Compaq Presario, Random Keyboard Pauses

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 1:41 pm

Maybe someone here has dealt with this before, or knows of a fix, etc.

Here is the situation, i got a Compaq laptop here, 1.8Ghz, 512MB of ram, 60gb hard drive. The problem is you will be typing and then suddenly the text is no longer appearing as you type, say in wordpad, notepad, word, msn messenger, any app you can think of its not directly related to one program, but if you keep typing eventually it will catch up and pow all the text you typed shows up and everything is back to normal.

It will also do it if you were browsing a web page and using the up or down arrow keys to scroll through the page, suddenly it will stop scrolling, but you can still use the touchpad to scroll when it does this, and after a few seconds or so it will recognize the input from the keyboard and go again.

Its like there is some kind of keyboard buffer problem, or a priority problem that keeps it doing something else in the background from time to time but i can not prove it. I have the task manager up and on top and when it stops responding to the keyboard cpu and process usage all looks normal, nothing changes, and you can still use the mouse, etc. The computer doesnt freeze up, it just ignores the keyboard for a few seconds at a time. Usually happens every 3-5 minutes depending on use.

The owner sent it to Compaq for warranty repair, they had it for TWO WEEKS and then sent it back with a note that said they "were unable to reproduce the problem during testing of the unit". However, after about 10-15 minutes use it was evident that the problem was still there. So the owner took it to a competitor of mine, they had it for a few days and though they found the problem they could not find a solution.

So, now the ball is in my court, i told the owner i would look at it but no guarantees.. lol

Anyone got some suggestions or ideas? They backed everything up before sending it in to Compaq, they in turn did a factory restore on it, which the computer shop before me did, and which i also did, figured what the heck, might as well make sure there isn't anything odd going on.

I swapped the hard drive with a new one, i turned off indexing since i have seen that cause delay problems on XP before, and i even tried booting it up with nothing but the bare essentials after a restore. I think this rules out any software problem and now i am leaning towards hardware.

While typing a PM earlier on the batboard, trying to keep it active and in use to watch it act up, it did the pause thing again, so its still not solved.

Stumped..

First time i had a laptop that does this, maybe someone can shed some light on it, relate their experience with the same problem, etc.

thebigphish · Post by **thebigphish** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:22 pm

exact same problem in a Dell Inspiron 8200. Know what the culprit was? The "WebShots" screensaver package. Apparently it was written with an interrupt hook in it that was grabbing the INTs to check for input, and it was hanging the computer every so often for approx 5 to 10 seconds. Removed that, and it worked flawlessly. I'll betchya it's one program, TSR or backround process that is doing it...what do you have running in the list when you fling it the ol' three finger salute?

Post by **alex** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:16 pm

Yup. Usually the culprit is something hogging CPU time, or something querying the OS, which is taking the time to crunch that.

I would say:

Fresh OS install, see if problem exists.

Might want to boot in to Safe Mode and see if the problem continues to persist.

-Alex

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:48 pm

Already did a fresh install, as mentioned, but that didn't help. The restore cd's this one comes with rewrites the entire partition, so nothing is left from the previous install.

I thought about grabbing a windows cd and using that instead of the restore cd's, might have to try that as well.

No webshots, but i will make a note of that for the future. I have that on my computers but i don't use the screensaver feature.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:49 pm

Right now its as close as you can get to safe mode without being in it, fresh O/S install and the system drivers, thats it.

thebigphish · Post by **thebigphish** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 8:23 pm

get a hold of a diagnostics CD and blast the hell out of it (i know dell has a a good set of toys on their installCDs, does compaq?) and i would be RAM-wary and check voltages on your busses...might be a hardware problem in the makings. Memtest 86+ yet? I am growing more and more impressed with that little jem.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:00 pm

I will have to look at the Compaq cd's that it came with and see whats on them.

Memtest is one of my all time favorites, one of the first tools i ran, i had it do a extended test until i came back to it, it ran for 3-4 hours in a continuous loop and it showed it passed.. Boy i don't know.. I would check voltages but i don't want to tear into this laptop since its under warranty yet.

I'm going to kill one process at a time and keep using it, eventually i am guessing i will find out which item is at fault for the pauses.

kd5wyu · Post by **kd5wyu** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:13 pm

This almost sounds like a device driver or similar that is hanging up and not returning control to the OS when it should.

Booting to safe mode or something like Knoppix would rule that out.

If it does it under Knoppix, then it has to be hardware related.

It might also be a good idea to test the HD with the manufacturer diags to eliminate that, since you haven't mentioned testing that yet. I've seen both Windows and Linux machines hang up attempting to access a bad sector on the drive that was going, but not bad enough for the drive to remap on its own.

I know my old Compaq had a Softpaq or two released that updated the keyboard and battery controller firmware. Might want to check with HPQs site for that also.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 1:08 pm

Yes, i did test the hard drive, even swapped it with a brand new one, i mentioned that in the first post. So that rules out the drive. I use SpinRite 6.0 for testing hard drives, the best utility out there in my opinion for testing and recovering hard drives.

I can't get it to do this under safe mode, however, i also can't do the stuff that normally causes it under safe mode, such as web browse since safe mode with networking still doesn't enable the wireless adapter on this laptop for some reason. I'm going to put a PC card in it, a nic, and put it on the wired network here and see if i can get it on the net in safe mode as a test.

I'll check for updates from Compaq as well..

One things for sure, this is stubborn problem!

Thanks for the input.

AEC · Post by **AEC** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 12:16 am

I've had this very same problem show up on many laptops, regardless of speed.

I was able to 'cure' the trouble by disabling the typematic rate of the keyboard in the setup screen (f10 on boot) and this did clear one of them with this problem, but not all for some reason.

But as others suggested, I think it's aWinblows trouble spot, either a DLL or EXE file is sluggish at responding to inputs for some reason.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:33 am

Crossing my fingers but i think i have it fixed.. Not really sure what was causing it, maybe a combination of things.

Oh well, so far it's behaving. I have been using it a couple days for web browsing and it hasn't paused yet. I'm thinking it might need some more memory too once the owner gets everything loaded back on it. It does have 512MB but they had a lot of stuff running in the tray originally. Maybe toss in another stick of 512 and get it up to a gig.

Sometimes it's a real pain in the butt working on laptops, they just seem to be more troublesome than the desktops i spend 99% of my time on.

AEC · Post by **AEC** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 4:08 pm

Aside from the noted troubles, the next in line on laptops is the darned cost of memory, and it seems every model of laptop on the market takes a specific type and style, even within the same branding.

I 'wish' there was ONE standardized memory type for ALL laptops, so you could run to any shop and buy just what you need without having to pick through the piles trying to find the proper form/factor and size....TIRING!

thebigphish · Post by **thebigphish** » Wed Sep 06, 2006 8:24 pm

speaking of memory differences, anyone ever actually compare DDR & DDR2 RAM? If that difference won't make you lose your mind, i don't know what will. I thought i was LOSING MY MIND trying to get that little bugger in there....then i found out they shipped me the wrong thing.

kb0nly · Post by **kb0nly** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 4:48 pm

And DDR3 is on the way soon..

I've had that happen before to, but i noticed something wasn't right when i took out of the package..

Good thing i did, or i would have been pulling my hair out inside that computer..