After considering some of the advice mentioned in my previous thread, Crash!, I’ve been wondering if maybe it is a motherboard issue. I have really crappy mouse response on clicks and no matter how I adjust the specs, it’s pretty much the same poor response as it’s been for, well, since I got this computer. I’ve replaced the keyboard four times on a three year old computer, thinking something must be defective with either keyboard or mouse. As I type, the letters are far behind me and I have to hope that I’m not making errors because then I have to go back far to fix them once the screen keeps up with what I’ve typed. Sometimes I have to click a link 10, 12 times before it “takes”.
Is it possible to repair a motherboard as far as their ports go? I’m pretty good with computers once they’re all put together, but I’m pretty blank on looking in the box and poking around, all knowin’ stuff like.
That sounds like a software issue, I’d wipe the drive and reinstall clean from a generic Windows CD (not the CD that came with your comptuer). Although it is possible that your USB or PS/2 is busted in some unique way that makes it do just that is very very unlikely. If that’s the case it’s most likely impossible to repair but you can get a PCI PS/2 or USB adapter and plugin your keyboard and mouse there, this might cause it’s own problems but it’ll work.
This is my general advice when it comes to any hardware: after unpacking it, take all the CDs that come with it, and hide them, for the love of god don’t put them into your computer unless something is not working. Honestly, 99.9% of computer problems I have fixed in my life can be assigned to one of the four categories below, listed in order of likelihood:
Spyware, malware, viruses
Drivers and software shipped by the PC vendor/hardware vendor
User error
Hardware failure
“Don’t I need the drivers?” Yes, but what you need is a functioning driver and you probably don’t want any of the software that will get installed from the CD. A lot of hardware will already have a driver built into the operating system and unless you know what you are doing that driver is going to be better than anything on the CD. If the driver did not come with Windows, go to the manufacturers website and download the smallest package of the latest version of drivers for your hardware.
Graphics card manufacturers try to replace display properties with their own application. Modem manufacturers install their own dialers. Printer manufacturers install who knows what on top of that driver, custom spooler, and yet another red-eye removal tool. PC manufacturers like support software, crappy outdated antiviruses and various system tools that you don’t need. Etc. etc.
This wouldn’t be a problem if they were capable of shipping passable software, but it breaks thigns so often that I toss every single CD I get with hardware. Then, if I need it, I’ll download the driver form the manufacturer’s site (or the chipset manufacturer’s site but that’s rather advanced).
Both the keyboard and the mouse “lag”? Sounds to me like your operating system (Windows?) is being bogged down by some hidden process, thus not able to devote enough time to the application your typing in (like a word processing or email app).
There is a ton of stuff that can end up “running in the background” in Windows. Virus checker, email service (like Outlook), automatic harddrive defragging, and so on, are legitimate stuff, but keyloggers, and internet popup spams, are examples of unwelcome additions to your OS.
An operating system wipe and restore should get rid of junk that you didnt want running in the background. But it’s not for the faint of heart: Unless you are fairly sure you know what you are doing, dont try it yourself.
And back up the files (Word documents, digital photos, etc.) you want to save now, to floppy, tape, or a second physical hard drive. Just in case your OS is ready to expire on it’s own.
It’s possible to break out the soldering iron, and replace the PS2 ports for your keyboard… but usually it’s easier and cheaper to replace the whole motherboard. (Todays circuit boards are getting to be multilayered, which makes soldering a much more tricky job, too.)
There is no good reason to do this, as long as the ports are functioning at all. These are just connectors - the PS2 functionality is in the Super I/O controller.
To the OP - I would suggest trying a USB keyboard to see if it exhibits the same lag. As the other posters said, the slowdown is usually caused by software. Specifically SMI’s (Software Maskable Interrupts) that are not getting serivced quickly enough, or a device that is generating too many of them, so performance takes a hit.
It is possible that an early version of the motherboard BIOS has a bug, and the performance could improve with a BIOS update.