Shift Key Slow to Respond

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Not sure whether this question should be here or in the Office forum, but here goes. All of a sudden my shift key is very slow to respond. That is, I hit the shift key and type a letter and it does not come out capitalized. If I hold the key down for a long time, it works. It also seems to work on the second and all later letters if I type multiple capital letters in a row, but it comes out like this “uSA” or “nASA”. It is not subtle. It happens across all programs, I think–at least all MS programs.

Any ideas? The only thing I can think of is I tried a shareware key short cut program recently, which I have since removed as thoroughly as I am able to.

I am running Office XP over Win 2000, all up to date as far as I can tell.

Thanks,

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The only thing that comes to mind is to check your Accessibilty Options settings (Control Panel).

Having done a quick trial myself, I found I had typed out the whole of this message without a thing appearing on the screen as I’d slowed down the response to something that needed holding down a key for about half a second before it responded

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I thought of that myself. As far as I can tell, I have all Accessibility Options turned off.

Thanks,

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This may be a solution for your sticky key problem. Sometimes the keyboard gets filthy dirty from all the debris falling into it. Sometimes it affects several keys. One of the worst habits I’ve found is people using a pencil with an eraser to press the keys. Anyway, try this.

Turn your keyboard upside down. Tap it gently on your desk, not the desktop on your monitor. You’ll probably get a lot of debris fall on the desk. Turn the keyboard right side up and try the key that was sticking. Did that solve your problem?

In the future, repeat the keyboard clearing technique once a week. I also suggest you use a small vacuum cleaner to clean your keyboard. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT use a can of compressed air or any other air blowing method to clean your keyboard. The air blowing will drive the debris under the protective pads of the keyboard, and then you

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Thanks, tall, good looking guy, but this does not seem like a sticky key problem to me. The shift key’s action seems smooth. If the shift key were sticking down, I would be having the opposite problem of it saying on capped rather than not shifting to caps, right?

This is a laptop by the way. Dell CPxJ. I have had the keyboard off the machine recently and did shake it out. Didn’t seem to make a difference.

The impression is that something electronic/internal is delaying the effectiveness of the shift key. For instance, if I type multiple capital letters in a row, the letters after the first one are capped regardless of how quickly I type. Pressing the shift key harder does not help. Holding the shift key down for a couple of seconds does. It is all very consistent and easily replicated.

It is sort of maddening.

Thanks,

Sort of short, but still attractive guy.

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Just as a matter of interest, what was the shareware prog you installed and removed?
Did it appear to have any interaction with the shift key at any point?

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AIM Keys 3.0, see http://www.aimsoft.com , as I recall.

Hope I am not slandering them.

Channing

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Sorry. You asked about interaction with the shift key, too. AIM Keys is a macro program. I do not remember setting up a macro that involved just the shift key plus, say, a letter key, but there may have been a macro that involved the shift key plus another function key plus, say, a letter key,

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Probably difficult to pin it on that then.
If it is as consistent as you suggest, I agree it does not sound like a mechanical problem. The only thing I have left to suggest is to return to your Sticky Keys set-up, set it ON, reboot, then DESELECT it.
Stranger things have happened.

Thinking about it, you can jump to the Sticky Keys menu by hitting the Shift key 5 times in quick succession. If the menu does pop up, that would prove it is not a mechanical problem. BUT, the option to have the menu pop up after 5 hits is itself an option and may be turned off . . . .

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Does it matter which Shift key you use (left or right)?

Does it happen with an external keyboard?

Just wondering if there is something physically wrong with the laptop keyboard.

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“Doh!!” as Homer Simpson would say. I will have to check. I don’t know why I keep saying shift key anyway. Neither shift nor control keys were working correctly. For instance, block and crl-C, would replace blocked test with a “c” rather than copy.

Right side control and shift seem to be working, but everything seems to be working better today. I stripped a few more programs off last night. I do not think left side shift and control are working consistently, which seems odd since they were consistently slow previously. Excellent idea re external keyboard. Maybe you know the Dell CPxJ keyboard–notoriously bad. I have had the keyboard and motherboard replaced on this unit to correct keyboard problems (different ones) previously.

Thanks. I will see whether it goes back to having problems. Maybe it needs to warm up.

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