Arch Linux

ajd

Member

Registered: 2008-12-18

Posts: 11

Intermittant keyboard error

Hi,

Since I started using Arch a couple of months ago, I have had a problem with my keyboard occasionally not working on startup. It usually works perfectly, but about 1 out of every 10 or so boots, it just doesn't respond at all. I can select options on the Grub menu, but when Arch starts up, I cannot type anything and therefore cannot log in or do anything; the only option is to do a hard reboot from the power button.

Perhaps of note is that the system is not completely unresponsive; when I touch the power button, the system will come back from its screensaver if it had gone into screensaver state. So it seems like the problem is definitely in keyboard detection: it's not like the system has just locked up.

This is not within X11, it is on the console.

I have gone through several kernel/system upgrades; the problem has persisted intermittently through all of them.

I realize that this is a hard problem to diagnose because it cannot easily be reproduced, but I would be very appreciative if someone could tell me if this is a known problem (Google has not helped me ) or point me towards finding and fixing the problem.

Thank you all very much!

deej

Member

Registered: 2008-02-08

Posts: 395

Re: Intermittant keyboard error

Mmmm... is it a PS/2 or USB keyboard ?
Are you using the 'generic 104-key PC' driver or 'evdev-managed keyboard' ?
In kde this will be in 'System Settings' -> 'Regional and Language' -> 'Keyboard Layout'

I love these types of problem

Deej

ajd

Member

Registered: 2008-12-18

Posts: 11

Re: Intermittant keyboard error

It's a PS/2 keyboard. It looks like I'm using evdev: I'm not in KDE, but lsmod lists "evdev" as a loaded module, so I assume that's what I've got.

Thanks for helping.

deej

Member

Registered: 2008-02-08

Posts: 395

Re: Intermittant keyboard error

Can I draw your attention to this, from the Mandriva forum:

http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=72254

... seems odd, I know, but maybe worth a try - if you can.

Deej

ajd

Member

Registered: 2008-12-18

Posts: 11

Re: Intermittant keyboard error

Hm. Thanks for the link. That definitely seems to be the same problem. I already had my USB mouse plugged into a USB hub, but I'll try switching the ports and seeing if that ends up working.