A bit OT: Wireless computer keyboards

I use a laptop as my main home computer, but like a full size keyboard - so use a wireless jobbie made by Targa GmbH and sold in the UK by Lidl under the Silver Crest brand.

I've had this keyboard for nearly a year and, a couple of days ago, it suddenly stopped working - in the middle of typing a sentence! A wireless mouse is part of the same setup (both talking to the same USB dongle) and the mouse still worked ok but the keyboard was completely dead. I checked the batteries, which were ok - fitted some news ones just in case - still nothing.

Since the thing has a 3-year warranty, I rang the Silver Crest/Targa helpline (London number, but sounded like a German who answered) for advice.

They said that the keyboard probably needed resetting, and to remove the batteries for 12 hours and then replace them and try again. My reaction was a bit like Naaman's (in the Bible) when told to bathe 7 times in the Jordan to cure his leprosy. Anyway, what the hell - I decided to give it a go. When I put the batteries back in 12 hours later - blow me, the think burst into life again - and I'm using it to type this.

Has anyone got any clues as to what was wrong with it, and why removing power for 12 hours fixed it? Could I have speeded up the process by shorting the battery connections? If this is a common problem, shouldn't the makers fit a re-set button of some sort, and refer to it in the user manual?

Reply to
Roger Mills
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The keyboard crashed and needed power-cycling. 12 hours seems excessive but it's probably to absolutely utterly ensure all the capacitors have discharged. My DigiBox recommends five minutes. Yes, it should really have a reset button on it.

It's depressing how much consumer equipment is so highly processorised that they are so prone to this now. I got used to my TV crashing, but my *telephone* crashed some months ago.

JGH

Reply to
jgharston

In news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net, Roger Mills typed on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 13:13:18 +0000:

Hi Roger! The majority of wireless keyboard/mouse combos does have a reset. Either on the dongle or on the keyboard and mouse.Although a lot of them I have seen, these are not really a reset, but all it does is to scan to the next clear channel. And it is sometimes labeled as Connect.

And while they told you to leave the batteries out for 12 hours, I seriously doubt it needed to be anywhere that long. This Micro Innovations KB985W only needs to be disconnected for half a second and all is well again for example. Maybe yours won't reset that fast, but I seriously doubt it really needs 12 hours. ;-)

Why do you sometimes need to reset them? Oh lots of reasons... firmware, hardware, transmit, and receive glitches to name a few.

Reply to
BillW50

Congratulations! You have just won the 2010 Usenet prize for the most obscure reference - treat yourself to a beer. As to why the support person told you to do that, I can think of 2 reasons.

1.) They had just started a 12 hour shift and wanted to get you off the line ASAP, with no possibility of taking your call when/if you called back to say that the remedy hadn't worked. 2.) Like the prisoner teaching the horse to sing, there was a chance it might work. Luckily it did (though as others have pointed out, a shorter time (5 minutes? 10 seconds?) may have been enough.
Reply to
pete

etc.

The title does say "A bit OT" - what's your problem?

I don't know how long it really took - but I went along with the 12 hours (not really expecting it to work!) so that they couldn't say that I hadn't left it long enough when I rang back.

10 seconds was definitely *not* long enough because the batteries were out for longer than that when I was checking them.
Reply to
Roger Mills

Roger Mills gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Bluetooth?

Does the laptop have internal BT?

I've never come across a wireless mouse/keyboard that didn't have.

Seriously - "They do that sometimes". It's one of the reasons I hate them so much. Give me wired. Predictable stuff, wire. I had a Bluetooth keyboard the other day that was beyond even just a reset (reputable - a Logitech), and needed to be de-paired from the PC and re-added.

Check for firmware and driver updates for the BT as well as keyboard - they can make all the difference.

Reply to
Adrian

Not as far as I know - the bit that plugs into the computer is described as a "Miniature USB receiver", and is marked 2.4GHz.

Yes, but I've never succeeded in getting it to talk to a bluetooth-enabled mobile phone.

Well my keyboard doesn't - not even a hole to poke a paperclip into, and no on/off switch (but the mouse *does* have an on/off switch - but no other means of resetting it)

But I don't think it uses BT!

Reply to
Roger Mills

Roger Mills gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Eww. I thought (hoped) that had completely died out - but clearly not. Lidl, y'say?

It's worth looking into firmware upgrades - a lot of Dell laptops ship with BT 2.0 firmware, with 2.1 downloadable. See if you can identify what chipset it's got, and which set of drivers will work - there's pretty much three. Tosh, CSR & Broadcom.

Reply to
Adrian

Well, one problem I have is lack of lottery-winning numbers. Another would be the weather, followed by the government, nothing good on TV and to top it off, I ate too much over christmas. Oh, you seem to think I have a problem with your post. Errrr .... no I have no idea why you'd be so defensive, given my compliment about your biblical reference (what did you think I meant?).

Reply to
pete

Oh that - I had no idea what you were referring to as 'obscure'.

Don't you see the strong parallel between my predicament and that of this bloke who had travelled hundreds of miles to see the prophet only to be told to do something which (he believed) couldn't possibly cure his problem.

However, he did as instructed and it *did* cure his problem. Likewise me!

Reply to
Roger Mills

I hear tell that they're flying planes fitted with these things. Utter madness ;)

Reply to
brass monkey

Loads use a seperate receiver, not bluetooth. Certainly MS and Logitech do.

Pretty much any machine will understand a usb mouse so they just appear as that. Much more effort to get a bluetooth mouse working. Ok, it just works on a mac, but windows Vista? (might do), XP (hah!) Linux? (what particular flavour?)...

Also gets complicated if you want to be able to wake the machine from the mouse/keyboard - again, replicating a usb device avoids those issues (largely)

I seem to recall some issue about response/pairing time as well, but can't remember the problem now :-)

Darren - on a mac, using bluetooth ;-)

Reply to
D.M.Chapman

Many boards will not boot correctly without something that appears to be a keyboard plugged into at least a USB port.

More money, than sense, eh?

>
Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

The Natural Philosopher gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I haven't come across a machine that can't boot headless for _years_.

Reply to
Adrian

Some of us make our computers last that long. My last 'I need a keyboard in my 5 pin port' computer was switched off this year. ;-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I've never come across one that does. They have buttons to reconnect.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

Not PC motherboards, at least not "many".

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

Well not now, but years ago you'd get the

"Keyboard not detected, press F1 to continue"

error message

Reply to
Andy Burns

I share a keyboard and mouse between this RISC OS machine and a PC running XP via a KVM unit. Using PS2 since USB support on the RPC is somewhat flakey.

If you boot the PC with the unit switched to the RPC, the keyboard and mouse don't work on it when you do switch.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

This one is coming up to 17 years old...

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

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