keyboard not working unless charger plugged in

zoran119 · 05-22-2010, 07:32 PM

hi people,

yeah... a strange one (for me at least)...

slackware 13.0, dell vostro 1320. when i start up the laptop without the ac charger plugged in the keyboard doesn't work. this is the case when booting into runlevel 3 and 4.

then after restarting 3 or 4 times and getting sick of it, i plug the charger in, restart, get to the login screen and confirm that the keyboard works, unplug the charger and it's all good.

i ssh into the laptop when the keyboard is not working and restart hald but it doesn't help...

btw, tried ubuntu and the problem wasn't there.

any idea what i can do?

zoran119 · 05-22-2010, 11:27 PM

i compared dmesg with charger and with no charger... the case with no charger is missing two lines (it's missing others but these are keyboard related)

Code:

serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /devices/platform/i8042/serio0/input/input1

zoran119 · 05-23-2010, 01:06 AM

and the solution comes from alphageek on irc (#slackware channel)

adding 'i8042.reset' to the kernel command line fixes the issue. more information here https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/62455/

to alphageek: thank you, thank you, thank you!

vehn · 05-24-2010, 04:19 AM

How long you test your laptop? I had the similar problem and adding this option (and other alike) has not helped me for a long time. Anyway, another solution:

You need compile CONFIG_SERIO_I8042=m as a module. To do this reconfigure your kernel source like below and recompile them.

Enable option:

Code:

General setup  --->[*] Configure standard kernel features (for small systems)

and compile CONFIG_SERIO_I8042 as module:

Code:

Device Drivers  --->
 Input device support  --->[*]   Keyboards (NEW)  --->
         <M>   AT keyboard

         Hardware I/O ports  --->
          {M}   i8042 PC Keyboard controller