Trying out a PS/2 keyboard after decades

When my wife spilled water on my G15 keyboard, I bought a cheap keyboard to replace it. Despite wanting to buy a mechanical keyboard, knowing that I would have to carry it with be back to Sri Lanka and knowing that it would wake my kid up if I used the PC after he went to bed, I had to postpone it. It really was a cheap keyboard, that some of the keys had already become too stiff to press, which made my decision to throw it out before leaving Japan so much easier.

I was thinking of buying a Rs. 250 keyboard (do they sell them anymore?) when I arrived at home. But luckily, my dad had two PS/2 keyboards lying around in addition to the USB keyboard that he had hooked up to his PC. I have no clue as to how they PS/2 keyboards happen to be there.

Dad's PC doesn't have a PS/2 port, but ironically my PC has. And it is not rocking a gaming motherboard that come with a PS/2 port for increased compatibility with legacy gaming gear some people are reluctant to replace. Despite not being plug and play, PS/2 port doesn't use polling thus are more responsive than USB keyboards, which can also be beneficial for gamers.

But the first of the two keyboards I plugged in, acted erroneously. It would lock up some keys and never release. It was not usable.

Thankfully, the second keyboard worked. It is made by Logitech, so it should be well designed.

Sadly I am busy these days, so I cannot play games to see if a PS/2 keyboard works better than a USB keyboard when gaming. I'll probably never know, because the mechanical keyboard than I am planning to buy in the near future will come with a USB cable. (Some niche products supports both,

USB and PSU with a converter)

The 3 Musketeers: G500, G500 and G500!

Finally the replacement for the DOA (dead on arrival) replacement of the left button broken Logitech G500 mouse arrived. I have already sent the DOA mouse back to Logicool as per their request. However they were kind enough to send me the packaging material and the printed recipient address along with the mouse. So all I had to do was put the mouse in the box, paste the address on the box and order Kuroneko courier service to come and take away the package.

The new mouse is working fine. But for some weird reason, the mouse wheel is tilted slightly to the left as well. Very slightly, but it's noticeable to the eye. The feedbacks you get from tilting left and right are not the same either, but that's not a big deal anyways. It would perhaps become seasoned in no time. Heck, I still have more than a year full of warranty left. I can always replace the mouse again if something goes wrong.

The Logitech Gaming Software sucks as usual. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Time to read the threads at Logitech forums or ask my own question. I really wish I could get a mouse with much stable software. But I don't know who makes such mice nor don't wanna change the mouse to a new one, especially in these desperate times. 

 The new one on the left, the DOA one in the middle and the left button broken one on the right.

Logitech G500 to replace the broken G5

I started playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer quite recently, and the result was a broken Logitech G5 mouse. The middle mouse button broke. It lost the clicking noise. Not just the noise, but I couldn’t feel the click. It was like trying to press a button on a resistive touch screen phone with just the skin of the thumb without using the nail. It was definitely not usable in games, nor was in browsers and other places where I extensively use the middle mouse button.

Not just that, the middle mouse button of the G5 is utter crap. It supports tilting and when I would press the middle mouse button, there was a good chance that I would tilt the button. The design of it wasn’t helping this either. It didn’t feel stable. Also, it was wearing out on the skin as well.

Mind you, it was a great mouse. It fit my hand pretty well. But it was time to throw it away. Well, I can give it to someone.

So what did I replace it with? Simple. It is in the title. I bought the new G500. It is pretty much same shape as the G5 so there wasn’t a need for getting used to the shape. But I had to get used to the new button placement. The realtime CPI changing buttons were on the left click button towards the outer edge, instead of the top middle. The button at the top middle would lock and unlock free scrolling which is used for scrolling long pages. And now there are three thumb buttons instead of two in the G5. Most of all, it supports a maximum of 5700 CPI instead of the 2000 in the G5. That is the hardest thing to tune. I still don’t know which speed is the best. I am still experimenting. BTW, the middle mouse button is much more stable in this. I hardly mistakenly press the tilt buttons when pressing the middle mouse button. But I have to tell you, the software doesn’t detect COD6 MP exe. That is a bummer. I am still trying things to get it to work without me needing to manually change the profile.

I am not using the weighs yet. I think I should play with it a bit more and make use of all the features of the mouse. I didn’t use all the features of G5. I need to use all the features of G500!

P.S.

I disassembled the G5 to see if I could fix the middle mouse button issue. I had to remove all the gliding pads underneath the mouse to get to the nails. Sucks! Now it is a mess. I would need new pads if I want to use the mouse again. Well it works without the pads, but it does not give the same smooth feeling. Anyways, when I checked how the middle mouse button would work. I couldn’t understand how it could have made the click sound right from the beginning, unless there was “something” and it is not present anymore. There is just a spring and a touch button. Nothing that could make a click noise. Hmm….oh well.. I talked to Logitech as well, and they said I couldn’t get warranty because it was bought from another country, Am I supposed to wait till I get to Sri Lanka to claim warranty? It might even not have any warranty left! lol