Keyboard Polling Rate Test

What is this tool?

Hold a key down and your operating system starts repeating it. This test measures how often those repeats arrive, converting the interval between consecutive events into a frequency in hertz.

The name causes confusion, and the page addresses it head-on with a section called Test Limitations and a FAQ entry asking directly whether this is your keyboard's hardware polling rate. It is not. It is the operating system's key-repeat rate as observed by the browser.

That still makes it a useful number. Repeat rate is a real setting, it varies widely between machines, and it is adjustable — which is exactly what the “Increasing Repeat Rate” section covers.

How to use it

1. Hold any key downThe panel reads Hold any key to measure repeat rate until the first repeat arrives. Any key works; pick one that does not do anything disruptive.
2. Keep holding for several secondsEach repeat becomes one sample. A handful of samples is noisy; five seconds of holding gives the average something to work with.
3. Watch the live chartInstantaneous Hz is plotted over time alongside the running average, so you can see whether the rate is steady or wobbling.
4. Read the summaryAverage, minimum and maximum Hz, jitter, consistency and a rating band. Release the key to finish the session.

What the results mean

How Hz is derived

Each interval between two repeat events becomes an instantaneous rate of 1000 ÷ interval in ms. A 40 ms gap is 25 Hz. The average is the mean of every sample in the session.

Jitter

The sample standard deviation of those Hz values. Low jitter means the repeats are evenly spaced; high jitter means some arrived late, usually because the browser or the operating system was busy.

Consistency

100 − (jitter ÷ average × 100), clamped to 0–100. It is jitter re-expressed as a share of the rate, so it stays comparable between a slow and a fast setting.

Rating bands

Under 15 Hz is SLOW, 15–19.9 BELOW AVERAGE, 20–24.9 AVERAGE, 25–29.9 FAST, and 30 Hz or more VERY FAST. Windows defaults land in the average band; a tuned setting reaches the top one.

What it can detect

• Operating-system key-repeat rate in Hz, as observed by the browser
• Minimum and maximum instantaneous rate across the session
• Timing jitter, as the standard deviation of the sampled rates
• A consistency score and a five-band rating

Limits worth knowing

A browser can only report what the platform gives it. These are the honest boundaries of this page, so a result is never read as more than it is.

• This is not your keyboard's hardware polling rate, and the page states that explicitly in both its Test Limitations section and its FAQ. USB polling happens at 125 Hz, 1000 Hz or 8000 Hz depending on the device — the browser never sees those reports, only the repeat events the operating system generates.
• It is not mouse polling rate either. Different mechanism, different number.
• Browser and system load move the result. A busy machine produces higher jitter and a lower average through no fault of the keyboard.
• The rate you measure is a software setting, so it is the same on every keyboard attached to the machine.

Tips

• On Windows, raise the rate in Control Panel → Keyboard: set Repeat rate to Fast and Repeat delay to Short.
• Run the test twice — before and after changing the setting — to confirm the change took effect rather than trusting the slider.
• If jitter is high, close background applications and try again before concluding anything about the hardware.

Troubleshooting

Related documentation

• KeyboardRapid Trigger TestTimes the full press-release-press cycle over five seconds and isolates the reset gap.
• KeyboardKey Press TestTimes each press: how long you held it, and how long since the last one.
• KeyboardHID Keyboard TesterBrowser key events side by side with raw WebHID reports, when your browser supports it.
• KeyboardKeyboard Clicker TestMeasures how many times per second you can press a chosen key, across four techniques.
• KeyboardSOCD & Snap Tap TestA guided three-trial check for opposing-key behaviour: Snap Tap, neutral, first-input or none.