weird keyboard issue (ps/2 port?) 3.9.x/3.10.x?

weird keyboard issue (ps/2 port?) 3.9.x/3.10.x?

[Udo van den Heuvel]

Hello,

I am stuck with a weird keyboard related issue:
Since a few weeks I see loads of ^@^@^@^@^@^@ appear on the text console
while the PC_speaker beeps when this box is in runlevel 3.
When xorg is running the ^@^@^@ stream stops, as does the beeping, but I
can notice that selecting text, scrolling xterminals with the mouse are
interrupted by these characters appearing. (but not printing)

Removing/replacing the ps/2 keyboard does not help.
Rebooting does help for a while.

The hardware is a Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4, BIOS F5a 04/30/2013.
I replaced the board last weekend by a brand new F2A85X-UP4 with same
BIOS F5a but the problem persists.

What could this be?
Is it really a software issue?
If so: how could I help fix this?

Kind regards,
Udo

Re: weird keyboard issue (ps/2 port?) 3.9.x/3.10.x?

[Peter Hurley]

[ +cc Greg KH, Jiri S ]

On 08/26/2013 01:53 AM, Udo van den Heuvel wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am stuck with a weird keyboard related issue:
> Since a few weeks I see loads of ^@^@^@^@^@^@ appear on the text console
> while the PC_speaker beeps when this box is in runlevel 3.
> When xorg is running the ^@^@^@ stream stops, as does the beeping, but I
> can notice that selecting text, scrolling xterminals with the mouse are
> interrupted by these characters appearing. (but not printing)
>
> Removing/replacing the ps/2 keyboard does not help.
> Rebooting does help for a while.
>
> The hardware is a Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4, BIOS F5a 04/30/2013.
> I replaced the board last weekend by a brand new F2A85X-UP4 with same
> BIOS F5a but the problem persists.
>
> What could this be?
> Is it really a software issue?
> If so: how could I help fix this?

What changed 'a few weeks' ago when this problem started?
I noticed your USB post as well. Did that problem start at the same time
with the same change?

Regards,
Peter Hurley

Re: weird keyboard issue (ps/2 port?) 3.9.x/3.10.x?

[Udo van den Heuvel]

On 2013-08-27 17:40, Peter Hurley wrote:
> [ +cc Greg KH, Jiri S ]
> 
> On 08/26/2013 01:53 AM, Udo van den Heuvel wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am stuck with a weird keyboard related issue:
>> Since a few weeks I see loads of ^@^@^@^@^@^@ appear on the text console
[...]
>> What could this be?
>> Is it really a software issue?
>> If so: how could I help fix this?
> 
> What changed 'a few weeks' ago when this problem started?

I upgraded to Fedora 19 (from F17) and rebuilt kernels.
I rebuilt some kernels, found the fix to the encrypted swap activation
issue, etc.
I'd have to look up the date, but around july 14th?
Due to unfortunate changes in systemd I could not boot older kernels
anymore in F19 and needed that swap fix (remove /sbin/hotplug helper
definition). 3.9.9 is oldest one that boots but shows the issue(s).
I am now rebuilding 3.8.5 to see if that makes a difference for any of
these issues.

> I noticed your USB post as well. Did that problem start at the same time
> with the same change?

First alone the USB issue was present, later the PS/2 issue started but
(stupidly) I failed to note the kernel version. (or date) (but it was
post F19 migration)

I did not find any stuff in /var/log/messages that correlates with the
'ps/2' issue. (ps/2 as that is the interface of my keyboard but the
source could be elsewhere)
I will retest if the ps/2 issue is also present without keyboard connected.
I will see if the ~2 day delay from boot is consistent with the issue
occurring.

Udo

Re: weird keyboard issue (ps/2 port?) 3.9.x/3.10.x?

[Andreas Mohr]

Hi,

> What could this be?
> Is it really a software issue?
> If so: how could I help fix this?

Perhaps watching the output of some input event tools could help
gather some clues to eventually get it nailed down?

Some candidates:

evtest - utility to monitor Linux input device events
input-utils - utilities for the input layer of the Linux kernel
xinput - Runtime configuration and test of XInput devices


And what do /proc/interrupts counts say? Does PS/2 (i8042) generate events?

while :; do clear; cat /proc/interrupts; sleep 1; done


HTH [shot in the dark],

Andreas Mohr

Re: weird keyboard issue (ps/2 port?) 3.9.x/3.10.x?

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 7:41 PM, Andreas Mohr <andi@lisas.de> wrote:
> while :; do clear; cat /proc/interrupts; sleep 1; done

watch cat /proc/interrupts

(yes, I spent ca. 15 years of my life using a similar loop ;-)

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds

Re: weird keyboard issue (ps/2 port?) 3.9.x/3.10.x?

[Andreas Mohr]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 09:18:37PM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 27, 2013 at 7:41 PM, Andreas Mohr <andi@lisas.de> wrote:
> > while :; do clear; cat /proc/interrupts; sleep 1; done
> 
> watch cat /proc/interrupts
> 
> (yes, I spent ca. 15 years of my life using a similar loop ;-)

Urgh, how did I manage to forget about that? :)

However my solution surely achieves faster more better colorfully HD
since it's base POSIX shell rather than heavy-handed "watch" dependency :)

Andreas Mohr

Re: weird keyboard issue (ps/2 port?) 3.9.x/3.10.x?

[Udo van den Heuvel]

On 2013-08-27 19:41, Andreas Mohr wrote:
>> What could this be?
>> Is it really a software issue?
>> If so: how could I help fix this?
> 
> Perhaps watching the output of some input event tools could help
> gather some clues to eventually get it nailed down?

Sure.
First my input:

When I run this small script to fix the irq issue, I see that also the
stream of ^@^@^@ stops (or at least appears to do so), when those ^@^@^@
were active:

service motion stop
rmmod pwc
echo 0000:00:13.0 >/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ohci_hcd/unbind
echo 0000:00:13.0 >/sys/bus/pci/drivers/ohci_hcd/bind
modprobe pwc
service motion start

> Some candidates:
> 
> evtest - utility to monitor Linux input device events
> input-utils - utilities for the input layer of the Linux kernel
> xinput - Runtime configuration and test of XInput devices

I'll look into these!

> And what do /proc/interrupts counts say? Does PS/2 (i8042) generate events?

Currently it does. But I must see what happens when all is quiet, and
the problem reappears, right?