I have an older (Pentium III) motherboard that I recently revived to run OpenSUSE 13.2 as a server (no GUI).

One problem I've run into since setting this system up is that I cannot access certain keys on the keyboard (IBM Model M) that is connected to this system through a KVM. I've had zero problems with the systems being connected to the KVM in the past. With this 13.2 system, though, I'm unable to use the pipe symbol ("|") and I cannot access any virtual consoles -- except for the one that I'm left with after the boot process has completed. Since the pipe symbol is not accessible, I'm wondering if the Ctrl or Alt keys are also not being recognized.

This is the first version I've gotten 13.2 installed on and it uses `systemd' far more than the previous OpenSUSE versions I've used so, even though I've never heard of it being necessary to manually configure the virtual consoles, I wouldn't be all that surprised if this is a new "feature". If I need to set up consoles, then so be it.

Not having the pipe symbol available is a real productivity killer, though, as my plans for this system involved all work being done via the command line. (UNIX/Linux without pipes is unacceptable.)

Can anyone suggest what might be going on with 13.2 that it doesn't recognize everything on the keyboard?

Note: I have not tried removing the KVM from the picture yet. If that solves this problem, though, it leaves me with a much bigger problem: while I might have enough keyboards to connect to each system currently connected to the KVM, I don't have enough mice to equip each system. (And, actually, really not enough space for all those extra keyboards if 13.2 is going to misbehave when it sees a KVM.)

Anyone else run into something like this? Got any potential fixes I can try?

TIA...

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Rick

Hi,

Regarding the pipe symbol, what happens when you try and type it? Do you get no response, or does it produce some other character? Do all the other keys work as they should (i.e. produce the correct characters, both in normal mode and with SHIFT depressed)?

I would suggest that you remove the KVM from the equation temporarily, just to confirm or eliminate it as the source of the problem.

Regards,

Clifford

Nothing is echoed though the cursor does move to tell me that the system at least recognized that something was typed.

I haven't tried every key combination. I'm wondering if there isn't something weird like the system assuming that I'm using a 100-key keyboard when I'm really using a 101-key keyboard. I haven't seen a place to specify the keyboard type either in YaST or the sysconfig editor. If I were running X11 on this system, I could run `xev' to report back the keycode for each key depressed. (I'd probably have to write a little C program to get that same feedback on a console.)

That was on my list of things to do yesterday but other "emergencies" came up. I'll try that later today and report back.

Later...

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Rick

OK...

I didn't try every key combination but there were enough that were not working -- Ctrl didn't work, for example, which explains why I couldn't switch consoles. CapsLock was acting up, the CapsLock LED was lit continuously no matter how many times I pressed that key. In short, things were bad and getting worse (it seemed).

So... I shut down, I moved the keyboard from the KVM directly to the 13.2 m'board. After booting back up, everything's working. Bad KVM port? Well, I moved the keyboard back to the KVM and moved the cable from the system to a different KVM port. Everything worked. Again, bad KVM port? Well I moved the cable for a sandbox system (one I've been using to test hardware in, wipe old disk drives, etc. -- not running 13.2, BTW) to the KVM port that the 13.2 system wasn't working on and... Hmm... Everything worked. Now I'm left scratching my head as to what was the deal with the 13.2 system and that KVM port. (What's the phase of the moon?)

I'm not ready to close this out yet. Still want to try a couple of other configurations but it's starting to look it was just "one of those things". Flaky KVM cable? Who knows...

Later...

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Rick

I've experienced a caps lock LED on continuously, turned out to be an overheating and failing laptop external battery pack. Vacuuming the laptop vents fixed the overheating problem. Then it just complained about the battery. Could be some intermittent hardware failure. What is the error code for caps LED on continuously on your computer? This may help troubleshoot.

Not sure what you mean about the error code. All I got was an LED that wouldn't turn off and CapsLock being stuck "on". I was typing just fine, accidently hit CapsLock, and couldn't turn it off. The problem disappeared when I switched KVM ports. The system that I moved onto that KVM port didn't show any signs of keyboard problems.

The system that I'd been seeing the keyboard problems on is a desktop system so I'm not sure what sort of overheating could have been occurring. There is plenty of airflow through the case (Antec).

I did check to see if any of the m'board capacitors appeared to be shot. The last couple of times I've had a system begin having odd, intermittent problems it turned out that one or more of the capacitors was going "bad". None of them on the system running 13.2 showed any of the tell-tale signs of failure like bulging tops. I had an almost identical board go bad not too long ago with bad caps. If I can avoid them, no more m'boards with can-type, electolytic capacitors. They don't last.

I've been working on that 13.2 system most of the day and haven't had any more keyboard "weirdness" since changing KVM ports. So far, so good. I still want to swap KVM cables between a couple of systems and see if the problem recurs.

Probably irrelevant, just sometimes things like Caps remaining on or computer beeps can indicate a hardware issue. Three beeps mean a particular error code for that computer for example.

There were no beep codes heard when the keyboard was acting up. Don't most "beep codes" occur as part of the POST? The system was through the boot phase and running when the keyboard weirdness (technical term ) was seen; well past the point when any beeping would normally have indicated some sort of hardware problem.

BTW, I haven't had any more trouble after cabling the KVM connections. While I don't have a definitive answer to exactly what was causing the keyboard problems, the process of trying to isolate the source of the problem seems to have been sufficuent to fix it. Was it an "iffy" connection that was resolved by reseating one of the cables? Not sure why a connection that hasn't been touched for a long time would suddenly decide it's time to create mischief but if it recurs, I'll know what to try, I guess.

Later...