Pg Up key does not work in X (Acer Aspire 5750)
 

I have an Acer Aspire 5742 that has Slackware 13.37. Never had any problems with X on it. I am trying to install Slackware onto a newly purchased Acer Aspire 5750 and the Pg Up key is not recognized by the Xorg server. It works normally in a console (tty), but in X it does not do anything and xev doesn't pick it up. As far as I can tell, both laptops are configured the same. X worked right out of the box on both machines (except for the Pg Up issue). On the 5742 I had to install NVIDIA drivers but I assume NVIDIA's setup utility did not change keyboard settings.

Any ideas with regards to what is causing the problem?

Do you have the same issue if you try different DE/WM (Kde, Xfce, fluxbox...)? I have seen some keys not working in Enlightenment 17 after using its layout switching gadget

Well the NVIDIA setup utility does generate its own xorg.conf file, but i don't know if it takes the keyboard section from the old conf or generates its own, so I guess it's worth checking.

I know that this thread has been dead for a while, but in the interest of public knowledge I'd like to post the solution. This applies to the Acer 5750G and specifically to the PageUp key bug.

The problem is not X or Linux(it shows the same behavior on Windows, only there the bug is impossible to notice because of how Windows treats key events), it's the BIOS of the laptop. It doesn't generate the correct keycode on release of the pageUp key(instead of 33 or whatever it is it generates 255, which is unknown key). That's why the laptop behaves like you kept PageUp pressed and scrolls to infinity.

Solution? Go here: http://support.acer.com/product/defa...x?modelId=3475 and update your BIOS version to at least 1.20, and the bug will go away. You will need DOS or Windows for that.

A word of advice: updating the BIOS carries the slight chance of bricking the laptop. Please inform yourself and know what you're doing. You're doing it on your *own* responsibility.