From owner-freebsd-current Fri Mar 10 18: 0:19 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from ren.sasknow.com (h139-142-245-96.ss.fiberone.net [139.142.245.96]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4FD1937BCF1 for ; Fri, 10 Mar 2000 18:00:15 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from ryan@sasknow.com) Received: from localhost (ryan@localhost) by ren.sasknow.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA09330; Fri, 10 Mar 2000 20:00:13 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from ryan@sasknow.com) Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2000 20:00:13 -0600 (CST) From: Ryan Thompson To: Kazutaka YOKOTA Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Keyboard troubles In-Reply-To: <200003110130.KAA10812@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp> Message-ID: Organization: SaskNow Technologies [www.sasknow.com] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Kazutaka YOKOTA wrote to Ryan Thompson: > It sounds like the keyboard interface of your motherboard has somewhat > become flaky; it may even be broken. > > It is NOT recommended that you attach or detach the keyboard while the > power is on. The keyboard interface of the PC motherboard is not > designed for hot-plugging/unplugging. It is too easy to fry the > keyboard interface and/or controller by doing so. 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). 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. > 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. 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. Thanks for the info. When I have another $500 burning a hole in my checkbook, I will probably order another keyboard, just so I have another one, if nothing else. :-) - Ryan -- Ryan Thompson Systems Administrator, Accounts Phone: +1 (306) 664-1161 SaskNow Technologies http://www.sasknow.com #106-380 3120 8th St E Saskatoon, SK S7H 0W2 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message