Arch Linux

milomouse

Member

Registered: 2009-03-24

Posts: 940

Website

[SOLVED] Laptop keyboard stopped working. Not even in BIOs or LiveCd..

Solution posted below, in #3
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ORIGINAL POST
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Ok, so, my laptop seems fried in the sense that I cannot type with the keyboard no matter what media I use. I've tried LiveCDs, LiveUSB images, my regular internal HDD..   nothing seems to work.

History of Issue:  I did a fresh install and immediately installed the kernel26-bfs kernel image. All went well. I tested a few things and did another fresh install (just because I like having a clean slate when experimenting) and installed the kernel26-bfs kernel image again. All seemed fine. Rebooted, shutdown and power upped a few times. Still good, so I shut down the laptop for the day and went to bed. (changed NO config files) Next morning I woke up and turned on the computer, which took a lot longer than usual. I found that when prompted at Lilo boot screen I couldn't type "bfs" (my kernel image named) but it ended up booting it anyway (after 50 seconds) since it was my default image. During the startup sequence it freaks out and kernel panics, trying to look for "device 802", whatever the heck that is. I don't know where it got that from since I had rebooted, etc, the previous day where it looked for "device /dev/sda2".  So it shows a bunch of "kernel panic" lines and comes to a halt.

Here's what it says when it boots, where the errors come in:

Waiting 10 seconds for device 802..
Root device '802' doesn't exist. Attempting to create it
/bin/mknod /dev/root b 8 2
:: Initramfs Completed - control passing to kinit
IP-Config: no device to configure
Waiting 0 s before mounting root device...
kinit: Unable to mount root fs on device dev(8,2)
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
Pid: 1, comm: kinit Not tainted 2.6.30-ARCH #1
Call Trace:
[<ffffffff8054d401>] ? panic+0x9a/0x154
[<ffffffff8025b59c>] ? exit_ptrace+0xbc/0x160
[<ffffffff80253be2>] ? do_exit+0x6f2/0x7d0
[<ffffffff80253df2>] ? sys_exit+0x22/0x30
[<ffffffff8020c442>] ? system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b

That's what the kernel says, anyway. This could be the issue for my HARDWARE? Even without trying to boot Arch, I'm still unable to type. So,....

Anyway, I manually had to power down my laptop and I put in a LiveCD (Knoppix), it still wouldn't let me type with my keyboard, so I had to manually power down again. I tried the Arch LiveUSB image. Still nothing. I tried everything I could think of. I can't even hit the F9, F10, etc, keys during laptop start to enter my BIOS. I noticed a weird delay that I never had before. Usually when I start my laptop it would show the Hewlett-Packard BIOS Help screen immediately, but during that first morning when things went awry, it delays about 10-15 whole seconds before showing the HP screen.

SO, my question is...  does it seem like my laptop had a hardware failure? Or do you think my MBR was seriously 'harmed' somehow? I can't access any log files seeing as I can't TYPE anything on that laptop. So, I'm kind of screwed when it comes to providing detail. I've had this laptop about 8 months, new w/o box, or so they say..   I may end up getting a new laptop if I can't fix this.

Last edited by milomouse (2009-11-23 20:24:10)

MadTux

Member

Registered: 2009-09-20

Posts: 553

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop keyboard stopped working. Not even in BIOs or LiveCd..

At first sight it looks like a hardware failure, since it occurs with other live media (which makes the mbr theory somewhat obsolete).
What I would do in that case is unplug the laptop from the wall outlet, remove the battery and leave it so for a couple of minutes. What you could also check is if the cable connection between keyboard and motherboard is ok (only do that if you are capable enough since it almost always involves opening the laptop).
After that insert the battery, connect everything and try to start the laptop.

milomouse

Member

Registered: 2009-03-24

Posts: 940

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Laptop keyboard stopped working. Not even in BIOs or LiveCd..

Ok, I guess it was a BIOS and/or motherboard related issue. How I solved this (for future readers of this issue) is by taking out the battery-pack and leaving it out for about 5 minutes, then, right before I put the battery-pack back in, I hold the Power button on my laptop (without the battery in it) for about 30 seconds, then I put the battery-pack into my laptop again and Power it on. The laptop boots quickly and I'm able to use keyboard again to enter BIOs and/or enter my Arch partition using LiLo. This solution was a way of resetting the motherboard.

I'm marking this solved as this solution solved my situation. May not be for everyone. Thanks for your help MadTux. Topic can be closed if needed.

Last edited by milomouse (2009-11-23 20:29:34)