About Murray S. Expertise I can help with most problems you may encounter with your mouse or keyboard. From BIOS errors to driver download and installs, I will do what I can to get you up and running again.
Experience I have been building and fixing systems for the past 4 years. Hold a AAA+ Techn certifications as well as certification as a PC Technician.
Expert: Murray S. Date: 3/3/2002 Subject: BIOS/keyboard "weirdness" (no better word for it!)
Question Hi. My question isn't to resolve a current problem, but rather to prevent problems in the future, and I hope you can answer it...
Gateway (1996 or '97) system:
Intel PIII 500
384MB RAM
Windows XP Professional, build 2600
ATI Rage 128VR, 4MB video
Intel JN440BX system board
Phoenix BIOS v. 4.0
standard PS2 keyboard
USB mouse
System was working fine except for the keyboard had suddenly started acting funny--the screen was displaying random letters instead of the letters I was typing. It wasn't an expensive board, so we thought it had simply gone to "peripheral heaven", and bought a new board.
Someone who shall remain nameless (but who lives in our house and isn't *me*) unplugged the bad keyboard and plugged in the new one without shutting the puter down (both PS2). The system shut down and powered up normally *once* after he did that; he used it and then shut it down again. The next time he tried to turn it on, the Gateway logo appeared on the screen, then nothing. No POST beep, no POST "indicator" on the screen, no floppy seek, nothing--just the logo and no further response. We tried *everything* we could think of to get it to boot, or even to do the POST--all possible positions of the (only) jumper, removed the CMOS battery...everything we could think of. With the jumper in the "restore" position, it would seek the floppy, so we tried to run a BIOS upgrade, figuring the BIOS had somehow corrupted and we might still be able to flash it with the boot block (nothing to lose! lol) No luck with that, so we disconnected everything and left it overnight. This morning, he removed the CMOS battery again and turned on the power (with the battery still out). The system powered up a little more slowly, but otherwise started Windows normally (CMOS date/time error, but I attached the mouse and clicked "Ok"--it continued to boot). We decided that maybe it was going to work after all and the problem had been with something in CMOS, so we powered down and reconnected the (PS2) keyboard and (USB) mouse. Same thing happened as it had the day before--Gateway screen and then nothing. Turned off the power and disconnected the keyboard, and it booted normally (other than the CMOS date/time error). Obviously, the keyboard was the problem, so we replaced the PS2 keyboard with a USB one and it works fine. (I don't have another system upon which to test the "bad" keyboards, btw.) Anyway, my question is (finally!):
Could hotplugging the keyboard while the puter was running have damaged the PS2 port on the system board, or did the port more likely simply "die" on its own, perhaps because the system board is old? I know that hotplugging USB devices is fine, but had been told *never* to do that with PS2--turn off the system to disconnect or reconnect. I sometimes do (simple) repairs on other people's puters, so I'd really like to know for future reference whether it's okay to disconnect and/or reconnect PS2 devices with the system running. I searched on the Internet for the answer, but all I found were ads and product descriptions of PS2-to-USB adapters that would allow hotplugging of PS2 devices. Nothing that would tell me whether hotplugging *without* an adapter would do any damage, so that's why I'm asking an expert--you. :)
Sorry for the length of this message, but I wanted to make sure I'd provided enough information for you to answer.
Thanks,
Lisa Brown
Answer Howdy Lisa:
There is a reason why they say to shutdown before connecting and disconnecting PS/2 devices and you just found it..
Chances are, you either fried the PS/2 port OR, more likely, the keyboard controller on the mobo and CMOS..
