🚀 go-pugleaf

perf@efd.lth.se (Per Foreby) wrote:
> Problem: I can run windows for about one minute - then the following
> happens. The bell starts beeping just as if the keyboard buffer should
> be full and the keyboard doesn't work. The computer is still running,
> but very very slow (as if it had to take care of lots of keyboard
> interrupts). Ctrl+alt+del does of course not work, and hitting the
> reset button reboots the machine, but the keyboard keeps beeping.
> Power off is the only thing that helps.
>
> It looks like a hardware problem, but I don't have any keyboard
> problems when I'm outside windows. I'm confused...

Try this: when this keyboard crash happens, pull the keyboard plug out
of the pc and put it back in. If this "keyboard cold boot" solves the
problem, you've got two options:

(a) Solder a switch to the reset pin of the 8049/8749 microcontroller
    inside the keyboard
(b) Replace the keyboard.

For me option (b) worked, my old keyboard crashed sometimes when I used
VDISK.SYS in expensive, er, extended memory.
Some people told me the problem would be caused by the pc's interrupts
being disabled too long, others said the data clock of the keyboard would
be wrong. (Of course, nothing of this is true - it's voodoo!)

Good luck,

        Jan

--
Jan Schiefer, Degerlocherstr. 5, D-7000 Stuttgart 70, jan@nasobem.stgt.sub.org
   "The bus transceiver controls, DALI and DALO, are used to control the
      bus transceivers."   - AM7990 LANCE technical reference manual