Arch Linux

duox7142

Member

Registered: 2015-10-18

Posts: 3

Keyboard / Trackpad only work when there's PCMCIA card w/ Ethernet

Probably one of the more bizarre questions to ask. I'm using an older Winbook XLi which has been a fun project to learn about older systems and get my hands dirty with Arch.

Originally, I was having some issue for the built-in keyboard and built-in trackpad to register with the system.

 dmesg -t | grep i8042 

would result in nothing being shown.Then, after some google searching, I found that I need to add to mkinitcpio.conf the atkbd and psmouse modules from https://www.archlinux.org/news/linux-31 … w-modular/. Seems to have worked, now I get

 i8042: PNP: No PS/2 controller found. Probing ports directly.
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input0
input: TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint as /devices/platform/i8042/serio1/input/input2

The "no controller found" bit is concerning and could be the issue, but I followed all the steps on the Arch Linux news update linked above, so I don't know how to get the controller. However, my keyboard does actually work in special circumstances.

But then I discovered, my keyboard and trackpad only work when there is a PCMCIA network card present and active. If I remove the PCMCIA card while booted, the keyboard will fail a few seconds after. The trackpad as well. However, even if I reboot without the PCMCIA card attached, the keyboard only works for a few seconds at login tty at best.

Another thing I noticed weird is the choppy nature of the trackpad. Even with the PCMCIA card in, the trackpad movement is incredibly choppy.

 Xinput test 

is showing very infrequent inputs. However my USB mouse works completely smooth. Furthermore, my USB mouse and keyboard will work 100% of the time.

Yet another oddity, it is not enough to simply have the PCMCIA card attached. An active network connection is needed for my keyboard to work. Unplugging the Ethernet cable from the PCMCIA card causes the keyboard to fail as well. It seems my PCMCIA refresh rate is attached to my keyboard refresh rate. Odd but makes some sense. Could explain why it fails that way and the trackpad choppiness. Any thoughts? I'm looking to recompile the kernel and maybe enable something missing. I'm willing to provide what more info is needed to address the problem.

Last edited by duox7142 (2015-10-18 21:30:23)