Microsoft Sculpt keyboard malfunctioning (system conflict?)

Question

I have Win7 x32 on my office desktop PC and recently I bought Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop which consists of wireless mice, keyboard and numpad. The communication between these input devices is performed via 2.4GHz transceiver (Microsoft ... v9.0).

So, I plugged transceiver and turned on the devices, Windows started auto-detection and it successed.

However, the keyboard seemed to be "dead", since typing produced no text on the screen (in notepad). So I got the microsoft recommendations list and checked everything. One of my next steps was installing Microsoft software for keyboard and mice management. After reboot, I found an interesting behavior of the keyboard and numpad. When I pushed any button for the first time after reboot - it was okay, everything seemed to be nice (I checked caps, num, tried to type text (first letter was typed)), but only for the first key press.

After first key press several buttons are still functioning: calculator call, volume up/down/mute; but nothing happens when pressing other keys.

I also tested the devices on similiar PC (both DELL Optiplex 390, W7 x32, approximately same uptime) and everything was fine. So I came up with idea that there is some software conflict on my computer... which I don't know how to find and solve.

I will highly appreciate any thoughts on how to solve the problem, or how to diagnoze it.

Thank you beforehand.

Solution 1

Alright... after few days of diagnostics and testing on other PCs I think I found out what the problem was about.

First, here's the symptoms summary:

1. Keyboard/Mice is detected by OS.
2. Keyboard seems to be malfunctioning, maybe some keys are still functioning (in my case: calculator call, volume up/down/mute).
3. Keyboard works fine before OS is loaded (try F8 for extended loading menu of Windows, try arrows to navigate the option - in my case it was okay, but it depends on BIOS and it's options of loading USB drivers).

My first conclusion, as mentioned above, was some conflict. However in my case the problem was generally conditioned by DeviceLock utility. This utility is kind of Anti-anti-anti-"malicous things you can do with USB port", which also includes Anti-keylogger and etc stuff.

So the solution in my case is handling the situation with this utility, analogously with this tickets:

1.Microsoft Wireless Keyboard

2.Logitech diNovo

... or simly get rid of this anti-anti-anti software, which unfortunately impossible in the office for most of us :)

Solution 2

I have one of these and have noticed that plugging the receiver into a 10cm usb extension cable massively improves the reliability of the signal , before doing this i would get random cutouts and lags. This also helps for my Logitech wireless mouse. The battery life for these devices is also improved.

I can only guess that the transmission pattern was not well thought out to escape the electromagnetic sweet nothings my computer seems to intimidating it with.

Whilst this sounds unscientific i have noticed this with both my laptop and hub combo and the desktop where i used to work. Both run linux but this should not make a difference as this behaviour was observed when controlling the BIOS as well.

Comments

[CharlieRB]

You did a good job of explaining your question. Is there another device (cordless phone, router, etc.) in the area which might be operating on he same channel? Did you install drivers from a CD or downloaded? Downloading them usually provided the latest ones.

[ghastly_kitten]

Nope, I don't think so... And still, this behavior is too stable to be stipulated by another device. Drivers were downloaded automatically

[Konstantinos]

for network stumblers. This is a very bad combo. First the adapter started malfunctioning, then the keyboard. Sculpt is awful. Ergonomic 4000 was super good and durable.

[userfuser]

Nice catch, though, not my cause of trouble. I don't have the DeviceLock tool, but do have this same problem. I actually had that same issue with the mouse as well, but it seem to have gone away after I've put in the new batteries.

[MichaelM]

This question inspired me to simply try a different USB port, which seemed to fix it as well. That may be a good thing to attempt before you commit to a USB extender