Thinkpads Forum

First,

Thanks Bill for the warm welcome.

My keyboard stopped working in XP. I installed (at least) 11 different versions of Linux and the keyboard worked in those operating systems. Can I get the keyboard to work in XP again?

Linux versions that I recorded:
- Fedora 6
- Unbreakable Linux (Oracle)
- CentOS
- Debian
- Vector Linux
- Slax
- Slackware
- Knoppix
- [censored] Small Linux
- Ubuntu
- CentOS

Also:
Windows XP - no keyboard
Windows 98 SE - trouble loading

What about Windows 2000?

In XP, have you tried using Software Installer to see if you had any missing drivers?

Spirit,

Thanks for the reply. I must admit that I'm completely unfamiliar with "Software Installer", unless you're referring to the Control Panel applet within XP. If you are talking about XP, I can't get to that applet as I can't create an account without using the keyboard.

Thanks

OK,
Lets do some troubleshooting
1) Can you get to the diagnostic screen at boot up?
Can you run the keyboard test from there... ruling out a Hardware problem

2) do you have an external keyboard? Plug it in and let XP detect it check out whether a driver problem exists

3) what is the exact config of your machine? a 600 seems a little underpowered for XP (check MS compatability list) DO you have enough RAM Hard disk space? What might be an apparent non functioning keyboard might be a "lag in response" from the OS.

4) Did you say win 98 had problems as well?

Does everything that worked still work .... maybe a coincidence Hardware failure at time of install?

ChefJohn,

Thanks for the response.

1) Can you get to the diagnostic screen at boot up? Yes.
Can you run the keyboard test from there... ruling out a Hardware problem? The keyboard passes the keyboard test.

2) do you have an external keyboard? Plug it in and let XP detect it check out whether a driver problem exists. I damaged the PS/2 keyboard port. It is completely unusable.

3) what is the exact config of your machine? a 600 seems a little underpowered for XP (check MS compatability list) DO you have enough RAM Hard disk space? What might be an apparent non functioning keyboard might be a "lag in response" from the OS.
This machine is an IBM Thinkpad 600, 2645-45U. It came with 128 MB of RAM (2 x 64), but I've upgraded it to 192 MB (128+64). 5GB HD, which I think is an IDE, but I really have no idea. I'm using the only USB port to control/power my logitech (external) mouse. I'm no longer using the trackpoint because of 8611 (I've become a master of switching 20h from 00 to 01...heh heh). CD/ROM, no floppy drive (wish I knew how to upgrade the BIOS).

I've been using XP SP2 on this machine for about six months and I only use it for surfing and for my http://www.selftestsoftware.com tests. If not for the latter, I'd just load a minimal Linux and be done with it (although, the versions of Linux that I've used so far aren't nearly as beautiful and/or fast as XP, but at least the keyboard works in Linux). I guess it is also worth mention that Crossover Office almost gets the job done in Linux, but not quite.

Imaginativeone wrote:1) Can you get to the diagnostic screen at boot up? Yes.
Can you run the keyboard test from there... ruling out a Hardware problem? The keyboard passes the keyboard test.

Following up on ChefJohn's sound troubleshooting advice, I would say that this sounds like a software/driver problem. But that is fairly rare in XP, since the Thinkpad keyboard is normally recognized automatically and uses a standard, built-in keyboard driver.

So, can I just doublecheck, can you use the keyboard in the "Easy-Setup" BIOS screens (you should be able to use TAB and ENTER and maybe the arrow keys to move around those screens?

You say that you get no keyboard in XP. It's not just a problem with NumLk or something, right? You mean that nothing works at all? What about the Fn+F keys (the special blue keys that control sleep, screen expansion, etc.). Also nada?

Can you try to "safe boot" XP, by pressing F8 during startup, after the memory post?

Phil.

pkiff wrote:

Imaginativeone wrote:1) Can you get to the diagnostic screen at boot up? Yes.
Can you run the keyboard test from there... ruling out a Hardware problem? The keyboard passes the keyboard test.

Following up on ChefJohn's sound troubleshooting advice, I would say that this sounds like a software/driver problem. But that is fairly rare in XP, since the Thinkpad keyboard is normally recognized automatically and uses a standard, built-in keyboard driver.

So, can I just doublecheck, can you use the keyboard in the "Easy-Setup" BIOS screens (you should be able to use TAB and ENTER and maybe the arrow keys to move around those screens?

You say that you get no keyboard in XP. It's not just a problem with NumLk or something, right? You mean that nothing works at all? What about the Fn+F keys (the special blue keys that control sleep, screen expansion, etc.). Also nada?

Can you try to "safe boot" XP, by pressing F8 during startup, after the memory post?

Phil.

Phil:

can you use the keyboard in the "Easy-Setup" BIOS screens (you should be able to use TAB and ENTER and maybe the arrow keys to move around those screens? Yes. I can navigate well within the Easy-Setup screens with the keyboard. Interestingly...the mouse doesn't work within the Easy-Setup BIOS screens (but that's okay).

You say that you get no keyboard in XP. It's not just a problem with NumLk or something, right? You mean that nothing works at all? What about the Fn+F keys (the special blue keys that control sleep, screen expansion, etc.). Also nada? That's right. I tested those key combinations carefully, to no avail.

Can you try to "safe boot" XP, by pressing F8 during startup, after the memory post? I can get to the Safe Mode by pressing F8, however, I haven't tried operating in Safe Mode yet. I'll have to try that when I get home.

Ok. I can get to Safe Mode, but there's no keyboard action once I get there.

you may have driver issues, check the settings in device Manager, Uninstall the Driver for it Reboot and Reinstall. Ensure it is enabled in windows. and if there is no keyboard installed Install the driver manually. there could also be an IRQ conflict, the Keyboard should Have an IRQ of 1, System Timer 0 to ensure priority over other Devices otherwise the device taking it's place would be taking over the cycles that recognize Keyboard input and the keyboard would be ignored. the Device manager should tell you of any conflicts with other hardware.

Also try a USB keyboard especially since the PS/2 port is for the mouse....

Right Click My computer->Properties->Hardware->Device Manager

ok... the server musta died right when i tried to post so heres again......

did you have any luck, i am curious about this strange incident

No luck, I'm installing XP for the 17th time. Windows 2000 was uninstallable, as was W98SE.

I tried every BIOS setting.

I uninstalled the keyboard driver and the system installed it back. Curious, I have no idea where that new driver came from; it wasn't from the CD.

There's a process of "reseating the [hardware] keyboard"...I'd love to try that at some point.

What are the details of reseating the keyboard?

An additional try of Knoppix is showing some promise.

jammerslong wrote:Also try a USB keyboard especially since the PS/2 port is for the mouse....

I can't tell if you've tried this. It's a good idea: XP can recognize a USB keyboard in time to use it for the login screen.

Imaginativeone wrote:What are the details of reseating the keyboard?

Details are listed with step-by-step diagrams in the Hardware Maintenance Manual (June 1999) - ThinkPad 600.

Imaginativeone wrote:This machine is an IBM Thinkpad 600, 2645-45U [...] (wish I knew how to upgrade the BIOS).

That is an old 600 model. If you are not running the latest BIOS then you may not be able to run XP reliably, regardless of whether you seemed to be able to run it okay before or not. Can you double check to see which BIOS version you've got? Here is a link to the latest version 1.22 - IBET54WW -- note that "(new) Support for Microsoft Windows XP" is specifically mentioned in the summary of changes: BIOS Update (Diskette) - ThinkPad 600.

Imaginativeone wrote:I'm no longer using the trackpoint because of 8611

A bit of a long shot here. Because the trackpoint is integrated into the Thinkpad 600 keyboard, whatever your hardware problem is with your trackpoint may be affecting your keyboard communications, even though your keyboard passes its own separate test. The method for testing this would be to obtain a second keyboard to replace your current one and then try to install again.

Imaginativeone wrote:I uninstalled the keyboard driver and the system installed it back. Curious, I have no idea where that new driver came from; it wasn't from the CD.

That is just one of the many default keyboard drivers that ships with XP. These drivers do indeed come from the XP CD, but during the installation of XP, a driver cache is created that includes all the drivers on your machine as well as a bunch of other ones that you probably won't ever need. Also, many laptop installations will include a complete copy of the core "i386" directory off of the XP CD. Your driver came from one of those places. And as a final suggestion, you might see if you can figure out a way to replace the driver file(s) with fresh copies, since that could also be causing your problem -- but since you can't log in, I would guess that you would need to install your drive in another computer to do this.

My best guess is that you are just running into an XP compatibility problem with your old BIOS. And there is no solution for that other than running Win2000 or Win98 instead.

Phil.

[quote="pkiff

Imaginativeone wrote:This machine is an IBM Thinkpad 600, 2645-45U [...] (wish I knew how to upgrade the BIOS).

That is an old 600 model. If you are not running the latest BIOS then you may not be able to run XP reliably, regardless of whether you seemed to be able to run it okay before or not. Can you double check to see which BIOS version you've got? Here is a link to the latest version 1.22 - IBET54WW -- note that "(new) Support for Microsoft Windows XP" is specifically mentioned in the summary of changes: BIOS Update (Diskette) - ThinkPad 600.[/quote]

I have to think Phil's onto something here - my 600's the same model as yours, and with the latest BIOS version, I ran the trial period for XP Pro with no keyboard issues.

Have a look at the link he gave for the update diskette - the instructions for updating the BIOS are very easy to follow (not much to them), but if you have any questions, let us know.