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Hi,
I have one of these keyboards at home and at the office, in the office I have the whole desktop including the mouse, but at home I only have the keyboard. I upgraded from the Microsoft Ergo 4000 keyboard that I've used for many years. So far I'm enjoying the keyboard but I have an issue that I was wondering if there was a way to fix?
The one at work doesn't seem to have this problem although I use the keyboards differently, at work it's mainly for typing and coding, at home I use it for typing and gaming.
The issue:
The Shift, Alt, and Control buttons when pressed numerous times seem to stick even when they aren't being pressed. For example if I have 3 out of 5 files I want move from one folder to another, if I push and hold control, select the files in the 1st, 3rd, and 5th position with my mouse, after I drag them to the other folder and release the control button, if I click on the 2 remaining files in the original folder, both files are selected even though I'm not holding control down so you'd expect only 1 to be selected.
Same issue happens in games where I've bound hotkeys to use modifiers such as shift, control, or alt. If I'm alternating between 1 and shift-1, eventually just pressing 1 will result in shift-1 being registered. I initially thought that maybe stickey keys was being turned on but I've confirmed that is not the case.
Both cases are resolved by simply pressing the button that's sticking and that fixes it, but when using multiple modifiers, it's hard to determine which one is sticking so it usually results in pressing each of the buttons, alt, control, and shift once until it's back to normal.
Additional Information:
None of these problems seem apparent on my work desktop. I'm using windows 8.1 Pro at home and windows 7 pro at work. At work, my receiver is plugged into a usb switch as I use it for 2 pcs, the switch is 2 ft away from my keyboard position in line of sight.
At home, the usb receiver is plugged into the back of my desktop under my desk, out of line of site? (could this be a problem?)
Any ideas you have to solve either of these issues would be most appreciated.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
I've found a solution:
Open Device Manager
Under Human Interface Devices, locate the Microsoft Hardware USB Keyboard
Right click, Properties
Power Management Tab, Uncheck allow the computer to turn off this device to save power
That fixed it for me, no need to uninstall/change drivers.
I've found a solution:
Open Device Manager
Under Human Interface Devices, locate the Microsoft Hardware USB Keyboard
Right click, Properties
Power Management Tab, Uncheck allow the computer to turn off this device to save power
That fixed it for me, no need to uninstall/change drivers.
You fixed it!
You hero!
Finally!
My keyboard repeat immediately started working; no need for a reboot or anything.
Now, given how trivial this fix really is - WTF microsoft, get your act together and FIX THE DRIVER.
Is anyone at MS even looking at this?
you might want to consider switching to Ubuntu. I have an ergonomic sculpt desktop and both keyboard and mouse work perfectly out of the box in Ubuntu 14.04.
even the horizontal scrolling of the mouse wheel works perfectly (the mouse wheel can be pressed sideways; I discovered that accidentally in Ubuntu). the Windows utility does not even acknowledge the presence of that button.
I can confirm that it works fine for me too in 13.10 and 14.04.
However, that's a pretty ridiculous solution.
I'm getting stuck keys too; both in the off and the on position.
If you press a normal letter (say, "w") and hold it, then after around 135-170 repeats, the key stops repeating for no apparent reason. This is equivalent to around 5 seconds of holding the key. It seems the key is stuck off.
If you press and hold a modifier key such as control or shift for around 5 seconds, the key becomes stuck in the on position. The key will remain on until the same key is pressed again (i.e. pressing left control won't release right control, for instance).
Both effects are 100% repeatable - if you hold that key long enough, it *will* get stuck. Fortunately in normal usage it's not super common to depress a key that long, but certain editors and games are quite hard to use like this.
Is anyone at MS even looking at this?
you might want to consider switching to Ubuntu. I have an ergonomic sculpt desktop and both keyboard and mouse work perfectly out of the box in Ubuntu 14.04.
even the horizontal scrolling of the mouse wheel works perfectly (the mouse wheel can be pressed sideways; I discovered that accidentally in Ubuntu). the Windows utility does not even acknowledge the presence of that button.
