A common board, an uncommon problem?

[Chao]

I'm using an Filco Tenkeyless N-Key Rollover with Browns and after only two weeks of use I just noticed a rather odd ghosting problem: It's sending a <177> key, normally used as "Previous Track" for media buttons, when I press the left Control and Shift. Obviously this is a very common combination and to my knowledge it was not doing this until today. Either that or the media player changing tracks over and over somehow escaped my notice, which I doubt.

I've confirmed this key signal is being sent via the http://random.xem.us/rollover.html tool, and obviously by having my media player change tracks every time I use this common combination. I have also tried it in all four different USB ports on my laptop.

As this is a very common board around here, has anyone had this kind of problem before? A forum search did not yield anything.

--

Update 1: I was exploring and also found a way to produce a Volume Up code: Double Shift + Left Control .

Update 2: It seems that Macrosaft Wandows 7 decided today that a Filco Keyboard is worthy of being a "HID-compliant consumer control device" and disabling that set of drivers solved all media-key ghosting issues. Now my question is if anyone else has had this problem or heard of something similar (non-media keyboard magically gaining unwanted media functions)?

Update 3: If I disable the "HID-compliant consumer control device" driver on that USB port (which solves the problem), when I remove and reconnect the keyboard it puts Windows into standby. Also upon returning from standby, the pressing keys too quickly at the login screen will put it back into standby.

Update 4: No idea why Windows keeps freaking out any time I plug this in. Some other Ctrl ghosting is present as well, such as LCtrl+Capslock also sends F1 and LCtrl+Tab also sends a ` character. That's a huge problem because in Notepad++ depending which one gets there first (Tab or `) it either goes to another tab or opens the console. Right control has a different set of issues. Perhaps this board is just messed up. I might try and return or exchange it tomorrow if I can't find a solution.

Update 5: By disabling the right combination of drivers I've gotten rid of the standby problem. However the ghosting on Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Capslock is still present. It's kind of annoying to have ghosting appear with something simple like two keys pressed I assume this is not normal functionality.

--

Really curious to hear if anyone has any similar situations with their Filco FKBN104M/EB.

[itlnstln]

I have Windows 7 x64 Professional, and I have not seen any of those problems.  I did test my NKRO version on USB, but now I have it connected via PS/2.

[Chao]

You tried the Full 104-key version. What are the odds there are any differences with the Tenkeyless? Controller or otherwise.
I can't connect via PS/2 since I do not have the port on my laptop, but if I did would such ghosting problems likely go away?

Since I've managed to work around the driver/standby issues my main concern is the LCtrl+Tab ghosting. It's not easy to test for, either, since browsers will move away from a page on a Ctrl+Tab command. In order to view it I have to hold down LCtrl and Tab away and use the mouse to go back to the tab, because if I use the board to go back, it will register the ` as going away.

Update again: It seems to be that the Control Key is just poorly laid out in general and is causing ghosting with pretty much anything that isn't an alphanumeric. All other modifiers seem to be fine in terms of ghosting and rollover.


Left Control:
Backspace adds F9
Tab adds `
Capslock adds F1


Right Control:
Backspace adds Enter
Tab adds Z
Capslock adds X


Again, if anyone can test these on their own Tenkeyless Filco it's much appreciated.

[Mental Hobbit]

after only two weeks of use I just noticed a rather odd ghosting problem

Did you use the same key combos in the two weeks before without getting that strange behavior? Anyway, I think you should try it with another PC, preferably via PS2.

[Chao]

Did you use the same key combos in the two weeks before without getting that strange behavior? Anyway, I think you should try it with another PC, preferably via PS2.

As far as I know the media key ghosting just started today. When I plugged the board in today, Windows had an interesting series of bubbles pop up from the system tray and said it had "successfully installed the new device", something that does not normally happen when I plug it in. Again, it seems today Windows decided that the Filco deserves to be some extra sort of input device.

The other combinations I had not bothered to try until now, but am slightly frustrated by, if only because ghosting on two keys, especially when one is Control, should not occur.

Anyway, I think you should try it with another PC, preferably via PS2.

I'll try another PC and I'd love to try it over PS/2 but I don't know where I'm going to find a computer with it. Everyone I know, including myself, only has a laptop and a large number of laptops made in recent years don't have a PS/2 connector.

[HaaTa]

I have a computer with a PS/2 connector, unfortunately Ueda is bit far away from Tokyo.

[itlnstln]

If I'm not mistaken, ripster is using his Filco Tenkeyless on Windows 7 with USB, and he hasn't mentioned anything about ghosting issues.

[whininggit]

Again, it seems today Windows decided that the Filco deserves to be some extra sort of input device.

I think it's more that for whatever reason, your Filco is advertising itself as a multimedia input device, and Windows is just obeying. What DeviceID and VendorID is it showing as? Perhaps you can compare these to somebody who has a 'working' board.

I wonder if the keyboard controller has some default generic firmware, and Filco (or Costar) load their own in (e.g. via a separate EEPROM chip), and now for whatever reason the Filco firmware has been scrambled and it's reverted to the generic that just happens to have multimedia functions and a totally different matrix programmed in? (I have no idea on how the Filco's controller works, but it's just a guess)

[Chao]

If I'm not mistaken, ripster is using his Filco Tenkeyless on Windows 7 with USB, and he hasn't mentioned anything about ghosting issues.

I'll be awaiting his thoughts on this, then.

Just tested it on two other computers on Windows 7, both over USB, and the same Control key ghosting occurs, although none of them had the media-key driver issues that suddenly started today. So while the media-key issue is clearly unrelated, the ghosting is consistent and I'll return this board tomorrow.

I wonder if it's just this board or if Diatec has changed something. I'll bring my laptop and ask the guys at the store if I can try out a different board of the same model to see if the problem is consistent.

[Chao]

I think it's more that for whatever reason, your Filco is advertising itself as a multimedia input device, and Windows is just obeying. What DeviceID and VendorID is it showing as? Perhaps you can compare these to somebody who has a 'working' board.

Where exactly would I find the DeviceID and VendorID? The Keyboard device properties has nothing on it (Manufacturer, Model Number and Description are all listed as "unavailable") and in System Information > Components > Keyboards I get the same three Keyboards listed whether or not I have the Filco board plugged in, so I'm not sure which I should be looking for.

[whininggit]

If you look in Device Manager, Keyboards, HID Keyboard Device. Click on the Details tab, and select HardwareIDs.

The top string is the one you want.

[Chao]

Thanks for the clarification. This is what I get for the keyboard:
Hid\VID_04D9&PID_2011&REV_0390&MI_00

And this is what I get for the "HID-compliant consumer control device" whose drivers are causing the Media Key ghosting:
HID\VID_04D9&PID_2011&REV_0390&MI_01&Col01

Edit: Going on a hunch here, the VID is the VendorID, but I don't see anything that screams "DeviceID", unless that's REV.

Edit 2: A geekhack forum search of 04d9 yields this post where it is identified as "Holtek Semiconductor, Inc."?

Anyone with a working Filco FKBN104M/EB who can share your info, it is much appreciated.

[sixty]

Wow, this is interesting.
I don't use the same Filco keyboard on my PC anymore (its on my Mac now) but on the PC I use a huge Cherry G80-2200, which also features N-Key Rollover. Now get this... since I started using Windows 7 about 3 weeks ago this keyboard has also been sending three ghost keys randomly: media mute, media previous track, capslock. This usually happens when gaming due to combinations which include shift + ASDF row keys.

I was thinking this was just me and that the keyboard prolly needs some cleaning on the PCB, but now that you mentioned this I don't think the problems occur in Windows XP ever (I dualboot sometimes still).

Creepy.

[Chao]

To the best of my knowledge, my Cherry G80-3600 does not have any issue like this, despite also being NKRO and on Windows 7. I pretty thoroughly tested the rollover in preparation for my review. I spent about a full hour systematically trying almost every 6-key combination (and where I could, ten with modifiers) to identify the handful of ghosting scenarios, and those would only occur when I had at least five alphanumeric keys already down and threw in at least two modifiers. Going to plug it back in and test some more out of curiosity but I'm definitely taking this Filco back tomorrow.

Edit: Yeah I still get the same ghosting on the NKRO Cherry as I expected, but it's only on large combinations involving Alt. Ex: HJKL will work but when I add B it also throws in . Nothing on the level of the media-key weirdness that Filco is giving, nor any problems with WASD in any combination or order, though if you throw in Alt you get a ghost , as previously stated. It's never on a two-key combination like the Filco.

[Rajagra]

I think it's entirely possible this is a software issue based on the experience I mentioned here.

[Chao]

Thanks Rajagra, I'm looking into that right now. Ripster, I take it then, that you have not had the Ctrl+Tab problem I am having?

Edit: Since the default problem I'm having is that the keyboard is showing up as having three associated drivers (HID-compliant device, HID-compliant consumer control device and HID Keyboard Device), if I change the HID Keyboard Device driver to one of the other two, all I get is a keyboard that can only do media-key functionality and not actually type. I'm intrigued and messing with it further but it doesn't seem to solve the ghosting issue.

[itlnstln]

Anyway, Win7 is on my son's PC. I'm still waiting for any/all bugs to get shaken out.

I'm not too sure what you are waiting for.  I haven't had a crash or a problem since Beta.

[Chao]

Yeah all of the patched problems in 7 so far have been ones that also existed in other versions, such as the "Oops there has been a huge security hole in DOS that we've been ignoring for 17 years" one. On several occasions, recent monthly patch releases from MS fixed exploits that affected Vista but to which 7 was immune.

Futzing with my drivers: So if I take the option of possibly selecting incompatible drivers, I'm allowed to explore driver options for a wide range of manufacturers from Fujitsu to Chicony to ALPS to Key Tronic, and so on. There is, sadly, no option for Diatec or Filco. Is anyone else's Filco not being picked up as a "HID Keyboard Device" but instead something more specific that I might be able to imitate?

Even more futzing with my drivers: It seems that I can set the driver to pretty much any USB keyboard driver from the list of manufacturers and pretty much everything works the same, but the Ctrl-related ghosting remains. I'm pretty sure that since:
1. I've eliminated all of the media-key ghosting.
2. With all of these drivers giving identical results.
3. The NKRO Cherry board does not have this problem.
That it must be something wrong with the particular board I have. Bummer.

[sixty]

Something you can try to figure out if this is a hardware based issue or a driver issue is to simply download a small stand-alone linux distribution and boot it from the CD. Loading up a Terminal and using xev lets you test for generated scan codes. If you end up getting the same problem in Linux then at least you know its a hardware problem. If not, you can work on from there.

[Chao]

Edit: Never mind, Google-Fu has solved the problem. I'd love to be as definite in my knowledge as possible. Going to try that asap.

[Chao]

Linux verdict: Board ghosting issue.
Thanks for the help, everyone.