Continued trouble with Skype

[xblack_x_rosesx]

So, I've been having some technical issues with Skype- which is unfortunate, cos as a University student with no phone (opposed to a cell phone that DOESN'T have a long distance plan) it's a great way to keep in contact with the family.

Anyway, when I first downloaded Skype it worked great, but I started noticing that the day after I installed it, the keyboard was getting some HEAVY lag. Like, I couldn't type a full sentence without missing half of the space keys, or whole words and letters.
Now, I just got a new laptop, a Dell Studio 15- and thus far it's been working great, no problems what-so-ever, and the only thing I'd installed on it was Office 2007. So I made sure the problem wasn't hardware wise- I cleaned my keyboard, even though there was NO way something spilled on it, I baby the thing.
I was pretty sure the problem was software based, so I uninstalled Skype, and that fixed the lag problem.
So I sent Skype an email about it, and they replied, telling me to:
- Install Skype extension for Mozilla Firefox
- Install Skype add-on for Internet Explorer

So I went to re-install Skype, except when the installation window came up, those two options WEREN'T available in the options section. So I did the next best thing and installed some sort of plug-in (or something... can't remember exactly what) for IE.

But, the next day my keyboard started lagging again.

I've googled and binged and skype-helped the problem countless times, but it doesn't seem anyone else is or even has experienced this problem before.

Any suggestions? I'd REALLY like to use Skype. I'm going to send another message, hopefully get things cleared up, but it's frustrating.

Thanks!

B.