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Anyone ever had problems with IR keyboard signal glitches like this?

computerdude92

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Dec 10, 2014
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Location
Alaska
I use an ancient IR wireless keyboard for my modern Linux Internet PC. It has a built-in mouse stick with left-right buttons on the other side. Sometimes the mouse onscreen glitches up like crazy with the cursor all over the place and clicking on wrong stuff randomly. (No, it's not possessed) I've had this keyboard for 2 years. It was new, old stock. The problem has occurred more frequently. There are some scratches on the transparent red plastic that covers the keyboards' signal LEDs. Maybe that is causing the glitches? I haven't scratched the cabled receiver though. Is there some way I can buff out the scratches, or will it make things worse? I just rubbed out fingerprints on it with some 70% alcohol. Maybe I should try Pledge furniture polish too?

Thanks for any help.
 
Turn all the lights off in the room and see if the problem goes away.
Scratches in most IR filters won't affect the data being transmitted so either it's a GiGo problem or a light source is somehow spewing light in a similar enough fashion to match up with a similar number of bits that your cursor uses for movement and button presses.
 
I use an IR keyboard of approximately the same vintage. While keypresses send key-up/down signals, the joystick mouse simply repeats the codes for up/down/right/left. If only the mouse is screwing up, I'd have a look at the innards and see if some dirt is the culprit in the mouse.
 

Here's what the design of my keyboard looks like. Only the mouse is the culprit. The stick mouse itself is all rubber and there is no place for dirt to get inside the area, as seen in the picture.
 
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