Momentary Keyboard Seisure

[Bob Felton]

Windows XP Pro SP2, with all current updates.
Pentium 4 @ 3GHz, 512MB memory.

I recently began experiencing momentary keyboard seisures. While
typing within several different applications, the keyboard echo on the
screen will stop for about 3 seconds then the keys typed during the
stoppage will appear in rapid succession and keyboard response will
work normally until the next episode. I have not determined if there
is a set time period between episodes. Rebooting does not change the
condition. I do not recall this happening prior to about two weeks
ago. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[JS]

You need to find the specific process in that application that's causing the
keyboard to freeze.
To do this try Process Explorer:
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

Once you have Process Explorer installed and running:
Click on the CPU column to sort processes by %CPU usage.
Then click on the process that using most or all the CPU %, once it
highlighted, right click
and from the options listed select: google
This should display what out there on the web about that process.

Note: some entries like svchost may need to be expanded to show the detail,
in this case click on the + located to the left on the entry.


JS

 

[NoStop]

Windows XP Pro SP2, with all current updates.
Pentium 4 @ 3GHz, 512MB memory.

I recently began experiencing momentary keyboard seisures. While
typing within several different applications, the keyboard echo on the
screen will stop for about 3 seconds then the keys typed during the
stoppage will appear in rapid succession and keyboard response will
work normally until the next episode. I have not determined if there
is a set time period between episodes. Rebooting does not change the
condition. I do not recall this happening prior to about two weeks
ago. Any ideas? Thanks.

Since you're using Windoze, maybe a key logger has been installed and just
can't keep up recording all your typing? They generally collect things like
passwords, cc numbers, bank access codes, etc. and send the contents out to
criminal elements. It's just part of the Windoze eXPerience I guess.


--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...

View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
http://shots.osdir.com/

 

[Bob Felton]

That was the first thing I thought of but then dismissed it since I
run a SpySweeper scan every day on the computer. These scans have
given me a clean bill of health since SpySweeper was installed a year
ago. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

 

[Bob Felton]

I downloaded and installed ProcessExplorer today, JS. Thanks for the
pointer. I have been running it all day and so far I have yet to have
the keyboard act up. Strange! I will continue to monitor CPU usage
with PE to see if the problem re-appears.

 

[NoStop]

That was the first thing I thought of but then dismissed it since I
run a SpySweeper scan every day on the computer. These scans have
given me a clean bill of health since SpySweeper was installed a year
ago. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

How do you know you don't have a rootkit installed that prevents SpySweeper
from finding the problem? Of course you don't know. That's what rootkits
are all about.

--
WGA is the best thing that has happened for Linux in a while.

The ULTIMATE Windoze Fanboy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2370205018226686613

Is this a modern day equivalent of a Nazi youth rally?:

http://www.ntk.net/media/developers.mpg

A 3D Linux Desktop (video) ...

View Some Common Linux Desktops ...
http://shots.osdir.com/

 

[Bob Felton]

True, I don't know. However, I am careful about what I install/run,
where I go on the Internet, and I don't play music CD's on the
computer.

 

[Bob Felton]

JS, I have now experienced a keyboard (and an application load
(Windows Explorer)) seisure while PE was running. In neither case did
PE indicate a process other than System Idle using significant CPU
usage. The max shown for other applications was less than 5%. Any
ideas? Thanks.

 

[JS]

First thing off the top of my head is IRQ issues. Use Device
Manager/Keyboards then right click and select Properties, click on the
Resources and note the IRQ number (01 for PS2 keyboard) and if there are any
conflicting devices listed.

JS

 

[Bob Felton]

I will check. However, there have been no hardware reconfiguration
changes made in some time. If there was an IRQ conflict with the
keyboard, how does that explain the seisure of the loading of Windows
Explorer I noted? After invoking, its window got roughly halfway
completed filling in data before it stopped, waited almost 5 seconds,
then completed filling in the remaining data. Roughly the same time
as keyboard response stoppages. I don't open and close many programs
or files during my computer usage, so I haven't noticed the effect
other than with keyboard and that one Windows Explorer instance. It
just happened while typing this message! Could it be possible that
one of the more recent Windows Updates could be causing the problem?
Thanks for your continued assistance with this problem, JS.

 

[Bob Felton]

JS, Device Manager shows IRQ 01 with no conflicts for the keyboard.

 

[JS]

Same as mine.
Remember that site (SysInternals) where you downloaded the process monitor,
they also have a utility named FileMon which as you can guess monitors file
activity. You will also find other utils that may help you track down the
problem.

http://www.sysinternals.com/FileAndDiskUtilities.html

JS

 

[Bob Felton]

I'll check them out. Thanks, again, JS.

Same as mine.
Remember that site (SysInternals) where you downloaded the process monitor,
they also have a utility named FileMon which as you can guess monitors file
activity. You will also find other utils that may help you track down the
problem.

http://www.sysinternals.com/FileAndDiskUtilities.html

JS