Wireless Keyboard keys & Mouse buttons stop working randomly

Hi everyone,

Got a weird situation here, happened about 2 days ago for first time but keeps recurring more and more often, forcing me to hit the power switch to reboot.

My Dell wireless keyboard and mouse (new batteries) will suddenly stop working almost entirely. I say almost entirely - on the keyboard the 'windows' key and 'ctrl+alt+del' still work, but nothing else. On the mouse the cursor still moves but the buttons don't work. Basically it leaves me in a state of limbo. All processes continue to run fine on the PC - often I've had music in iTunes keep playing for an hour after this occurs (I was attempting to wait to see if it was temporary).

I've checked my conflicts etc. in the audio & controller fields. Right now I've only got my wireless keyboard and mouse, don't have any others to try a test with. I can't understand why it would suddenly freeze up. It doesn't happen with certain software, it has been very random, I've been tracking every instance since it started..

Any ideas?

Thanks for the help in advance!

Welcome to our forums, colt45.

Did you try changing the batteries? Also, check the connection between the receiver and the computer; those things can work themselves loose over time.

Do you know what frequency range you are transmitting on? Check the area and see what other wireless devices may be using that same range and any harmonics of it.

Dngrsone, I've got new batteries in. I also changed the USB port the receiver is plugged into. So far no lockups. I don't know the frequency it's using, but I don't have any wireless to conflict.
I guess my next step will be to open different progs and just use them for extended periods individually to see if that causes it. Do you think a software conflict could cause this? I recently got new drivers for my M-audio O2 keyboard, but I haven't had it plugged in when these problems occur.

Thanks for the ideas, and the warm welcome!

-45-

Anything could be causing this... software and drivers are definitely suspect.

I recall this one person who argued with us for a week over his wireless problem and it turned out the "new" batteries he put in his unit were causing the problem. You can understand, then, why we sometimes make seemingly stupid recommendations.