Microsoft Wireless Keyboard Stops Working When Not in Use + Other

I had to get myself a new keyboard on February 5th, and I got a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Desktop Keyboard and Mouse. I haven't had any problems with it until today, and it's two things:

1) The main problem is that my keyboard will stop responding if I do not use it for a short period of time; I'm unable to type or use any other keyboard functions. The problem first occurred while I was playing a game, and after sitting through a lengthy dialogue period with another character, I was unable to move my character around with the keys or use any of the keyboard shortcuts (i.e. pulling up menus, using certain items or abilities, etc). I exited the game, pulled up Notepad and found I was unable to type in anything.

Initially I thought it may have been the batteries and when I switched the spots of the two batteries (AAA) inside, the keyboard started working again. I thought, "Oh it just needs new batteries then. I'll just get some new batteries after work." But when I placed some new batteries in later, the problem kept coming back.

As I'm typing this, I'm not having any issues with the keyboard. But if I don't use it for a short period of time (like maybe a mere minute), it stops working. The only way to get it back is if I switch the batteries around (not replace them, just switch the spots of the in-use batteries). Sometimes when I do this, the mouse scroll stops working.

2) Another issue I'm having is this: the keyboard comes with an Fn On/Off switch at the upper-right hand corner and if I switch it off, the keyboard will suddenly start spamming the current date and time non-stop on things like Notepad, Word, chat/text boxes, etc. If I have nothing opened up, the desktop icons flicker in and out rapidly. This doesn't happen if I switch it back on, which is unfortunate because I have to have it off when I play certain games (i.e., when I'm in a party and I have to switch between characters through the F1 - F4 commands).

I have no idea why this is happening suddenly, it was working perfectly fine and I have not done anything to the keyboard/mouse before the problems occurred. I tried switch the USB stick to different ports, but it made no difference.

Well I just solved the 2nd problem: I switched the Fn switch Off, then pressed the Scroll Lock key and the spamming stopped. So that's good at least. Still have issues with the first problem though.

Something else I just noticed now is that while the main keyboard won't respond after a while, the keys on the right still work fine (it's a little hard to explain; basically the keyboard is broken up into two parts and the number keys that are on the right-hand side of a regular keyboard is its own seperate keyboard. This is what it looks like ).

Just tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers for the keyboard and mouse, then restarting the computer. Didn't work.

Any suggestions? At all??

LiliumSnow said:

Something else I just noticed now is that while the main keyboard won't respond after a while, the keys on the right still work fine (it's a little hard to explain; basically the keyboard is broken up into two parts and the number keys that are on the right-hand side of a regular keyboard is its own seperate keyboard. This is what it looks like ).

Wireless keyboard and mouse turn them self off to save battery. Once you hit a key it wakes up.
Did you read the manual?
Did you try to hit escape to see if it wakes up?
If everything fails, I would say that may be a hardware fail.
Send it back in warranty.

I just went back to the store and got an exchange.