Keyboard and mouse 'crash'
Every so often (not too often happily) both keyboard and mouse will stop functioning. It seems to happen most often when I plug a camera or MP3 player in. The only way to get them going again is to switch everything off. (If I touch the off button it will shut down in 60 seconds from the shut down dialogue box.) What I'm wondering is, has anyone here come across this problem and is there another, more permanent, solution to it? I would add that I've never had to install any drivers for any such devices, so I'm pretty confident that's not the issue. [Unbuntu 11.04.] Bev.
On 28-May-2012 10:32:06 Bev Nicolson wrote:
Every so often (not too often happily) both keyboard and mouse will stop functioning. It seems to happen most often when I plug a camera or MP3 player in. The only way to get them going again is to switch everything off. (If I touch the off button it will shut down in 60 seconds from the shut down dialogue box.)
What I'm wondering is, has anyone here come across this problem and is there another, more permanent, solution to it? I would add that I've never had to install any drivers for any such devices, so I'm pretty confident that's not the issue. [Unbuntu 11.04.]
Bev.
Hi Bev, I've not had that particular kind of thing happen, but it suggests that USB devices may be treading on each others' toes. If, when it happens, you can log in (as root) to that computer from another machine via the network, you might try having a look at the USB devices. Start off with the file /var/log/messages, which may flag up an untoward event. Then look under /proc for anything that looks as though it may have to do with USB, and so on. Sorry not to be more specific, but this kind of thing tends to involve a lot of poking around. If you do find a mount-point which corresponds to what you plugged in to bring things to a halt, try unmounting it and see if that cures things. Good luck! Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding@wlandres.net> Date: 28-May-2012 Time: 15:31:07 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------
On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 10:42:01AM +0100, Bev Nicolson wrote:
Not an option open to me Ted, unfortunately. This is the only computer I've got.
Have you tried unplugging all the usb devices and then plugging just the keyboard or mouse into different usb ports? Each USB bus can supply up to 500ma of power (IIRC) but you can have 3 or 4 ports available on each bus (or more) it may be that what you're plugging in is taking the ports just over this and/or they are detecting a condition that may damage them (i.e. power spike) and the computer is shutting them down. Adam
On 29 May 2012 10:51, Adam Bower <adam@thebowery.co.uk> wrote:
On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 10:42:01AM +0100, Bev Nicolson wrote:
Not an option open to me Ted, unfortunately. This is the only computer I've got.
Have you tried unplugging all the usb devices and then plugging just the keyboard or mouse into different usb ports?
No I hadn't but I will next time. Thanks. (There may well be a long delay while I wait to test this but I'll report back if it works.) Bev.
On 29/05/12 10:51, Adam Bower wrote:
On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 10:42:01AM +0100, Bev Nicolson wrote:
Not an option open to me Ted, unfortunately. This is the only computer I've got.
Have you tried unplugging all the usb devices and then plugging just the keyboard or mouse into different usb ports? Each USB bus can supply up to 500ma of power (IIRC) but you can have 3 or 4 ports available on each bus (or more) it may be that what you're plugging in is taking the ports just over this and/or they are detecting a condition that may damage them (i.e. power spike) and the computer is shutting them down.
Adam
yeh I'll second that, almost certainly one of the devices on the same bus is misbehaving. In theory when this happens the bus should shut down power, if it's an optical mouse the light will go out. I've had all sorts doing this from an iffy keyboard to a mouse where the cable was so worn at the entry point to the device it was putting an intermittent short across the USB +5V and GND. Of course a damaged USB connector can also cause it so have a good swap around of what is plugged into which ports or as Ted says look in the logs.
Have you tried unplugging all the usb devices and then plugging just the keyboard or mouse into different usb ports?
I said I'd report back and I've found that, if I unplug my keyboard, the machine shuts down... Hmm. :¬/ And I don't think I nudge any cables. This was quite recent and on plugging the MP3 in again it wasn't recognised prompting me to see if unplugging a usb device might help. Bev.
On 28/05/12 11:32, Bev Nicolson wrote:
Every so often (not too often happily) both keyboard and mouse will stop functioning. It seems to happen most often when I plug a camera or MP3 player in. The only way to get them going again is to switch everything off. (If I touch the off button it will shut down in 60 seconds from the shut down dialogue box.)
What I'm wondering is, has anyone here come across this problem and is there another, more permanent, solution to it? I would add that I've never had to install any drivers for any such devices, so I'm pretty confident that's not the issue. [Unbuntu 11.04.]
Hi Bev, I've got this too on both a laptop and on my main desktop PC. They run different versions of ubuntu (12.04 & 10.04) and the laptop still did it when I had mint(11) loaded. The keyboard and mouse(pad) will just stop responding[1]. The only common factor is it happenes at the most inconvenient time. Other executing programs continue, as far as they can, without issue. It doesn't happen often enough for me to get annoyed enough to try and track it down. -- Nev [1] although the KVM switch still detects keystrokes and switches desktop machines.
participants (5)
-
Adam Bower -
Bev Nicolson -
nev young -
Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net -
Wayne Stallwood