Keyboard problem

[Don Harvey]

A friend has Vista (premium) machine with XP also installed on a separate
hard drive. When he loads XP the PS2 Keyboard is dead. I suggested using
a USB keyboard but curious why this would occur, especially since it is not
wireless.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

A friend has Vista (premium) machine with XP also installed on a separate
hard drive. When he loads XP the PS2 Keyboard is dead. I suggested using
a USB keyboard but curious why this would occur, especially since it is not
wireless.

Hi Don,

There are a couple of reasons why this could occur. But none of them would
be related to the XP/Vista dual-boot configuration. Either he has a hardware
problem, or his XP installation is broken.

The PS/2 Keyboard driver is i8042prt.sys. As the machine boots, Ntdetect.com
does hardware detection and if it sees a PS/2 Keyboard, will load
i8042prt.sys. If no PS/2 keyboard is detected, the i8042prt.sys driver does
not get loaded.

So for example, if a machine is attached to a KVM (especially a cheap flaky
KVM, not a classy expensive one) and the machine does not have focus as it
boots, no keyboard may be detected. So the keyboard never becomes active,
even after you swith teh KVM back to this machine. (classy KVMs emulate
keyboard detection for non-active machines).

Or perhaps the i8042prt.sys driver is damaged or its registry settings are
messed up.

USB devices are "hot-swappable" so you can plug in a USB keyboard any time
and it will be detected and the right driver loaded. The PS/2 interface, as
designed by IBM back in 1987, is not meant to be hot-swappable; so device
detection is only performed at IPL, not once the machine is up and running.

Troubleshoot it as a driver problem on XP. It's exceedingly unlikely to be
related to Vista. Hit F8 at boot up and select "Enable Boot Logging". Then
examine the resulting Ntbtlog.txt file for info on drivers loaded during
boot phase.

Good luck,

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Corrupt keyboard driver file in the XP system. Installing a new set of
drivers should resolve it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Don Harvey]

Thanks, Andrew, Rick

Will check the drivers. I always opt for wireless keyboard/mouse and
haven't used PS/2 in quite some time.

 

[Dian and Mike]

My HP Media Center computer with Vista software and wireless keyboard gives
me lots of trouble. Keyboard just "freezes" whenever it feels like it.
Happened really consistently about six weeks after I got my computer and HP
support talked me through a complete uninstall and reinstall of the keyboard
in safe mode. That solved the problem for about 3-4 months but now it's
starting again and seems to be getting progressively worse. Just have to
wait it out and the "freeze" usually goes away. Pretty sure some program is
running underneath what I can see and is causing the problem but don't know
and have no idea how to fix it.
Mike

Thanks, Andrew, Rick

Will check the drivers. I always opt for wireless keyboard/mouse and
haven't used PS/2 in quite some time.