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Keyboard Lag on iBook 900Mhz

A

alphajc

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 8, 2003
7
0
My computer is a iBook 900Mhz 14.1" running Mac OS X.

In Microsoft Word and AOL Instant Messenger when I type I frequently notice a lag between what I type and what I see on the screen (can be anywhere from 1 second to 3 seconds).

Does anyone know a solution to this lagging problem? I remember having this problem with old dinky 4MB Macintoshes but I'm surprised it happens on this iBook.

This problem does not occur when I type in Textpad or Safari.

Thanks!

Added 10:40AM:

My computer has been upgraded to 640MB RAM so the keyboard lag shouldn't be due to lack of RAM
 
How much memory do you have in the iBook? The more memory the better, because when you have a lot of applications open, the computer will slow down quite a bit because it has to store more information on the Hard Drive rather than on the faster and more easily acsessable Random Access Memory. (RAM) If you have a slot for Ram, I'd go get some more.
 
I think this problem is application related and has nothing to do with your iBook. Sometimes I notice the same problem on my iMac and I refuse to believe that my computer isn't fast enough to recognize my typing. ;)

If this is really the case, I don't think you can do anything against it.
 
I get occasional lags like that in Office on my dual 800. I've got 1.5gigs of RAM and striped SCSI disks so I'd say its a problem with Office.
 
Mine has maxed out RAM and does this also. And when I trash something, there is a 3 second lag between the time I add the file to the trashcan, and the time it makes the noise. My iMac made the noise instantly when something was added to the trash....strange.
 
alpha,
I have the exact same computer as you, and I don't experience the lag you describe. The only time that my typing lags is occasionally in Safari, usually when posting on message boards. Even that happens very rarely, but I'm not sure what brings it on. Hmm, no wait, maybe that's not entirely true. I think I've had that lag on AOL IM very rarely.

I do sometimes experience the lag between trashing a file and hearing the noise like coolbreeze said however.

have you tried reinstalling the apps? On my old imac 400 dv typing in appleworks would *always* lag badly; it was fairly insufferable. But it seemed to be limited to that one app, and not a fault of the computer as a whole...
 
hmm, I also get this "lag" on ICQ but never in Word...

I think the guy above is right in assuming it's the problem of the application... try re-installing word (do a search and delete all word-related files - NOT the documents you've written though ;) )

...maybe this will help

vSpacken
 
It reads as though it's application related.
Some email/chat/etc... clients take time because the keystroke is registered, sent down the network connection, processed, and then echoed back. It is most likely a problem with web lag.

The keyboard registers and buffers keystrokes on its own (or at least the MB does), maxing out memory would do little to help this. It's darn near impossible to out type a computer these days, but it can be done. USB keyboards can show lag with a lot of USB traffic (a lot, let me emphasize) poor drivers or conflicts. The only reason I chime in on this issue is that I had to test a number of multiple keyboard/mouse configurations for a set of computers a year ago, and we found it hard to create any appreciable lag or conflict.
 
yeah i have the same problem sometimes too, when im using iChat, or even posting on these forums! it could be memory, but for me that wouldn't make much sense:rolleyes:
 
Do you use Techtool Pro or Norton Utilities to check and optimize your drive? I've noticed that when some computers are used for a long time without any maintenance, there is slight slowdown in performance (keyboard lag being one of them). If you do not perform any maintenance on your drive, you might want to look into it, not just for the sake of its performance, but also to keep your drive healthy.
 
I get the lag quite often in word on my ibook. It's like it's spellchecking on the fly as if I type 'teh' there's a pause and it changes it to 'the'. The pause is there, only very much shorter, on my powermac too...
 
On Word X, if you get keyboard lag, you might want to turn off "Live Word Count". I think it's in the preferences. It's basically counting every word that you type and it slows you down.

That's probably what you're experiencing.

EDIT - it's "live word count", not "active word count". It's in Preferences>>View.
 
Word has quite a few settings that seem to make typing lag. Inluding spell checking on the fly, sounds sometimes, etc. Check all those settings and see if they affect the performance.

I only notice the lag in Word, sometimes in Yahoo Messenger.
 
I have seen serious lag on a iBook 700 maxed RAM when using MSN messenger or AOL. iChat and Fire however have worked great for me.
 
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