Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2000 11:33:04 +0900 From: Kazutaka YOKOTA <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp> To: Ryan Thompson <ryan@sasknow.com> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org, yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp Subject: Re: Keyboard troubles Message-ID: <200003110233.LAA11987@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 10 Mar 2000 20:00:13 CST." <Pine.BSF.4.21.0003101931290.8418-100000@ren.sasknow.com> References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0003101931290.8418-100000@ren.sasknow.com>
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>I don't make a habit of keyboard swapping, and I HAVE experienced some >minor glitches before (such as weird scan codes being sent, or the state >of caps lock changing). You have been lucky that you didn't broke the motherboard when swapping the keyboard. The fact that you only had minor problems does not mean the rest of the world should be Ok too. >In any case, though, a keyboard reset or even >just a few key presses would fix. In the last 10 years, I have NEVER had >to reboot a system because they keyboard wasn't responding. Well, as I wrote before, I suspect that the keyboard interface of your motherboard is becoming flaky. This is a hardware problem, rather than software. It is not certainly the FreeBSD boot loader problem as it relies on the BIOS to detect the presense of the keyboard. >> Even if the keyboard interface survives hot-plugging, there is no >> assurance that the keyboard and the keyboard controller on the >> motherboard can communicate properly after hot-plugging; they are >> simply not designed to cope with such situation. >> >> I personally know a couple of people who broke their motherboard this >> way. > >Bummer for them.. Really, though, I would rather fry a $200 motherboard >than my $500CDN keyboard (my fingers have developed expensive tastes). >:-) None of my motherboard documentation warns agains swapping keyboards, >either. That doens't mean the motherboard manufacturer recommend keyboard swapping :-) I certainly don't like the idea that we encourage users something which may break their motherboard. I will tell more. Many motherboard, if not all, has a small fuse around the keyboard connector. This fuse will burn if large current runs in the keyboard interface. This may happen when you hot-plug/unplug the keyboard. The trouble is that this fuse cannot be easily replaced on many motherboard. Some old motherboards have a socketed fuse, so it's not hard to replace it (but it is still a hassle for non-engineering type folks). Many recent motherboard has the fuse SOLDERED on the motherboard, and the fuse itself is a small chip. This makes it hard for us to identify the fuse and repair it when it goes off. It is certainly unreasonable to assume any user can fix it himself. >In any case, I never had problems swapping keyboards between prior FreeBSD >releases, other UNIX platforms, Windows machines, DOS machines. Hell, >even my old Nintendo never complained if you plugged in a different >controller while it was powered on. :-) I was just wondering if >something had been done to 4.0 that didn't handle this situation like >previous releases. Nothing changed in the 4.0 boot loader. # Other UNIX boxes and the Nintendo game console are not relevant here. # They use different keyboard interface circuit. Kazu To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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