PS/2 peripherals
Rick Stevens
rstevens at vitalstream.com
Tue Mar 6 18:51:08 UTC 2007
On Tue, 2007-03-06 at 09:52 -0800, Gareth Howlett wrote:
> Gareth Howlett wrote:
> >
> >
> > We've got a number of computers sitting around the office that don't
> > detect PS/2 peripherals when plugged-in. If they were plugged-in
> during
> > boot they work just fine, but if they were plugged-in after boot they
> don't.
> >
> > 1) Anyone here ever heard of this before?
> >
> > 2) Is there anything I can do about it (force a kernel
> re-detect?)
> >
> >
> >
> > I've checked the BIOS settings and I'm using FC4 (2.6.12-1.1447).
> Dmesg
> > and /var/log/messages don't display anything relevant (in the
> after-boot
> > case).
> >
> First of all, most (all) PS/2 devices are not designed to be
> hotplugged. Depending on the BIOS, it may disable the PS/2 mouse
> connection if there is not a mouse plugged in at boot. There may be
> a BIOS setting for this. But if I remember correctly, this is a
> choice of off or auto.
>
> Depending on your hardware, you may also be running the risk of
> destroying the PS/2 device or motherboard circuitry.
>
> Mikkel
> --
>
> Its likely that you have blown the ps2 ports by hot plugging. The bios
> will
> only report whats plugged into them durring the post test, so if you
> plug in
> a mouse or key board after the post test has finished the biosdoes not
> see
> them
>
> --
>
>
> They aren't blown... just unresponsive until after reboot. I had
> imagined it was much like Mikkel said but I wanted to confirm my
> suspicions. It's really too bad there isn't a way to ask BIOS to search
> again. Anyway, no big deal - I figure we've got two options...
>
> - Live with it.
>
> - Find a PS/2 adapter which always shows a peripheral connected (I know
> they exist for monitor connections).
Third option, edit /etc/sysconfig/kudzu and set "SAFE=yes". This
disables PS/2 probes (and some other stuff). It's worth a try, anyway.
Fourth option, use USB keyboards and mice to get around the issue. Make
sure you have "legacy" USB support turned on in the BIOS.
> And a note for next time - make sure we have enough PS/2 ports and base
> our KVM on it as well.
If you can, that'll work. We have 1400 servers so that's not an option
with us. The kudzu poke fixes a lot of our issues, the USB stuff fixes
even more and is the only way to get around Windows booting without PS/2
peripherals plugged in. Our crash carts use USB keyboards and mice
along with the USB-PS/2 adapters that come with them. Our rule is "try
the PS/2 stuff first, then try the USB".
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc. http://www.vitalstream.com -
- -
- Never put off 'til tommorrow what you can forget altogether! -
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