Hi aaron.

First off, cheque in the control panel of windows under accessibility, and make certain nothing like "Ignore repeated key presses" is set to on.

You might have turned this on by accident yourself, as the short cut to do it is I believe tap shift five times, ---- obviously if your playing games, disabling such short cuts is also a good idea.

Also check what your key repeat rate is set to as well, just in case it's got turned down by mistake.

If it's not those, then it might be a hardware issue. If it's a wireless keyboard, check the batteries. Lack of responsiveness is a major sign of low batteries in a wireless keyboard.

I certainly have to change mine every couple of months or so.

If it's not a wireless keyboard, or if the batteries are fine, then, ---- as you've cleaned the keys, it's possibly just wearing out.

My own faithful wireless keyboard did something similar after about five years of constant use, and when determining it wasn't the batteries or anything else, ---- I just had to get another one.

hth.

Ah Aaron.

In that case I'd certainly agree it's a new keyboard you need.

I can strongly recommend wireless ones, as they allow you to sit anywhere, and stil use a desktop, ---- though make certain you don't get one which is too stupid and requires channel setting and the like.

I originally bought one which did by mistake, ---- and after the batteries went the first time,  I couldn't reset it at all, ---- I had to get a more bog standard one, ---- which worked much better.

also, avoid tiny ergonomic ones if you can. there's a current fashion to miniturize  everything, ---- including keyboards, and make all the keys virtually the same!

I borrowed one such keyboard from a friend after mine initially broke, ---- and it was fairly horrific to find a desk top keyboard that had fewer, and smaller keys than my laptop!

It even only had one control key, ---- which made using Hal short cuts a regular nightmare!

Well, a decent wireless keyboard shouldn't set you back any more than fifteen or twenty quid, ---- thirty at the outside, --- - particularly if you avoid the flashy ones that do stupid things like have in built short cut keys to launch word, outlook express and run media players.

These are imho a major waste of money sinse any fool who knoes how to create short cut keys can do as much for nothing, ---- pluss, as I said, they can be a real pest if they are stupidly complex to set up.

I'd personally recommend a very symple, but effective wirless keyboard.

i get loads of fun out of mine, ---- lying on my sofa six foot away from my desktop playing audio games on my headphones with the long cable, ---- or being able to control reading of documents or playing of audio while wandering my flat, ---- it even works in the kitchin while I'm cooking or washing up.

Well one thing to watch with "wireless" is whether things are infra red (IR) or radio frequency (RF). RF will go through walls, IR won't. That said RF will only go through so much wall.

I've often noticed that IR devices are called "cordless" rather than wireless, but this isn't always the case. There are enough that break the convention to make it important to check which you're looking at.

Just in case you ever do decide to go wireless in the future.

Lol, the wireless thing was a typo now that I looked at it. My bad. Well, I dunno, I just sit at the computer, plus, I don't think my headset will reach any further than this room which is a shame. I always find it fun to get my phone out, go into the lounge and just browse the net wirelessly. That's the true power of wireless. Never got to experience it with a desktop yet.

Personally I always favoured MS Natural keyboards, they cost a bit more for a wired keyboard but I find them quite comfortable. The split down the middle also makes an excellent reference point for finding specific keys since it is essentially in two halves, there is a big area between the G and H keys on a normal kleyboard going all the way up and down to the top of the space which contains only the capslock, numlock and scroll lock lights. As you say though, personal preference.

The keys are in the standard places, caps lock included. The only difference is that there is a break in between the letter keys, which is actually designed so your hands fall at a natural angle. Your hands aren't designed to sit parallel to each other, they naturally fall with a slightly inward angle.

More likely your muscles are used to the position whereas mine aren't, even though I used normal keyboards for years too before using a natural. Right now I can actually feel the strain of my wrists typing at my laptop, since my natural keyboard has a wonky wire and I haven't got to replacing it yet. This and I'm sat in my living room. Maybe it is the position I'm in too, with my arms close in to my body and my laptop on my lap... funnily enough. Probably one of the few people who actually uses a laptop on their lap with any regularity.