I recently acquired a non-working laptop (Toshiba Satellite L100-113).
I got it working again, and decided to install Fedora...
When I came to reboot, I found the keyboard was not working.
Bit of a pig because I'd only installed a minimal system so I was stuck at the command line.

I can't see any way that the software could break the hardware, so I'm putting it down to coincidence, but I might be wrong.

I also find it suspect that the whole keyboard died all at once. Is there a keyboard controller chip that might have blown?

- There is a controller chip
- The keyboard is connected through a "bus" using very few lines, that could also be interrupted

But I think MOST likely is just a hung-up firmware. Did you try pulling the plug AND removing the battery and just waiting several minutes?

Hmmm. Not several minutes, no. I'll try that and let you know...

Plug in an external keyboard.

I would be willing to bet that there is no way to damage a keyboard or onboard keyboard chipset by any software even made. They are usually part of another chip but even so you can't damage it either. Sure you can hit it or esd it or maybe over power or short it or such but no software could damage it.


Simple enough to try to access bios at boot to see if it works at all.

Although extremely unlikely, it's not entirely impossible to destroy hardware using software, because software can by trigger a hardware/firmware bug:

http://www.mail-archive.com/trilug@t.../msg13132.html

Of course, you're right, a keyboard is definitely a much to "simple" device to imagine things like this

Is what I'm talking to you now with.
Yes it is, and no it doesn't.

Well if it still doesn't do anything after disconnecting power for some time, it's most definitely a hardware problem and as I wrote earlier, software killing a /keyboard/ is highly improbable. I'd suggest opening the case and looking for an "obvious" error like a loose connector and if you don't see anything, no idea what else to try, sorry.

I quite agree. I did say at the start it was most likely coincidence.
I've got to the keyboard connector to the board and that seems secure.
Being a laptop, it's not too easy to open it any further than that... though looking at the layer of dust on bits of it I think I should try to just so I can clean it.
I'll probably gamble on a replacement keyboard. They're not that dear and I can always throw it back on eBay if that's not it.

Thanks for the input.