Keyboard and Touchpad unresponsive at boot - SOMETIMES

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uvajed

Keyboard and Touchpad unresponsive at boot - SOMETIMES

Post by uvajed »

Hi folks, I've tried searching for everything I could think of to find answers to the issues I'm having, but I haven't been able to find anyone with the same identical problem. Some folks have problems that seem somewhat similar but not the same, and I'm really stumped now. Plus I didn't want to thread jack with a different problem, so I hope this post is not uncalled for.

The machine in question is a new Toshiba laptop, L775-S7222 with AMD A6. Windows runs fine, or as well as you can expect it to. Mint however does not act consistently. Sometimes it will boot okay and I can use the system normally. Other times the keyboard and touchpad do not work at all, and my only choice is to hold down the power button and reboot. Usually a reboot gets the keyboard/touchpad working, sometimes it does not. When a reboot or three does not work, I boot into recovery mode, which usually works okay (once or twice it did not), then I can reboot normally -- sometimes!

I am about ready to resort to casting spells and doing voodoo, since there does not appear to be any rhyme or reason to when the laptop will boot okay and when it will not. I am running LMDE 64-bit, and the problems pop-up with both the lastest 3.0.x and 2.x kernels. Reinstalls have no effect, and all available updates have been applied. BIOS is up to date. The oddest part is the unpredictability of the problem, and that when everything works, it is stable. (My keyboard does not stop working 10 or however many minutes into a session, like it does for some people - if it works to log in, it keeps working.)

Some other info that may or may not be related or helpful:
The machine resets rather than powering off if plugged in when I tell it to shut down, but will shut down normally on battery power.
The system will not suspend properly - it looks like it goes to sleep but will not resume and requires a reboot.
The function keys to control volume do not work properly - they bring up a graphic on screen but the volume does not actually change.

Thanks for any thoughts you might have. I am quite fond of LMDE and would hate to have to switch to anything else.

-uvajed
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
jlahmeyer

Re: Keyboard and Touchpad unresponsive at boot - SOMETIMES

Post by jlahmeyer »

Well, I just came across your post this year. I'm so sorry I don't know the answer. But your not the only one! I have an Acer Aspire 7250 and sometimes my keyboard doesn't work after booting the computer. Now I never tried the touch pad. I thought I was the only one.
ddurdle
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Re: Keyboard and Touchpad unresponsive at boot - SOMETIMES

Post by ddurdle »

I had some weird issues as well with keyboards and touchpads on a few laptops. I have, or reasonably believe so, that the issue that I'm facing (which sounds very similar to yours) is actually related to the power management settings for these devices. I've found that if blacklist these devices in the acpi then I have not encountered a single issue.

On one of my ultrabooks, it was happening up to 3 times a day, and it was royally a pain, because I couldn't power off the system after it happens. I would need to open it up (while still on) and pull the leads from the battery to the motherboard. However, since blacklisting which devices I was suspecting to causing this, I have not encountered this problem again.

On another laptop, only happens when using a usb keyboard with touchpad. Freezes on bootup, and on powerdown/shutdown/suspend etc. I had noticed that if I pull out the usb keyboard before powerdown/shutdown/suspend and don't have it plugged in at start up, there was no issue.

Can you tell me what kernel you are using? I do believe that this issue is related to the kernel. I'm actually using 3.4-3.7 on all my systems. Most of the keyboard and touchpad issues only happen (to me) with 3.4+. I wasn't able to test the ultrabook's touchpad/keyboard problem in versions less than 3.4 because the ivy bridge is not working on 3.3 and 3.2 that I tested with.
Stimpeh

Re: Keyboard and Touchpad unresponsive at boot - SOMETIMES

Post by Stimpeh »

Me too i have this problem on an aspire 7250 which is VERY annoying...yes, it might be power related because just now i had to boot up three times because i powered on without the power supply plugged in...but it's not just that: it's random...just like the original poster of this topic stated.

mine runs kernel 3.5.0-23 for linux mint 14, but i had the same issues with my old 12.04 (which was the first OS on this system, that is to say i bought it with Linpus pre-installed)...never had windows so i don't know about that for this machine.

what's this about blacklisting stuff in the acpi?

I'd REALLY like to solve this problem because otherwise I love linux mint...however it's getting to a point where I say, how's about windows? :D lol, no..kidding, never! ;)

edit: didn't realise i'm in the LMDE forum, mine's a Cinnamon distro, but I don't think that makes any difference..
uvajed

Re: Keyboard and Touchpad unresponsive at boot - SOMETIMES

Post by uvajed »

Yes, bumping a 2 year-old thread, because the same problem persists. I recently applied UP 7 for LMDE, with a few hiccups, and I am sad (but not surprised) to say that the annoyance I mentioned above has never gone away. There are no firmware updates for the laptop, and it still has trouble booting - sometimes. I have to boot to WIndows 7 once in a while, which always goes perfectly (except that I end up in WIndows!). However, when booting to LMDE (tried Main, same problem) sometimes the keyboard and touchpad are unresponsive after selecting an installation from GRUB.

What really kills me about this, and keeps me looking for a solution, is that the problem is inconsistent. Some boots go smoothly, some do not. I can boot ten times in a row without issue, sometimes, and other times I have have to power cycle the laptop three times in a row to get the keyboard and touchpad to work. Sometimes this problem occurs on unplugged on battery power but more often when plugged in.

Sorry for bringing up an old problem with 2+ year-old hardware, but it really bugs me that the problem is so inconsistent yet long lasting.
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