[ltp] Ubuntu Intrepid: Thinkpad T61 with keyboard lockups.

Thomas Adam linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org
Sun, 2 Nov 2008 22:45:30 +0000


Hello all,

I've an odd, and somewhat intermittent problem running Ubuntu Intrepid
(kernel 2.6.27) in that the keyboard will stop responding after a
while, but in an odd way.  None of the alphanumeric and special keys
will do anything -- I can't get keyboard focus on any of my windows,
and yet pressing CapsLock, NumLock, Fn + Fn keys all still work fine.
The mouse too also works fine -- I can launch apps, just can't type
anything into them.  The only way of curing it is to Ctrl + Alt + Bksp
(which works fine) and relogin.

One interesting observation is that when this problem hits, if I focus
a window which has an SSH session to it running screen, and hit keys,
I don't see anything at all.  When I then logout from my X session and
relogin, reattaching the SSH session and loading screen from within
that, I can then see all the keys I have typed.

Taking this on to the next logical step, I then preceeded to press ^g
in an open terminal to see if that would beep with this keyboard
locked -- alas, no sound, despite it working prior to the keyboard
locking up, of course.

Has anyone else experienced this, or know what might potentially cause
it?  It's rather annoying me now.   There is nothing in dmesg or my
xsession error logs which might indicate something hard-locking or
crashing.

Thanks in advance,

-- Thomas Adam