Keyboard error on boot

[Sam]

This is a strange one. All of a sudden my Asus A78XE-dlx started stalling
on startup with a no keyboard or keyboard error message. It's a USB
keyboard and the BIOS has the "Legacy USB Support" enabled. I fixed it,
using a ps/2 keyboard, by telling the BIOS not to halt on keyboard errors.
Once it gets into Windows XP, it finds the original keyboard just fine.

Any clue as to what might be happening? My keyboard is a M$ Wireless
Natural Multimedia Keyboard. Could this be a wireless communication
problem?

Sam

 

[JAD]

turn off fast boot

 

[Sam]

turn off fast boot

I'll try it... however, do you have any thoughts as to why this would have
happened all of a sudden? I've had this same set-up/keyboard for almost 8-9
months.

Sam

 

[Shep©]

I'll try it... however, do you have any thoughts as to why this would have
happened all of a sudden? I've had this same set-up/keyboard for almost 8-9
months.

Sam

Maybe the keyboard has died?
I change mine every three months and use cheapies(Online gamer).

 

[kony]

I'll try it... however, do you have any thoughts as to why this would have
happened all of a sudden? I've had this same set-up/keyboard for almost 8-9
months.

Sam

Have you plugged in (kept plugged in) additional USB
devices, and perhaps they now excess 500mA per port pair OR
your system is running USB from 5VSB rail which might be
insufficient from the power supply? 5VSB can also be one
of the failure points (subcircuits) in a power supply.

 

[Sam]

Have you plugged in (kept plugged in) additional USB
devices, and perhaps they now excess 500mA per port pair OR
your system is running USB from 5VSB rail which might be
insufficient from the power supply? 5VSB can also be one
of the failure points (subcircuits) in a power supply.

Nothing new that's powered from the USB hub(s). Most have separate power
supplies or are plugged into a separately powered external hub. The
mouse/keyboard (both USB) are plugged directly into the motherboard ports.

The Enermax 485w power supply is relatively new (about 9 months old) and
the only new thing that's been plugged into it is a new Audigy 4 soundcard,
which takes a separate power connection, like my video card. Do you think
this could be taking enough extra power away to cause this problem? If so,
how would I test it?

Sam

 

[David Maynard]

Sometime on, or about Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:57:47 GMT, kony wrote:




Nothing new that's powered from the USB hub(s). Most have separate power
supplies or are plugged into a separately powered external hub. The
mouse/keyboard (both USB) are plugged directly into the motherboard ports.

The Enermax 485w power supply is relatively new (about 9 months old) and
the only new thing that's been plugged into it is a new Audigy 4 soundcard,
which takes a separate power connection, like my video card. Do you think
this could be taking enough extra power away to cause this problem? If so,
how would I test it?

Sam

At 485 watts I doubt it's a lack of power.

My first guess would normally be the audigy interfering with the legacy USB
and to suggest moving it to a different PCI slot but, if that were the
case, surely you would have noticed it stopped working right after you
plugged in the audigy.

 

[Sam]

At 485 watts I doubt it's a lack of power.

My first guess would normally be the audigy interfering with the legacy USB
and to suggest moving it to a different PCI slot but, if that were the
case, surely you would have noticed it stopped working right after you
plugged in the audigy.

Tah-dah!! That did it! I moved it to the next PCI slot and now it works
perfectly. Thank you very much.

I wouldn't have thought that the PCI slot itself could have caused this
problem... but obviously it does. The card is now in the slot farthest away
from the AGP slot.

Sam

 

[David Maynard]

Sometime on, or about Sat, 04 Jun 2005 21:41:54 -0500, David Maynard wrote:




Tah-dah!! That did it! I moved it to the next PCI slot and now it works
perfectly. Thank you very much.

I wouldn't have thought that the PCI slot itself could have caused this
problem... but obviously it does. The card is now in the slot farthest away
from the AGP slot.

Sam

People tend to forget that on-board devices are there, other than they're
'just there', but they are like PCI cards without a connector, meaning they
are on the PCI bus and, in fact, 'in a slot', virtually.

The PCI bus is 4 slots with AGP sharing the first slot, usually, and the
5'th, or 6'th (if you have them) extended, I.E. sharing, off of number 4,
usually. That's why it's a bad idea to put a sound card in the first PCI
slot: it and the AGP card can interfere with each other (the problem stems
from sound card legacy modes that emulate ISA operation, which is not
sharable).

The point to all this is those on-board devices are sharing with *some* PCI
slot, maybe more than one, too so you can run into the same problem with
non sharable 'legacy' interference.

 

[Sam]

People tend to forget that on-board devices are there, other than they're
'just there', but they are like PCI cards without a connector, meaning they
are on the PCI bus and, in fact, 'in a slot', virtually.

The PCI bus is 4 slots with AGP sharing the first slot, usually, and the
5'th, or 6'th (if you have them) extended, I.E. sharing, off of number 4,
usually. That's why it's a bad idea to put a sound card in the first PCI
slot: it and the AGP card can interfere with each other (the problem stems
from sound card legacy modes that emulate ISA operation, which is not
sharable).

The point to all this is those on-board devices are sharing with *some* PCI
slot, maybe more than one, too so you can run into the same problem with
non sharable 'legacy' interference.

My MB (Asus A7N8XE-Dlx) has 5 PCI slots plus AGP. I had the sound card in
slot 4 before. Now it's in slot 5.

According to my documentation, slot 5 shares PCI INT A with slot 1 slot 4
(where the card used to be) shares PCI INT B with the Gigabyte LAN (which I
use). Slot 3 shares PCI INT C with the Serial ATA bus and Slot 2 shares PCI
INT D with the AGP slot.

So it looks like, for my board, the AGP card shares with slot 2. Slot 5
(which my sound card now uses) only shares with slot 1 (which is empty).
Device Manager shows that the sound card is using IRQ 16 all by itself.

All this reminds me of the "good old days" (pre-Windows 95) when you had to
juggle IRQ's and DMA's, plus jumpers on the cards, to make everything work.
I guess that I've gotten spoiled by "plug and pray" of modern systems.

Sam

 

[David Maynard]

Sometime on, or about Sun, 05 Jun 2005 01:42:25 -0500, David Maynard wrote:




My MB (Asus A7N8XE-Dlx) has 5 PCI slots plus AGP. I had the sound card in
slot 4 before. Now it's in slot 5.

According to my documentation, slot 5 shares PCI INT A with slot 1 slot 4
(where the card used to be) shares PCI INT B with the Gigabyte LAN (which I
use). Slot 3 shares PCI INT C with the Serial ATA bus and Slot 2 shares PCI
INT D with the AGP slot.

So it looks like, for my board, the AGP card shares with slot 2. Slot 5
(which my sound card now uses) only shares with slot 1 (which is empty).
Device Manager shows that the sound card is using IRQ 16 all by itself.

Seems like they've done it a bit different than the 'typical' but there's
nothing that requires the 'typical'. It's purely at the mobo maker's
discretion.

It's a little more complicated though. Those are the wired shares but each
PCI slot has 4 interrupt lines that can be assigned to the 4, total,
available 'PCI' interrupts (with the limitation that things wired together
can't be separated.) So you have 'assigned' sharing as well as 'wired' sharing.

So one question is, where's the USB, and the legacy USB?

Also, the IRQ assignment you see in Windows for the audigy is the PCI
assignment and not the 'legacy support' (if it's there. I haven't done an
in-depth analysis of that card) assignments. That, if it's there, would be
on the 'traditional' IRQ DOS would expect.

All this reminds me of the "good old days" (pre-Windows 95) when you had to
juggle IRQ's and DMA's, plus jumpers on the cards, to make everything work.
I guess that I've gotten spoiled by "plug and pray" of modern systems.

It should because it's usually due to cards, sound in particular but your
USB as well, emulating the old DOS days for 'legacy' support.

The real problem is that legacy devices can't share IRQs. And that created
the IRQ shortage which PCI fixes by being able to share (and APIC). But
when emulating legacy you're back to non-share because no 'legacy app' is
going to try doing what wasn't possible... I.E. the app won't try to share
them so they can't be shared and you run out of IRQs just like the old days.

Btw, the reason for "can't share." PCI shares by the O.S. getting an ID
from the card that generated the interrupt so it can figure out who done
it. Legacy cards, however, have no ID to give. The IRQ *was* the 'ID'
directly linked to the driver assignment for the card. So, if two legacy
devices try to use the same IRQ there's no way to tell which one did it.