Sluggish/erratic keyboard when Envy 15 on battery

I bought this Envy 15 from Costco week ago and only yesterday I finished installing all my software and started seriously typing on it. I was surprised to find that I was consistently missing letters during the typing. The weird thing is that the keyboard is very responsive when the 15 is plugged. Only on battery power the keyboard instantly becomes sluggish, frequently missing my keystrokes, but once plugged in, all is well.

As far as I can tell, some keys become much less responsive including l, m, a, k, "enter", "space" etc. In MS Word, when the 15 is plugged I can press the Ctrl-backspace as fast as I can and it deletes fine. But once unplugged, the deletion becomes very slow, no matter how fast I repeat the key press, it only deletes in a "stop and go" fashion. To make the matter more confusing, even on battery power I also have moments that the keyboard suddenly becomes perfect for a minute and then sluggish again. I checked task manager and I barely have anything going on in the background, a few % of CPU most of the time.

This is definitely specific to the 15's built-in keyboard, since I can plug in an external keyboard, and typing is perfect even on battery.

Anyway, I'm debating whether I should ask for an exchange at Costco. I really like the 15 and want to keep it, but it'll be hard for me to live with such a sluggish keyboard, even it only happens on battery power. At this time even a simple exchange is still a big hassle, since I have to reinstall all the software and copy all the files again. So if this keyboard issue can be fixed by some quick tweaks I'll be more than happy to keep the present one.

By the way, after installing software (MS Office 2003, Photoshop CS2, Skype etc), I suddenly found the Beats audio button ceased working. No action when I press or turn the button. I reinstalled IDT audio driver but nothing changes. Anything thoughts on this too?

Thanks a lot!

 

Ok, I did a quick google and this might have something to do with bad batteries:

typing from the keyboard is slow, it can't keep up. - General-Laptops-Notebooks - Laptops-Notebooks

Some people seemed to have almost exactly the same problem with other laptops and removing the battery solved it.

Well, in my case I don't have to remove the battery, just plug in the AC solves the problem. Still, maybe this probably indicate the battery on my 15 is having problem? I tested it once by browsing the web etc and it lasted for about 4 hours.

 

This is one of the biggest anoyances with the latest envy line. These machines are not QA'ed properly....

 

the letters n and b plus backspace may stop working properly after some time. A full reset is required to rectify.

 

wow, what does that mean? Just a simple shutdown restart or one has to restore the machine to full factory reset? The latter would be a total disaster.

 

Shutdown and remove power cord for a minute.

 

Thanks, good to know that.

By the way, I exchanged the 15 at Costco and the new one has no problem with keyboard, either on battery or on AC.