Keyboard lag on DELL Inspiron 6400 running XP

Ed_Jogg

Earlier this year my father bought a DELL Inspiron 6400 laptop running XP.

All seems well with it EXCEPT that there is a random (?) delay between a keyboard key press and the character appearing on the screen.

This is most noticeable when typing quickly, when it is often possible to enter three or four words without seeing anything on the screen -- the words initially appear letter-by-letter, and then complete as a burst. It is most irritating when completing webforms (he uses IE 7) but the same problem can be seen in WordPerfect and even the venerable Notepad application. NB It is not the physical keyboard, as I am typing this on it using a USB keyboard and the same problem occurs.

Can anyone shed some light on this problem? Any ideas what I should check first?

I'm asking this here as I really don't know where to start looking...hopefully someone can start me in the right direction...?

Thanks and regards
Ed

gaming_guy

have you tried looking in control panel > keyboard (you may need to select classic view) and adjusting the repeat delay?

Ed_Jogg

gaming_guy wrote: »

have you tried looking in control panel > keyboard ... and adjusting the repeat delay?

I hadn't. The Repeat Delay was set to 'medium short' (ie one less than 'short'!); the Repeat Rate was set to 'Fast'. I tried various combinations and the problem was visible in all. Selecting the slowest repeat rate made the problem least visible -- and the typing intolerable! At one point I was getting a consistent effect: pressing and holding the 'm' key resulted in about 15 'm's appearing at half-second intervals, followed by a burst of about twenty appearing instantaneously!

I'm not sure that the Control Panel is the answer (but thank you for suggesting it, to rule it out).

My feeling is that there is some process 'reading' the keys between them being pressed and the character appearing on the screen. However, my Dad said that Dell had re-installed everything on the machine and that hadn't fixed it. (The only reason that I can put up with it is that I tend to watch the keyboard rather than the screen while typing, so I am not distracted by the non-appearance of the letters! Editing is a right pain though!)

Any other ideas anyone, please?

Ed

spud17

How about reinstalling the drivers from DELL?

Mr.Ape

Snap.

I have an Inspiron 6400 too... and it sounds like I have exactly the same problem.

It's bizarre.. I have no idea what it is. My current 2 best ideas are: 1) Dust - I'm going to hoover it tomorrow, or 2) something to do with the power cable - my computer sometimes says doesn't like it's power supply. Why this affects speed of typing though... I have no idea But someone on the internet had a similar problem and it was battery related. :huh:

To be honest though... I don't know....

Mr.Ape

I think I've just fix'd it .... this blog told me how:

http://www.randomsupport.com/rs/blogs/index.php?title=dell_laptop_slow_lagging_delayed_keyboar&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

As it explains, I downloaded a program called Autoruns ( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx ) and un-checked that PCM Service. (and a few other things).

Hope that helps you as much as it helped me

Ok.. I want to type something long an wordy now

Ed_Jogg

Mr.Ape wrote: »

I think I've just fix'd it .... this blog told me how:

http://www.randomsupport.com/rs/blogs/index.php?title=dell_laptop_slow_lagging_delayed_keyboar&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

The fix IS in that thread, but you don't need to touch the PCM.

All you need do is go to the Start menu, launch the Media Direct tool, find Settings-Instant Office and disable Instant Office functionality (it's just a check-box). I can't remember the exact sequence, as I did this some weeks ago, but it was as easy as that and didn't even require a reboot! Took all of a minute.

(Sorry for the delay in posting. I missed the fact that the thread had been updated, until a month or so ago, and only then tried applying the fix - with instant cure!)