Problem
The laptop’s keyboard works properly when the computer on first boots up, but if the computer enters any kind of low power state (i.e. goes to sleep, restarts, or shuts down) while still having a charged battery/power source plugged in then the keyboard stops working (even in the BIOS), except the backlight works and the brightness/accessory keys work. This problem persists in both windows and linux distros. On NixOS, the booting sequence messages a couple ACPI BIOS errors before starting and occasionally the kernel sends usb errors (error -71) which then crashes the desktop environment. When using ‘showkey’, some keys send very weird key presses.
What I’ve Tried
- multiple Operating Systems
- updating the BIOS, then flashing it back
- unplugging the keyboard from the motherboard, then replugging it
No I meant draining the battery completely, you should be able to achieve the same result by disconnecting the battery if it’s in an accessible location
Oh yea, I have completely disconnected the battery, the problem still persists. This becomes especially a problem with distros that have menu in the bootloader because the keyboard will only work in the bootloader then stop working in the os itself.
We’ll, the next step is ripping out the keyboard, it would be interesting to see if it boots and works fine with the internal kB disconnected and an external kB connected. That is, is it something on the keyboard that’s screwing with the USB or is it the USB itself. I once had a laptop (I think it was actually a Lenovo) that you could remove the keyboard from the top with a small probe, not so common these days. The mb should come off relatively easy. You could replace your thermal pastes while you’ve got everything dismantled.
Well Windows, the default OS, works normally with the external keyboard (even though one usb port doesn’t work with keyboards, works with anything else though).
However, Linux doesn’t get past starting systemd.
I take it that’s with the built in keyboard still connected?
No, that’s with the keyboard disconnected and the external connected.
When keyborad is connected, linux launches fine and has usb errors, and the external works as well.
That’s bizarre, I’m surprised Linux is unable to deal with the disconnected internal kB, what’s the systemd error before it packs it in?
You should be able to boot with the intkb disconnected to failure then switch off, reconnect the intkb, boot normally then use jounald to see the last boot logs.
When it boots to windows with only the extkb connected, does the extkB still fail following sleep?
it doesn’t give an error, it just says ‘starting systemd udevd’ and then hangs for a long time. It becomes completely unresponsive and I have to unplug it to get it working.
In windows, no, the external keyboard works regardless.
I would have thought the logs would share more than that.
The weird Linux function aside, sounds there’s something in the intkb that’s toast. There seems to be a firmware update for that kB, have you tried updating that (or rolling it back)?