Hello,

My problem seems to be a pure hardware problem at first glance but I suspect a linux problem somehow.
Let me explain.

Scenario 1.
The computer is turned of. (e.g. it's been turned of for a day)
When I boot up my machine my mouse/keyboard doesn't work, not even in Grub. When I immediatly do a reboot my mouse/kb works again.

Scenario 2.
The computer is running. For some reason I need to do a reboot. After the reboot kb/mouse are not running (not even in the bios or grub). I do another reboot and it works.

This would seem to be a hardware problem but i've started getting this problem since I did my last SuSE upgrade.

I've turned my /var/log/messages file inside out but I found nothing that can explain this problem. It is a normal PS/2 mouse and a normal ps/2 keyboard. Nothing wireless, cordless or extraordinary.

Besides this strange behaviour I have absolutely no problem with them. When they work, they work perfectly. When they don't, i need to reboot and they work perfectly again. The problem only arises after (re)booting. It never just stops working when the system is running.

The problem seems very low level since I can't even access the BIOS.

I can give you all the technical specs / logfile extracts you require (i don't know which are relevant).

Is it possible that SuSE (or linux or grub or whatever) sets a certain (hardware) value in my system. My system boots, because of this value it (accidently) can't find the ps/2 devices. And by performing the second reboot this value gets erased and the keyboard/mouse works again.

It probably sounds way off but somehow it makes sense to me.


Kind regards,
r0ttie

I would check to make sure your cables are still good (wiring) .
This could be due to pin corruption.

I doubt very seriously it has anything to do with the OS.

Have you noticed this same effect in windows?

This could also be due to a faulty mothorboard.
Or an IRQ problem, although this is rare with ps/2 keybd/mice.

i think the guy from the first post is not going crazy just yet
i noticed the same thing happening to me sometimes......

i'm using Mandrake 10 on an HP pavilion ze4500, kernel 2.6.3-4mdk

oh... and i don know how i can get my touchpad scroll to work.... any suggestions ??

i had it going on 9.2 but i had to alter something in the XF86config but i don't remember what it was..... but was something like "emulatewheel" or something like that.....

please let me know if you can help.... thanks

Autopsy: The cables are fine. A reboot wouldn't work if they weren't (i think). I have no idea what you mean by pin-corruption.
I have no windows on my system (and proud of it). I recently booted my system with the mandrake install dvd and I had no problem. Unfortunatly, I have no spare HD to install mandrake to test if the probem persists.
IRQ problem: wouldn't I also notice this as strange behavor whilst working? All IRQ seems OK but I'll play a bit with this, you never know. I'll keep in touch.

Kidoido: the guy from the first post is a woman. (and no, that is not the reason of the problem!) :-P

Wait, so Ctrl-Alt-Del works, but no other key combinations do? Interesting...
I have no idea what your problem could be, although I'm going to take a wild guess and say it sounds like a BIOS issue if you can't even access CMOS. For your sake, I hope I'm wrong.
And yes, if it was an IRQ problem you should probably see something about it in your logs, at least.
Hope you get this problem resolved. My keyboard stopped working a couple months ago; turned out I had somehow fried the ps/2 port on this motherboard. Oh well, usb keyboard for me. Too bad I can't use it in LILO.

Hello "indeterminate".

The ctrl-alt-del was a confusing thing of me to say, i just meant a reboot.. (force of habit) Ctrl-alt-del does not react. I'll edit my original post to fix this.

It is indeed scary that at that point I can't even enter the BIOS but since after the reboot I can I'm pretty sure it's not a hardware issue. It really feels like the keyboard is disabled somehow when I do a linux shutdown. If - for example - I enter the BIOS and do a reboot from there the keyboard keeps working. It only happens when I do a shutdown from within Linux.

Reinstalling a new SuSe version solved this problem.
I still don't know what the cause was.