X drops key events

[voivittu]

I'm running Sabayon with Xfce on a Dell Studio 1535. I am having constant trouble with keypress and keyrelease events being missed. So letters will not be typed or the key will "stick" and the letter repeats until I press the key again. This happens in all programs, but especially those which involve more CPU and RAM, like Quakespasm (in which I frequently find myself running off platforms as a result of stuck keys).

I don't know very much about I/O. I looked at my activity with xev, but it just confirmed my suspicions about the dropped key events. I've googled info on key event problems, but I'm not seeing anything that describes what I'm seeing.