Subj : Re: Help in diagnosing keyboard problem?
To   : comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help
From : eric
Date : Thu Jul 22 2004 08:39 pm

Brendan S (Scratch User) wrote:
>Hi
>
>I recently installed a new motherboard/processor (gigabyte 8knxp/P4 3.0G) on my RH9 distribution and ever since I have been having an intermittant keyboard problem. I was on the standard kernel, but upgraded to 2.4.20-31.9smp. That helped a bit, but the problem still occurs.  The one custom module I use is iteraid.o, which is needed to access the ATA drives on the 8knxp.
>
>The problem is this:
>(a) once or twice a day my keyboard will do one of the following:
>(b) act as if the control key is held down (each key press/mouse click becomes ctrl-key or ctrl-click)
<snip other weirdness>
>I think this is a problem with the input driver.  Any ideas about what I could try in diagnosing the cause of this/who I can talk to to find a solution would be appreciated.

This occasionally happens to me on my Toshiba Satellite A30.
I'm not exactly sure what causes it, but I have found that
CTRL+ALT+F1-ing into text mode (or in that case, ALT+F1-ing ;)
and then back into X resolves the issue.

Worthy of note, is that this has never happened to me while
using Solaris on the same laptop (which uses Xsun, a derivative
of Xorg).  Apparently XFree86 accesses keyboard hardware
directly (see the "atkbd.c: unknown key released - XFree86
shouldn't access hardware directly" bug), so the two combined
lead me to believe it's an XFree86 thing.

HTH,
-- 
Eric Enright                   /"\
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