Help - key presses do not register occationally

[RandomVariable]

Until 2 weeks ago I have been using HHKB Lite with great satisfaction. Then I heard about mechanical keyboards and wanted to give a try. Ordered a Filco Blue tenkeyless. It occasionally missed key strokes, like on average 1 in 25 key presses did not type. When it missed key stroke I would hit that key several more times and it would then register. Needless to say I sent it back as defective.

Next I ordered a KBC Poker Black. I loved the keyboard and the feeling of Cherry Black's. However, to my deep disappointment, I am having the same problem although to a lesser extend. That makes me think that he problem is with me and not the keyboards.

I have two Linux systems (running on Suse 11.3) both of which exhibit the same problem. The missed keys are usually at the start of a word, as if the KB needs to warp up. The situation is noticeably worse in Firefox. For example I am having greater difficulty writing this post, compared to writing some random text in a plain text editor (kwrite), or in a terminal.

The hardware info regarding the keyboard shows as below:
Model: Holtek USB Keyboard
Driver: usbhid
Resources - baud: 1,500,000

xkbcmodel: pc104
xkbrules: xfree86

Any insight will be greatly appreciated. I love this keyboard (or any mech keyboard for that matter). But sadly it is unusable as is. (I do bottom out the keys, so non-actuation should not be an issue)

[Quarzac]

I had that problem in Google Chrome in Ubuntu. It turned out the Adblock plugin wasn't playing nice. Try disabling everything not essential to OS life and seeing if the problem persists. Or try your HHKB, since that didn't seem to give you trouble.

[RandomVariable]

I am now typing this on a Mac Air (using Safari) - no keys are skipping, thus confirming that the keyboard is not defective.

Then the most likely culprit must be a conflict with the keyboard's firmware and the Linux keyboard driver. I wonder if the Holtek chip on the KBC has known incompatibilities with Linux.

[Tony]

Keyboard drivers are full of holes, you should expect it to happen from time to time. Or you may want to update your drivers.

Have you tried mech keyboards with a Windows computer? I have no problems with them.

[woody]

I wonder if the Holtek chip on the KBC has known incompatibilities with Linux.

Holtek on Filco - definitely no.

[mich]

Are you sure it didn't happen with HHKB?

[RandomVariable]

> Have you tried mech keyboards with a Windows computer?
I now tried it with a Windows laptop. Does not seem to have any such problems (It works - it is alive !)

>Are you sure it didn't happen with HHKB?
Yes I am sure - I have been using HHKB Lite for 6 or 7 years now, no such problem at any time.

It feels like the Linux OS expects a longer keypress signal and the board sends a shorter one (at times).

Anyway, sounds like I have a life-is-too-short-to-solve-this kind of a problem. So I will just wait until my next upgrade cycle, which is coming shortly. New Linux OS (can never give this up), and new motherboard and such. Hopefully I will be able to join the community of mechanical keyboard users then.

[RandomVariable]

Sounds like a RandomVariable.

Yes indeed. The function that maps a key press event to one of two outcomes {Registered, NOT Registered} is a random variable.

Further, the function that maps a given number of key presses to total number of NOT registered key presses is also a random variable. This one may appear to follow a Binomial distribution, but the likelihood of a failed key press is not uniform for all key presses. A key press is more likely to fail when I resume to type after a brief pause.

I shall use this as an example in my statistics class.

[biochem]

Is it stochastic?

[RandomVariable]

Is it stochastic?

Or probabilistic. There is a slim probability that a key press will not register. This is the problem that I am trying to solve.

[RandomVariable]

I found a way of making KBC Poker work with my particular Linux system and wanted to share it with the community.

I attached a PS2 adapter (that was lying around from old days) and connected the KBC through a PS2 port. The KBC works fine now and I am enjoying it very much. Apparently (and thankfully) it has built-in PS2 support.

I read some about USB vs PS2 for keyboard connection and was surprised that there is no clear disadvantage of using a PS2. Somehow I had the impression that PS2 was inferior to USB in this regard.