click to expand...

like editing the registry keys without knowing exactly what you are doing... :dunce:

try a wired keyboard first.... used to be, you could have an interrupt conflict
on hardware, but with usb, that isn't an issue any more. you may also be conflicting
with a wireless mouse, etc.

having a rootkit or keylogger running is a good place to go looking.
sometimes you can get those off webpages.

unplug all peripherals except wired keyboard and wired mouse, and
go into safe mode, and see if the keyboard responds properly.

open up task manager and start turning junk off that runs in the background.
usually there is a lot of it. get it trimmed down, and see if the keyboard
responds correctly.....

if that doesn't work, you can do what i did, and buy a macbook pro.....
but i waited till my super spiffy win7 i7 ringtailed doozey laptop caught
fire first...... :rant:


..... did i say that out loud?.....

if the computer catches fire, operate this link:
http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/features-retina/
 
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hurk27 said:
Kapersky's free rootkit killer is about the only one I found that will get rid of them.
Click to expand...
Nothing contaminated found. Now I can check that off the list.

Fulthrotl said:
try a wired keyboard first.... used to be, you could have an interrupt conflict
Click to expand...
Could be. I've got an old one around here somewhere.

Fulthrotl said:
you may also be conflictingwith a wireless mouse, etc.
Click to expand...
They came as a kit so they should play well together.

Fulthrotl said:
unplug all peripherals except wired keyboard and wired mouse, and
go into safe mode, and see if the keyboard responds properly.
Click to expand...
That's a good idea and would help me tell if it is a hardware issue or not. I'm thinking some software is hoarding the cpu or input buffer. I just can't believe the keyboard is that fragile, especially on two different machines. The common tie is that they both run W7 (blaming MS is never a bad bet).
 
I had this problem on a website that I was filling in information in provided blanks. I thought I was just doing my usual bad typing. But I noticed if I went too fast it would skip letters/characters. It was only on this site.

If you're just having this problem on certain sites it might be their software. But I believe you mentioned you had the problem here on MH, so you probably do have other issues.
I use a wireless keyboard and don't have any problems with it.
 
Have you checked your CPU and/or memory usage when this happens? I've had some issues lately with Firefox and Flash leaking memory which has had an effect on the keyboard a few times and an issue with AVG antivirus going crazy on the CPU. You should be able to narrow down what's causing the memory usage or CPU in Task Manager. You can also check your network usage there.
 
Little Bill said:
I had this problem on a website that I was filling in information in provided blanks. I thought I was just doing my usual bad typing. But I noticed if I went too fast it would skip letters/characters. It was only on this site.

If you're just having this problem on certain sites it might be their software. But I believe you mentioned you had the problem here on MH, so you probably do have other issues.
I use a wireless keyboard and don't have any problems with it.
Click to expand...
It happens on various websites as well as in Outlook, Notepad, or almost anything requiring keyboard input.
 
PetrosA said:
Have you checked your CPU and/or memory usage when this happens? I've had some issues lately with Firefox and Flash leaking memory which has had an effect on the keyboard a few times and an issue with AVG antivirus going crazy on the CPU. You should be able to narrow down what's causing the memory usage or CPU in Task Manager. You can also check your network usage there.
Click to expand...
I have popped up the Task Manager but can't identify anything that is grinding the CPU or memory. I am thinking that by the time TM reports, the offending app has released the resources.

Besides, things jump around so much in TM it is hard to track. Maybe I'm not using TM in the best way. What I need is a historic graph of what each process was using over time so when it hangs up I can jump to TM and see who spiked CPU and memory use.
 
Keyboard and mouse are BIOS and graphic card controlled, and either can affect it, while the USB buss does use CPU cycles, I find most problems when using heavy graphic programs, mainly Goggle Earth or even having it opened in the back ground, I also did work on a computer that a sign company was using to print very large sign images on plotters for billboards, we had to use older PS2 mouse and keyboards as a USB ones would stutter really bad, luckily the tower had the PS2 jacks, most don't today, PS2 are BIOS controlled only and high end graphic programs don't tend to bother them.

This computer has twin graphic cards run in SLI mode so I haven't had any problems up until I got the TDSS virus, but running like new now.
 
hurk27 said:
I find most problems when using heavy graphic programs, mainly Goggle Earth or even having it opened in the back ground,
Click to expand...
This happens to me when just the basics are running: hardware (printer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, sound) drivers, antivirus, and the current application (IE or Outlook etc).
 
Thanks to all for the input so far but I've got to get some sleep. More sleuthing later this week.
 
Virus and/or outdated software/drivers is a good bet. The keyboard input is buffered in memory and should be impossible to overtype, but I've seen it happen.

Microsoft Security Essentials AV is pretty good and free. I do the updates and scans manually, auto does not seem to work. Try MSE manual full scan (takes a long time), Windows update, updated drivers, and update Java. Macromedia Flash (since sold to someone else), Adobe pdf's, and graphics images in web pages and email are known security holes. I refuse to run Flash and use ADBE Acrobat only because I have to. Set the email to not open graphics images, disallow popups.

The sophistication and variety of viruses is beyond imagining. I had a virus and this little video window pops up and two russian gangsters are in it telling me I owed them money. Could not stop that popup, had to do a system restore to an earlier date.

What I do is two computers. One is clean and only for dedicated professional software. No email or web surfing - zero. The other is for everything else and is assumed to be dirty, penetrated. The only thing I trust for the dirty machine is a new or wiped hard drive and a fresh install of Windows, new drivers, fresh updated software installs - once every year or two.

If you have kids downloading torrents, movies, and music on the machine, you have every virus out there.
 
mivey said:
... I wonder if my keyboard or the USB port somehow have been assigned a low-priority on the task scale. Is there a way to give them a higher priority assignment?
Click to expand...
Doubt it... but if you want to give your keyboard a higher priority, in TM, under Processes tab, find you keyboard's running software (there may not be any if just uses generic drivers). Right-click and expand Set Priority. Uncertain whether this will stay set for subsequent OS sessions.

For USB, go to Device Manager and expand the USB branch. Right click each item and bring up its Properties. If it has one, look under the Advanced tab. Hubs have info stating its operating at full speed (have never seen one say otherwise) and a Reset button. Controllers, tick or untick options as you feel pertinent, such as "Tell me if my device can perform faster" option.

At times when I've had USB problems I uninstall USB devices then reboot. The system should reinstall them, but run scan for hardware changes in Device Manager just in case.
 
Thanks Dan & Smart.

I'm pretty sure by now I don't have a virus. I am trying a clearer line of sight between the keyboard and the usb plug-in module to see if that is an issue. I'll also try to raise the priority in TM. The hubs are all at full speed.
 
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