Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Issues with Vista/Windows 7 with the Kinesis Keyboard

Kinesis has a few suggestions that may help resolve issues with the Kinesis on Vista/Windows 7.

The suggestions seem to be:

1. Hit Shift, both Ctrl keys, and both Alt keys to reset.
2. Change advanced power settings (USB) and set to disabled.
3. Replace the firmware (only through Kinesis) and/or firmware board.


2. Advantage keyboard not working after Windows computer goes to sleep mode
We have learned of a widely reported problem with Windows operating systems (XP & Vista) using third party keyboards (even though the problem has been reported with the Microsoft Natural keyboard as well) where the keyboard does not function after the computer enters sleep or hibernation mode. Fortunately there is a easy solution:
Go to Start-Settings-Control Panel, double click Keyboard. Click the Hardware Tab, highlight the "HID Keyboard device" and select Properties. Click Power Management. UNCHECK the box that says "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby." Click OK. Now when your computer goes to standby or sleep mode, you will simply need to wake the computer by moving your pointing device. Your keyboard should now work perfectly fine.
For Vista users, go to Control Panel, Power Options, click "change plan settings" then "change advanced power settings" then go to "USB settings" and select "disabled."
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8. Weird behavior with contoured keyboard
Stuck modifier key. Sometimes the computer misses the upstroke from keys that are held down in key combinations.   The result is a "stuck" key.  Try pressing both Shift keys, bothCtrl keysand both Alt keys. If this problem happens to your contoured keyboard more than once every few weeks, you may need a firmware upgrade or new main circuit board. 
Check your firmware version (serial numbers 20,000 and higher). Open a text editor other than Microsoft Word (e.g notepad, wordpad or equivalent). Press both Shift keys plus F12. The keyboard will produce a sentence which ends with the firmware version number and version date, such as:
        copyright 1986 - 1998 by interfatron-bbc, ltd., 
rev 2.48 08/13/98.
Circuit board may need replacement. If your contoured keyboard was built before April, 1998, it may need a new main circuit board. The old boards look brown if you look past the thumb keys at the underlying circuit board.  The new circuit boards look green with a gold grid. 

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