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September 10th, 2007 23:00

New Vostro 1500 laptop- keys hestitate

I have the vostro 1500 brand new and i am finding that when i type the letters are hesitating so when i type it takes time to catch up to my typing. Before i go and call Dell what do you think this is? I am running xp sp2 with all updates. Robin

2 Intern

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480 Posts

September 11th, 2007 16:00

Welcome to the club. What I can't understand is why everyone isn't having this problem, we seem to be in the minority!

Anyway, what seems to fix it, is getting rid of PCMservice.exe.... or I should say, prevent it from loading at startup. I contacted Cyberlink, who provides this program for Dell, and was told it is used for Remote Control. So if you're not using remote control, you proably don't want it loading anyway.

The easiest way to stop it from loading is to download the free utility, "Startup Control Panel". You can get it here: http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

Once you install it, it will be in the Control Panel (I also put a shortcut in a folder with other utilities).

Click on Startup Control Panel, and you will find PCMservice on the HKLM/Run tab.

Just uncheck it (as long as you don't delete it you can always check it again).

When you reboot, it won't be loaded, and you should be able to type at 100 wpm and have the display keep up :-)

BTW 1. You can also test that the problem is PCMservices.exe, by doing a CNTL/ALT/DEL to bring up the task manager windwow. Click the Processes tab, find PCMservices.exe, right click it, and click "End Process". Your keyboard lag should then go way, but PCMservices will run again after the next boot.

BTW 2. Startup Control Panel is very handy for preventing other junk that you don't need from running at startup.

Please get back to us and let us know how it worked out.

p.s. I emailed Dell about PCMservices and the lag after I fixed it to find out what they had to say. I got ridiculous answers, like Run with a clean boot, and run the reinstallation CD. So if you do call, and get a reasonable explaination, please share it with us.
(Just after posting this, I saw a message from someone who called Dell about the lag problem. The help he got was as useless as the email help I got. He saw another of my posts, disabled PCMservice and he's good to go!)
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=sb_small-biz&message.id=1677&jump=true#M1677

Message Edited by Jeff Leites on 10-29-2007 10:57 PM

4 Posts

September 11th, 2007 16:00

I was having the same exact problem...and this post was forwarded to me.....read the entry by lamarkii.....try it!  Works like a charm!!!

 



Message Edited by Spillers4 on 09-11-2007 12:43 PM

Message Edited by Spillers4 on 09-11-2007 12:43 PM

7 Posts

September 12th, 2007 01:00

The link took me to the solution!! Unchecking PCMService did the trick. It was like suddenly getting rid of poison ivy.

2 Intern

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480 Posts

September 12th, 2007 02:00

This is a bit bit confusing. I think this tread is the link praa is referring too. I sent him here from

http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&thread.id=257290

How do we get the message to Dell that PCMservices is messing some of us up?

7 Posts

September 12th, 2007 15:00

I'm new to message boards. Is there a way to collect all related messages about this topic and send to Dell Support? If there is, whynot include PC World & PC Hxxx websites. Publicity seems to get response occassionally.

4 Posts

September 12th, 2007 19:00

Thats what I never understood about this whole problem with the keyboard.... had Dell just told me to do what was mentioned here...in the first place...it would have saved both of us some time...and some money...because I made them send me a new computer AFTER they had me completely reinstall Windows XP thinking that would solve the problem (which it didnt! duh!)  I think some definite glitches that they could work out....IF they would just come here and read!!!   Jeff...thank you again for posting on my question regarding the keyboard and helping me find my way!!  I'm a happy lil camper now!!

5 Practitioner

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274.2K Posts

September 13th, 2007 13:00

Hi, All.
 
I think this is related to a known issue with an Outlook plugin to Media Direct. Please try installing the patch from this location, and re-enabling PCMservice.exe. Please post back the results. I do not think simply disabling the service is the complete fix. It is a workaround that has a high degree of success, but the software is not functioning as designed. Let us know  how it goes with the service enabled after applying this patch and rebooting.
 

I'm new to message boards. Is there a way to collect all related messages about this topic and send to Dell Support? If there is, whynot include PC World & PC Hxxx websites. Publicity seems to get response occassionally.

You got your response to this thread in under 3 business days, and the fix has been web posted since July, I think. Sorry we could not index the solution better to make the content easier to search and find. I will request some key search terms be added to the document that I linked to above.


Message Edited by DELL-Bill B on 09-13-2007 09:26 AM

2 Intern

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480 Posts

September 13th, 2007 15:00

I sure looked forward to this working, but when I tried to install the patch, I got the following message:

"Unable to install patch!
Your system must have Power Cinema version 4.7 installed.
Installation will abort."

So what do I do now?

5 Practitioner

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274.2K Posts

September 13th, 2007 15:00

Did your system ship with Cyberlink Power DVD installed? Did you happen to uninstall it? Did your system ship with a Power DVD installation disc? I looked at your system records. There is a Power DVD disc that should arrive at your location today. Please try to install PowerDVD, then the patch again. Let me know what happens. It looks like there may be more to this issue than just the patch. Let's try to get the patch installed by installing PowerDVD first, if possible, then we can proceed from there.

2 Intern

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480 Posts

September 13th, 2007 16:00

I did not uninstall PowerDVD (or anything else).

I did a search for PowerDVD, and found only PowerDVD.jpg and PowerDVDCopy.exe.jpg

My system did not ship with the PowerDVD disk, only the reinstallation disk.

I recently requested the Roxio Creator disk and received a voice mail the other day that it would be shipped in 3 to 5 days. I was not aware that a PowerDVD disk would be arriving.

5 Practitioner

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274.2K Posts

September 13th, 2007 16:00

Yeah. I looked at the dispatch. It has both discs and is slated to arrive today. I will private message the DHL tracking number that  is trackable at DHL's website.

12 Posts

September 15th, 2007 19:00

The patch worked for me - THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

10 Posts

September 16th, 2007 06:00

I have confirmed my system is suffering from this very same issue. I went trough a nightmare and back in order to get my inspiron 1420 with working drivers with windows XP (Vista is garbage atm, and sorry Dell, but you guys should put all working XP drivers for 1420 users like myself who don´t want to get into vista nightmares).
I did not get the power dvd cd as well, not even that, I did not get a recovery cd or any other thing or means to get back to vista later on when MS releases their first SP.
I  tried to install the patch, but got the same message. I did confirm that the slow down is due to this service.
Please advice, I purchased from Mexico.

2 Posts

September 23rd, 2007 08:00

Thank you for helping me. The official patch (R157449_MediaDirect_3_Patch.exe) which should be the solution of the slow typing problem, as I call it, on the screen did not work. The workaround, disabeling the PCMservices, worked well. I do not know which concequenses the disabeling has, but my main problem seems to be solved. Thank you all.
 
 

2 Intern

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480 Posts

September 23rd, 2007 14:00

h.sytema - I was having further communication on this topic with Bill.B in private e-mail because I thought I had a unique situation (the patch would not run, because I didn't have Cyberlink PowerDVD installed), but since it may not be unique, I will share the important parts of the information here. You may not see any undesirable consequences from not running PCMservice.

I told Bill that Cyberlink told me that PCMservce was only for remote control.

Bill replied:
"The information the Cyberlink rep told you is incorrect. PCMservice.exe is the process that launches Dell Media Experience as a TSR. It is totally uneccessary, and personally, I would uninstall Dell Media Experience altogether. It's basically a cartoonish multimedia interface for novice users who need extra help launching and playing audio CD's, DVD movies, and any other multimedia file type. I still think the issue is related to the memory leak with the Outlook plugin for MediaDirect 3.x."

At this point I learned that Dell Media Experience and Dell MediaDirect were two different things. I informed Bill that I could not find Dell Media Experience on my computer, or anyway to start it. Also the only Cyberlink software I could find were 3 .dll files.

Bill repliced:
"Sounds like the pcmservice module of Dell Media Experience was used to create a hook with Dell Media Direct. I think disabling pcmservice.exe is the only solution at this point. I will escalate the issue to the product group engineers who own the software issues for Media Direct. If it turns out not to be their issue, they will point me in the right direction."

MediaDirect (not to be confused with Media Experience) works for me, and with PCMservice not running, the keyboard works fine, so everything is working good for me since I'm not running PCMservice.

Bill is still trying to get an answer from the engineers and will post the results.

Now you know.... the rest of the story ;-)

Message Edited by Jeff Leites on 09-23-2007 08:51 PM
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