[ltp] T40 and USB 2.0 (and keyboard)

[Joel Ebel]

I haven't had any problems with the keyboard at all.  I recently started 
having a problem with the middle mouse button.  It will act as though it 
stay depressed after clicking it.  It doesn't feel like a mechanical 
error, because the button comes back up.  I imagine its a logic error, 
or something inside the switch.  Right clicking always seems to release 
the middle button.  In any case, I called IBM, and a new keyboard will 
be here tomorrow.  I'd been looking for a reason to get a new keyboard 
for a while now.  I realized that the strip containing the power and 
volume buttons wasn't shiny in new versions of the laptop.  That had 
always bothered me since the thinklight reflected off of it into my eyes.

As for the lettering coming off, do you have long fingernails, rough 
fingers, or otherwise press exceptionally hard or rub across the keys 
when you press them?  I've found the labeling on the T40 to hold up 
impressively well.  Normally my fingernail rubs off the N and M keys 
pretty quickly, but this keyboard is 2 years old with heavy daily use 
and just barely shows the N bring rubbed off.  All of the mechanics of 
the keys work perfectly for me though.

Joel

honey@gneek.com wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Apr 2005, Joel Ebel wrote:
> 
>> Mine said the USB2 controller was working as well, but if I plugged in 
>> anything USB2, it would attach itself to the slower USB controller and 
>> tell me the device would operate faster if plugged into a USB2 capable 
>> port.  This happened with USB2 hubs and storage devices.  In linux, if 
>> ehci-hcd was loaded, not much USB worked at all.
>>
>> Joel
> 
> 
> That's exactly what mine did since I got it - Windows warned me to
> plug it into the USB2 hub instead of USB1, although I seemed to get
> USB2 speeds there.  And in Linux, with ehci_hcd loaded, it hardly
> ever worked.
> 
> It's now stopped working completely and won't recognise anything, and
> bluetooth's stopped working.  Having read previous comments here, it
> sounds pretty conclusively like I need to call IBM and report it as
> hardware?
> 
> On a separate topic, do people find their T4* keyboards wear out very
> easily?  I've had mine swapped in the last 6 months, and the new one
> has lost the legends on all the arrow keys, A, S keys, and lots more;
> also the space bar only works when hit dead centre.  I tried lifting
> it and applying a little strip of bouncy adhesive paper to encourage
> it to press the button in the middle down, but when hit towards
> either edge of the spacebar, that edge just bends down and the space
> doesn't happen.  Bad design?  Anyone found a better temporary fix until I
> can get IBM out?