[conspire] (forw) Testing New Keyboard

[Rick Moen]

Robert Johnstone dropped by with his keyboard.  I _think_ I know what's
going on and gave him two candidate solutions.  Robert brought just his
(new) keyboard and an adapter (about which, more in a minute).  He did
_not_ bring his PC system unit.


LESSON 1:  If there's a chance you might want CABAL to diagnose your
hardware, bring your hardware.  All relevant pieces.  Not just one
keyboard.


Robert's (new) keyboard, with which he's had problems, is indeed a USB
one.  It arrived attached to a green USB to PS/2 converter widget.
Seeing that, suddenly I started to intuit the missing pieces of this
puzzle.

Based on earlier accounts, Dana, Ruben, Tony, Daniel, and I had
understood both Robert's new and old keyboards to be USB ones.  This
turns out not to be the case.  Robert's old keyboard is, by Robert's
account, a PS/2 keyboard plugged into one of the motherboard's two PS/2
ports.  Very probably, his mouse is also likewise a PS/2 device, plugged
into the motherboard's other PS/2 port.

Important note:  PS/2 is colour-coded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS/2_port  The port for the keyboard is
purple, while the port for the mouse is green.  Most PS/2-compatible
keyboards and pointing devices likewise follow this convention,
colour-coding the plugs.

I noticed that Robert's PS/2 to USB converter widget is green, strongly
suggesting that it's intended for pointing devices, not keyboards.


LESSON 2:  While PS/2 hardware is highly reliable, PS/2 to USB
converters are not.  In my experience, even if you are careful of the
colour convention, they may work or they might not work.


LESSON 3:  While USB is hot-pluggable, PS/2 is not.  PS/2 connectors
should be plugged or unplugged only with the system shut down and
powered off.  Doing otherwise risks at minimum confusing the OS driver
software, and there's a small chance of frying circuitry.


I reviewed with Robert the boot sequence he should be seeing: Power-On
Self Test (POST), GRUB bootloader, OS startup.  Robert has never seen
such things, he says.  All he recalls seeing during startup is some
horizonally moving progress indicator, and then the Ubuntu login screen.
I _infer_ that both his motherboard BIOS Setup and Ubuntu are
gratuitously concealing startup progress information.  Accordingly,
Robert had never been able to implement the suggestion I made on two
separate occasions to check his new keyboard's no-OS functionality 
by entering BIOS Setup and seeing if keystrokes register with that
hardware-originated code.

I and others went over the keystrokes he can and should use to make the
POST screens cease being concealed from him, so he can see what's going
on and (optionally) visit his computer's builtin setup program.


LESSON 4:  It is critically important to know how to see startup
progress, and know how to enter and use your system's hardware setup
functions.  There are many reasons you might wish to do that, including
testing whether a hardware is good without adding the variable of an
operating system.


We cross-checked Robert's (new) keyboard by plugging it into the USB
port on my laptop and typing into a virtual terminal.  The keyboard is
fine.


Robert's BIOS Setup may include settings that must be adjusted to make a
USB keyboard function.  That is another reason why Robert should make
the effort to gain access to those functions.


In Robert's testing at home, he has at times attempted to plug the (new)
keyboard into the USB connector on his monitor.  I explained to him that
this means he was plugging the keyboard into a USB hub.


LESSON 5:  USB hubs are problematic.  If you use one and everything is
fune, then you win!  If you are using one and are encountering problems,
my very first question is going to be 'Does the symptom persist if you
plug your USB device directly into one of your PC's USB ports, instead
of routing the USB traffic through a hub?'  Because USB hubs are
problematic.

Robert said he dismissed the possiblity of the hub being problematic
because he had successfully used a USB-connectably hard driver via the
hub.  And yet:  USB hubs are problematic, and it's very common for
some things to work via them, and others not.  Your very first step, if
there's a problem with traffic that goes through a USB hub, is to re-try
without the hub being in the circuit.


My main suggestion was for Robert to visit either Halted Specialties
Company (http://halted.com/) or WeirdStuff Warehouse
(http://www.weirdstuff.com/sunnyvale/html/index.htm) and just blow
$15-20 on a good PS/2 keyboard.  His old one was a perfect match for his
PC, until some keys started failing.  So, the plug-compatible perfect
solution is another PS/2 keyboard.

My secondary solution would be to (a) power down the PC, (b) unplug the
PS/2 (old) keyboard, (c) plug the (new) keyboard directly into one of
the two USB ports on the back of the system unit (NOT into the USB hub
included in Robert's monitor), and (d) turn on and reboot the PC.

Making solution #2 work may involve more fiddling such as BIOS Setup
settings to enable USB keyboard support, which is why I strongly
recommend solution #1, instead.


Someone, perhaps Robert, suggested Robert visit Central Computers to
acquire a PS/2 keyboard.  I interjected that this is a poor tactic
unless Robert has a time machine, because PS/2 hardware ceased being
offered as new equipment about a decade-plus ago -- which is why I said
to visit Halted or WeirdStuff, instead of a new-retail product vendor.