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I’ve been looking through forums for days now without finding a solution. I have a ThinkPad P16s Gen 4 AMD this is my last hope to try and find a solution because even lenovo support isn't being much help.
The problem:
Randomly the keyboard stops responding entirely not even ctrl alt f3 works.
The trackpad still moves(sometimes) and clicking on the trackpad works(somtimes), but I can’t click(with buttons above trackpad) or type. If I plug in a usb keyboard, sometimes it works and sometimes the same keys are dead there too.
Only holding the power button to force a shutdown brings it back.
The setup:
Happens on arch and live booted ubuntu. but when i booted into ubuntu and killed my arch install it stopped.
BIOS R2XET35W (1.15) / EC firmware 1.08 (08-29-2025).
Kernel log shows:atkbd serio0: Unknown key pressed (raw set 2, code 0x0 on isa0060/serio0)
i am not super good with linux yet I got to a point where i was just trying stuff i saw on forums which were
i8042.nomux, i8042.reset, i8042.nopnp, i8042.dumbkbd, atkbd.reset
blacklisting thinkpad_acpi
it also happens in the Arch LTS kernel
full firmware updates with fwupdmgr
setkeycodes 00 255
none of it changed anything.
Only things that worked besides shutting it down was using the reset button on the back when i was booted into ubuntu. I think something on arch is triggering a EC bug and i havent the slightest idea what it might be. coming here in hopes of a potential fix so i dont have to use a different distro.
any insight would be nice and i can do the research if anyone has a direction.
disclaimer: it is not currently booted into arch since i needed it working for school and couldnt dual boot without the issue occurring.
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hi. you can diff/compare arch and ubuntu's /proc/config.gz ' s or the ones provided by kernel package for interesting parts(eg CONFIG_ACPI_EC)
You may wants to look at ubuntu's :
/sys/module{i8042, atkbd}/parameters/*
/proc/cmdline
and apply ones that make sense.
You can try to disable EC via acpi_call or like.
Last edited by unixman (2025-10-24 07:28:55)
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hello! thanks for the direction, i ended up digging into it.
i went on ubuntu and arch and found that ubuntu has CONFIG_KEYBOARD_ATKBD=y and CONFIG_SERIO_I8042=y, but it seems to load them earlier and with safer defaults. i was using systemd-boot before and probably had it configured wrong, but i’m on grub now and added:
i8042.nomux i8042.noloop i8042.reset atkbd.reset atkbd.softraw=0
to the kernel line. it hasn’t bricked yet, but i just got it working a bit ago, so i’ll keep testing.
it looks like it was a timing difference, ubuntu applies earlier than arch.
thanks again for pointing me in the right direction. seems like a firmware/EC problem with newer kernels, thankfully not hardware.
i’ll mark this solved tomorrow if i can’t get it to brick again by then.
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PS: CONFIG_XXXX=y yes means it is as BUILTIN not as loadable module,
and builtins configured early as you quess.
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