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Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,604

[SOLVED] Synaptics on Acer Aspire E11/V11 - i8042 detection problem

EDIT: Solved by blacklisting i2c_hid.

Greetings!

I recently bought a new Laptop (Acer Aspire E 11 E3-111-C6LG). I should have listened to all those reviews saying how Linux unfriendly the machine can be. However, I got a lot of things up and running so far. I am compiling a list of settings here and want to turn it into a wiki page eventually.

I am currently troubled by the touchpad. The problem is, that it is not recognized correctly and since it is a clickpad (I guess that's the name), the xorg config for synaptics devices does not want to catch it and all the settings are wrong (there is only one "button", that needs to be configured in a way that it causes a right click when the finger is on the right side of the lower part of the pad and so on).

xinput on a fresh and up to date Arch says:

⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SYN1B7D:01 06CB:2991 UNKNOWN              id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]

However, xinput on the current Ubuntu Live image does not agree:

⎡ Virtual core pointer                          id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad              id=12   [slave  pointer  (2)]

Let's see what the problem is in /proc:

$ grep -B 5 mouse /proc/bus/input/devices 
I: Bus=0018 Vendor=06cb Product=2991 Version=0100
N: Name="SYN1B7D:01 06CB:2991 UNKNOWN"
P: Phys=
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/80860F41:00/i2c-0/i2c-SYN1B7D:01/0018:06CB:2991.0002/input/input15
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=event9 mouse0

Once again, Ubuntu seems to have something else in mind:

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0002 Product=0007 Version=01b1
N: Name="SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio2/input0
S: Sysfs=/devices/platform/i8042/serio2/input/input11
U: Uniq=
H: Handlers=mouse0 event5 

If you wonder, why I keep telling you Ubuntu tales, it works flawlessly there.

There we have it, the visible link to i8042. What do we know about that? It is a controller for keyboards and mices. I assume is a PS/2 interface. What do we know about the touchpad? It works with the synaptics drivers, is connected with a PS/2 interface and is accessed with the i2c_hid kernel module (I know that, because I have to reload that module after suspending the laptop).

I have also already played with the different i8042 kernel options. i8042.nopnp seems to fix an issue with hibernation, but the recognition is still off. i8042.nomux did nothing, as far as I can tell.

This is my first dive into the entire kernel-detects-hardware story. Can anybody give me a push in the right direction? I know that I should probably check the patches applied to Ubuntu and the different kernel versions, but those are many many files and I have no idea where to start.

EDIT: More info... dmesg shows me that while booting:

[    0.455117] pnp 00:09: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs SYN1b7d PNP0c50 (active)
[    6.691228] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[    6.699089] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[    6.699991] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[    6.701731] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[    6.702742] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[    6.703144] input: SYN1B7D:01 06CB:2991 UNKNOWN as /devices/platform/80860F41:00/i2c-0/i2c-SYN1B7D:01/0018:06CB:2991.0001/input/input8
[    6.704289] hid-multitouch 0018:06CB:2991.0001: input,hidraw0: <UNKNOWN> HID v1.00 Mouse [SYN1B7D:01 06CB:2991] on 
[   27.067171] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[   27.075055] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[   27.076007] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[   27.076920] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[   27.077767] i2c_hid i2c-SYN1B7D:01: failed to retrieve report from device.
[   27.078010] input: SYN1B7D:01 06CB:2991 UNKNOWN as /devices/platform/80860F41:00/i2c-0/i2c-SYN1B7D:01/0018:06CB:2991.0002/input/input15
[   27.078476] hid-multitouch 0018:06CB:2991.0002: input,hidraw0: <UNKNOWN> HID v1.00 Mouse [SYN1B7D:01 06CB:2991] on 

Last edited by Awebb (2014-08-06 14:55:02)

d98jh

Member

Registered: 2014-08-05

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptics on Acer Aspire E11/V11 - i8042 detection problem

I have those same entries in dmesg on my V11 with kernel 3.16 as well.

Unfortunately it doesn't work flawlessly in Ubuntu either. I have a lot of cursor jumps that are quite annoying...

There seems to be quite a few i8402 kernel options. Have you tried the combo "i8042.nomux=1 i8042.reset" suggested here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/To … 775D_S7340 ?

d98jh

Member

Registered: 2014-08-05

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptics on Acer Aspire E11/V11 - i8042 detection problem

I've done some more digging and apparently the "solution" to make it work in Ubuntu 14.04 was to blacklist i2c_hid.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TrustyTahr/Rele … .04#Kernel

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,604

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptics on Acer Aspire E11/V11 - i8042 detection problem

You made my day! After blacklisting i2c_hid, the xinput output is fine and the touchpad works as expected. It even accepts synclient settings. However, on the Ubuntu live CD was no blacklist entry for i2c_hid, so they must have something else up their sleeve.

I will edit my other post regarding this device.

Did this solve the problem for you as well? Especially nomux should prevent your cursor from jumping around. Shall I mark the thread as solved or should I rename it to something more generic, as this appears to be a general i8402 issue?

d98jh

Member

Registered: 2014-08-05

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptics on Acer Aspire E11/V11 - i8042 detection problem

Did this solve the problem for you as well? Especially nomux should prevent your cursor from jumping around. Shall I mark the thread as solved or should I rename it to something more generic, as this appears to be a general i8402 issue?

I actually went back to the standard 3.13 kernel yesterday because I had some tearing in fullscreen video with the latest Intel drivers. So I haven't tried blacklisting i2c_hid yet. will probably try it out tonight though.

Will test the nomux kernel option then as well to see if that helps.

I'm just a simple Ubuntu user, so I leave it up to you to decide on the thread name issue.

It's great to see some other Linux users of the E11/V11 laptops. Gives me hope that all our issues will get resolved one way or another.

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,604

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptics on Acer Aspire E11/V11 - i8042 detection problem

Okay, I mark the thread as solved. I will still monitor it, if you still need help, I can un-mark it again.

titan-c

Member

From: Paris

Registered: 2014-03-30

Posts: 4

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Synaptics on Acer Aspire E11/V11 - i8042 detection problem

In my case, the touchpad works but it jumps quite suddenly. xinput does not recognize the touchpad properl, but it shows something is there like in the first post. If I remove i2c-hid or blacklist it. The touchpad stops working, and if I reload then the module I cannot get it to work again until the next reboot.