Thinkpads Forum

Hello all, first post here.

I have a 600X that was given to me by my uncle after it was found sitting in a dusty closet for the past decade. I want to set it up as a DOS/Win98 gaming rig but I'm running into a snag.

The problem is with the keyboard, particularly the arrow keys. When you're playing a game like an FPS or a top-down racer your fingers are on 3 of the arrow keys, left, up and right. When all three keys are pressed at any time, this apparently overflows the keyboard matrix, and the computer makes a beep and the system freezes for around 1/4 second.

This is a problem because if you're moving forward and turning left (up and left keys) and then you have to make a sudden turn (up and right) sometimes your finger doesn't let go of the left key before hitting right, for a split second. This causes the beep and interrupts the game.

I think this is an issue somewhere within Windows because it doesn't happen at all when you're playing a game in DOS mode. I tried Googling the issue and I saw some stuff about disabling the beep in Device Manager but that seems to be specific to WinXP or later, and I don't have any beep device in my Win98 Device Manager.

I've downloaded and installed pretty much all the 600X-specific drivers for Windows 98, I recall it happening before then as well.

Does anyone here know what I am talking about and has anyone ever found a way to fix it?

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

I think that for some of the newer systems, say the 3-digit T and X series (e.g. T400, X300), the BIOS has a setting for turning the beep off for invalid/illegal keyboard combinations. I don't recall seeing a similar feature inside the 600X's Easy-Setup.

Also, the problem may not be solved using Windows Device Manager. Something like this could have a hack/tweak that you do with the Registry and/or system.ini file, although at the moment I can't find anything to support this.

edit: Then again, it may be a hardware limitation that you can't get around. I found these:

http://www.gigahype.com/nkey-rollover-test-page/
http://blog.controlspace.org/2010/08/n- ... ow-to.html

Using my A31p and Windows XP, when both left and right arrow keys are held down, the up arrow does not register but the down arrow does.

Yes, I know what you are talking about. I think, to fix it would require very high skill modification of keyboard traces.

IBM ThinkPad keyboard does not provide NKRO. IBM ThinkPad keyboard (at least, Ttwenty line T20-T23, and X22-X24 model subset of Xtwenty line) only provides a complete 2-key rollover "2KRO", and limited handling three or more keys-at-once. I tested side-by-side with Model M, and I observed identical keypress-capability behaviour. I guess, IBM reused their Model M's electrical keyboard matrix layout in ThinkPad. (I am confident of my guess, but I am not going to disassemble and follow traces to prove it.)

2KRO is one reason why Model M is worse than Model F.
ThinkPad 2KRO is one reason why I no longer use Neo-Tastaturbelegung.
Thank you for starting this discussion. I am glad to get this little bit of earned knowledge out of my mind, and into a place where public can read it.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

The beep can be turned off in some cases, as rkawakami pointed out. However, the underlying issue of limited key rollover is n inherent limitation of the keyboard, and as such, cannot be fixed without a major and difficult modification of the keyboard itself, as automobus pointed out. It is an issue on all Thinkpad laptop keyboards I tried and many other laptops as well, and to my knowledge no one has ever done such a mod.

If you want to play serious keyboard games on a laptop of any kind - plug in an external keyboard. That's the only reasonable solution.