So I've got my jquery autocomplete 'working,' but its a little fidgety since I call the webservice method each time a keydown() fires so I get lots of methods hanging and sometimes to get the "auto" to work I have to type it out and backspace a bit because i'm assuming it got its return value a little slow. I've limited the query results to 8 to mininmize time. Is there anything i can do to make this a little snappier? This thing seems near useless if I don't get it a little more responsive.

javascript

$("#clientAutoNames").keydown(function () {
        $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: "WebService.asmx/LoadData",
            data: "{'input':" + JSON.stringify($("#clientAutoNames").val()) + "}",
            contentType: "application/json; charset=utf-8",
            dataType: "json",
            success: function (data) {
                if (data.d != null) {
                    var serviceScript = data.d;
                }
                $("#autoNames").html(serviceScript);
                $('#clientAutoNames').autocomplete({
                    minLength: 2,
                    source: autoNames,
                    delay: 100,
                    focus: function (event, ui) {
                        $('#project').val(ui.item.label);
                        return false;
                    },
                    select: function (event, ui) {
                        $('#clientAutoNames').val(ui.item.label);
                        $('#projectid').val(ui.item.value);
                        $('#project-description').html(ui.item.desc);
                        pkey = $('#project-id').val;
                        return false;
                    }
                })
            .data("autocomplete")._renderItem = function (ul, item) {
                return $("<li></li>")
                    .data("item.autocomplete", item)
                    .append("<a>" + item.label + "<br>" + item.desc + "</a>")
                    .appendTo(ul);
            }
            }
        });
    });

WebService.asmx

<WebMethod()> _
Public Function LoadData(ByVal input As String) As String
    Dim result As String = "<script>var autoNames = ["
    Dim sqlOut As Data.SqlClient.SqlDataReader
    Dim connstring As String = *Datasource*

    Dim strSql As String = "SELECT TOP 2 * FROM v_Clients WHERE (SearchName Like '" + input + "%') ORDER BY SearchName"
    Dim cnn As Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection = New Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection(connstring)
    Dim cmd As Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand = New Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand(strSql, cnn)
    cnn.Open()

    sqlOut = cmd.ExecuteReader()
    Dim c As Integer = 0
    While sqlOut.Read()

        result = result + "{"
        result = result + "value: '" + sqlOut("ContactID").ToString() + "',"
        result = result + "label: '" + sqlOut("SearchName").ToString() + "',"
        'result = result + "desc: '" + title + " from " + company + "',"
        result = result + "},"

    End While
    result = result + "];</script>"
    sqlOut.Close()
    cnn.Close()

    Return result
End Function

I'm sure I'm just going about this slightly wrong or not doing a better balance of calls or something.

Greatly appreciated!