Keyboard Freezes randomly for random amount of time (AMD64 X2)

[JacobSingh]

Hi,

I just setup my AMD64 X2 (mobo is Asus A8N-SLI Delux). Setup was a pain, had to add arguments:
acpi=off noapic nofb

to get installer started.

Now I'm all setup, system seems to be working okay (still no power management stuff, had disable at grub), but I have one very weird and very annoying problem.

My keyboard will just randomly seize up from time to time. It's a USB keyboard I used with linux distros on my old hardware without issue. (I already tried linux i8042.nomux)


Normally it's okay, but sometimes it just stops taking input, no causality really, although it seems to happen more frequently the longer the system has been running (but I'm not sure of this). Nothing will bring it back but time it seems. Sometimes after 3-4 minutes it will magically start working again.
After the system has been running for a while keybaord can start acting funny, timing is messed up, if I type too fast, it starts repeating letters, sometimes I'll hit a key once and it will repeat it 10000 times. Restarting X seems to fix this.
Under VMware, I'm sometimes running other linux OS's under VMWare (my primary fc6 install is not VM). They keyboard exhibits the jumpy behavior almost from the start when in VMWare it seems.
Alt-Tab: Very strange, just won't work sometimes, and I'll have to click on the window I'm in for alt-tab to take affect. So I'm editing some code, hit ctrl-s to save, then hit alt-tab to switch to the browser to run it and nothing happens, I click on my editor window and hit it again, and it works (most of the time) - doesn't seem to be affected by how long the machine is running or which programs are running or which ones I'm switching to / from.



PLEASE HELP! I'm about to abandon ship, it's been a week and can't figure out anything, this is a little to crippling to make this a primary workstation.

Thanks much,
Jacob

[JEO]

The issue may be that your hardware m/b, cpu and chipset is too new to work right with the current kernel but have you tried using a ps/2 keyboard instead?

[JacobSingh]

I haven't. I don't have one, maybe I should buy one. I don't suppose a USB to PS/2 converter would make a difference would it?

Another update:

I started using Gnome (usually a KDE user), and I'm getting different problems, but no freeze ups after 2 hours (which doesn't mean it won't happen, but seems better). Now, it's having problems knowing which window to focus on when I use alt-tab and is freezing the mouse from time to time ;)

[Seve]

Hello:
I have a amdx64 x2 with and asus an32sli -Deluxe so I don't think it is hardware issue. However, I could be wrong. :)
Things you may want to check :
Is there a newer BIOS for your motherboard ?
Have a look at your current BIOS settings and make sure they make sense? Disable items you do not use and check the USB settings.
Check the services that you have enabled and running. Probably there are ones you can disable.
There is a how-to located here:
http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=102853

You can also check your /var/log/Xorg.0.log for errors and or warnings that may provide a clue.
If you have not already done so, install the 3rd party drivers for your video card.

Seve

[JEO]

I would borrow a ps/2 keyboard (ask your friends) and if that works find a ps/2 to usb converter to be able to use your usb keyboard on the ps/2 port. I have seen one such converter it was a small purple plastic thing.

[JacobSingh]

funny, I've been running Gnome (which hurts me) for a day now with no freezeups, seems to only happen in KDE. It still acts a little funny as mentioned earlier, but it isn't crapping out on my. If only I could make it work like KDE! :) That file browser is so useless!