Sluggish keys on a laptop.

[Chroelle]

Hi guys.

A coworker has requested my help with a relatively new (read around 6 months old) laptop. It has windows 7 installed, and its a dell with a somewhat fast processor though I haven't really checked the numbers as such - just a feel.
The computer is having issues when she types fast or sometimes when typing in passwords etc. where it sort of hangs, and decides not to type in all all the letters typed. It isn't every time, and 3 coworkers tried and werent able to trigger the problem - some didn't type that fast though - and I only triggered it twice after trying 4 times.
If anyone has any ideas please let me know. I know she will be grateful.
(And if anyone cares - she is a looker!)

[Railwaymodeler]

From my experience Dell tends to skimp a bit on RAM. How much RAM does she have?

Also, what is running at startup (In the tray in the lower right? Many companies bloat up their system with lots of preinstalled software the user really does not need.

(and if anyone cares, it matters none to me if she is a looker or not - I have someone very special!)

[Chroelle]

I removed quite a few items from her startup menu, for example a non-registered Norton Antivirus, and installed another one. I am not sure however if it solved the problem, as I dont have the option of trying it out again, and I was thinking that perhaps something else caused the problem.

[Pager]

is it only when typing passwords?
or does it happen every now and then?
Sure sounds like there is something running in the background that might be chewing up resources...or as RWM pointed out could be skimpy RAM. If you were feeling really brave you could always edit the Windows Run registry entry to see just what is running whenever windows boots...stuff like the Dell Monitoring tools, or hot keys, or other weird tools...
You could also try "up"ing the paging file size on the C: drive...might not help, but then again it doesn't hurt to try...

[Chroelle]

Just did that on my own comp with some results. Not impressive but ok. I think I need to borrow her laptop for a weekend or so to figure out what is wrong and I am not sure that is within my limitations of how much I am willing to put into this... I think she needs to return it.
There are some good suggestions in here thouh so when I see her next I will look into those.