Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop - Sticky Key Issue

I have two of these keyboards, one at home and one at my office.

I use the same laptop at home and the office, in both cases it's docked in a Dell "E-Port" dock.

My keyboard at the office would always get the stuck key issue - mostly backspace, delete, or enter key - don't think it was ever any other key.

My keyboard at home would rarely, if ever do it.

At the office, I found an old logitech USB dongle extender from an old wireless mouse.   Thinking the issue might be distance or interference at the office, I used the extender to bring my receiver within inches of the keyboard.    The issue persisted with no improvement.

Fast forward a couple years - I quit my job and started working exclusively from home.    No issues with my trusty old Sculpt keboard at home - until.... I had to change the batteries.

I put in a fresh set, this is the first time I've had to replace the batteries in this keyb.    From that point forward, my keyboard at home started exhibiting the issue which is particularly infuriating because I'm a software developer -- nothing like kitting a backspace, then having your keyboard proceed to start deleting lines of code!   Thankfully, some careful <ctrl-z> work would usually restore the deleted code.

Another issue my keyboard at home started exhibiting was that often, after a few moments of sitting, mousing around the screen, etc - the keyboard would miss the first keystroke.   This also became particularly infuriating.    I was actually planning ways of destroying the keyboard that would yield the greatest amount of satisfaction while also trying to decide on a replacement, sad that I couldn't get another Sculpt after two bad ones.

I stumbled upon this thread after getting particularly frustrated during a long work session, to see how many others had the same issue, thinking someone might have an answer as to why one keyboard did it all the time and the other, only after a battery change. 

Turns out the solution was as simple as the thread mentioned, go into the device mgr, go to the HID, then MS hardware usb keyboard and disable pwr mgmt. 

What's really odd is the two keyboards acted differently with the USB setting what it was originally.   The other odd thing was my keyboard at home not showing the problem until after I changed the batteries and started doing it on fresh batteries when I had no issue on old batteries.    I even went so far as to measure the voltage on the new batteries (which measured 1.499V). 

Thanks so much for posting your solution.   You have saved this keyboard and my sanity.

Returning back to this thread.

I had the keyboard working until the November update, after that anything I try has not worked.

Unfortunately, in the end I've switched to an older wired keyboard.

It's a desktop, so I don't need wireless, but still, I should not have had to resort to this.

Does your system also miss keys being pressed? If so, I suspect that either your keyboard or receiver is bad, or you have some radio interference between the two. If not, if you only have "stuck-down" keys, if could be the USB sleep thing, but only if this only happens after holding a key down for at least several seconds. If it also happens when you just briefly press a key while typing, and the key does not "release", it is caused by something else.

In the beginning (a few weeks ago when I got it), the keyboard was constantly missing the "first" keystroke.  Almost as if it had to either wake up or begin communication.  From second keystroke on, it would work as normal.

I moved the wireless dongle closer to me via usb extension thinking it may be too far (or some sort of interference as you mention).  I can't say for sure it fixed that problem, or if I'm just "used to it" now and tune it out, but it doesn't seem to happen as often.

From that point it does seem my issue overall got worse, in that, this is when the repeating key started.  It began with my Ctrl key.  Then other keys started following suit.  It usually happens the most with my Del key.  I never hold my keys.  I simply tap delete in a document and all of a sudden half of the document starts deleting.  Then Backspace started.  Then a letter key.  It just seems to get progressively worse.

With that and this thread in mind, I'm beginning to wonder if it is the USB sleep thing so I disabled that option for this device specifically.  I'm waiting to see if it happens again.

Outside of that, I also wonder if my "extension", as mentioned above, is what's causing the actual problem instead.  I didn't have a usb extension cable handy.  Instead what I did was connect my monitor's built in USB hub to the PC and put the dongle in one of the monitor's USB port.  I'm wondering if the USB port on the monitor could be the issue?  Or the entire chain in general?  Further I wonder if I will need to disable this power management option for more than just my KB/dongle (e.g. identify the monitor>PC connection and disable it there as well)?

Time will tell.  If it happens again after disabling the power management on the KB device only works, great.  If it doesn't I'll proceed with further testing.  I also have a replacement keyboard on its way so that'll be a good test as well.

Note:  I have a colleague who just got the same keyboard but he has none of the issues I have, so I wonder if it is in fact just a bad kb/dongle.  It did come in suspect packaging from CDW.  It was not in MS retail packaging.  Just a brown box with a sku label.  Perhaps that's typical for resellers... <shrug>

That did not work for me and still experiencing the issue in windows 10 as if you scroll through the thread it didn't work for others either.  I configured every keyboard and mouse device as you specified which had no affect for me.

Like I said I got around it by using another keyboard when I need to hold down buttons for longer than 5 or so seconds so I use this keyboard strictly for non gaming related tasks and never experience the problem.

There may well be separate issues that look very similar to the person in front of the keyboard. I just checked on my system (Windows 10), and I had the original problem even though I had not noticed it since the latest reinstallation. The USB sleep fix worked perfectly as usual.

The USB sleep issue can be illustrated very easily: Start Notepad and hold down the "A". If the row of "a"s stops growing after a few seconds (easier to see if you turn on Word Wrap or have a really wide screen), that is the USB sleep thing. To fix, turn off the "Allow the computer to turn off" option for the Microsoft USB Keyboard device (under Human Interface Devices in Device Manager).

This is the USB receiver, and on my system, the "wake up" option is disabled (grayed out). The keyboard, on the other hand, is under Keyboards and has the "turn off" option disabled.