Still ... Keyboard problem

Lenovo T500
Win XP Pro all updated
mfr drivers.

One time out of 25 when I cold boot the keyboard is unresponsive Meaning
hit a key and nothing happens.

ReBoot and all is well using the mouse.

Trouble shooter says nothing wrong.
Using the standard keyboard driver.

Things like the mouse and fingerprint scanner work just fine at the time
the keyboard is not there.

Suggestions please.

FreeMan wrote:
Lenovo T500
Win XP Pro all updated
mfr drivers.

One time out of 25 when I cold boot the keyboard is unresponsive Meaning
hit a key and nothing happens.

ReBoot and all is well using the mouse.

Trouble shooter says nothing wrong.
Using the standard keyboard driver.

Things like the mouse and fingerprint scanner work just fine at the time
the keyboard is not there.

Suggestions please.

So the fingerprint scanner is what makes you different
than all the other users here...

Is it a HID device, or some other type of device ?
What does Device Manager show for the fingerprint scanner ?

Some devices use a "filter driver" and if the driver
is poorly written, it could latch onto *all* the HID
devices, with less than predictable results. This
seems to be a problem with the HID ecosystem and
its practice of using aggressive filter drivers.
(The driver writer doesn't use Plug and Play properly.)

It might be the order of discovery when the OS boots,
which gives slightly different results, once in a while.

If the fingerprint scanner has a "disable" in the BIOS,
you could try using that control. But if the error
only shows up, once in every twenty five boots,
it's going to take a hell of a lot of reboots
to determine that made a difference.

If you're using the fingerprint scanner for authentication,
it might not be feasible to immediately disable it. It might
take some futzing, to return the system to regular
authentication or something. Don't be in too much of
a rush to disable that, unless you know how it works,
or whether it is currently being used... and so on.
It's pretty hard for me to guess here, what "traps"
await you :-)

Paul

In message , FreeMan
writes:
Lenovo T500
Win XP Pro all updated
mfr drivers.

One time out of 25 when I cold boot the keyboard is unresponsive
Meaning hit a key and nothing happens.

ReBoot and all is well using the mouse.

Trouble shooter says nothing wrong.
Using the standard keyboard driver.

Things like the mouse and fingerprint scanner work just fine at the
time the keyboard is not there.

Suggestions please.

Not a suggestion of what's wrong, but a question: can you tell if
Windows thinks it's a PS/2 or a USB keyboard? This might help others
wiser than I to make suggestions about what's happening (or not).

I'm _guessing_ that (a) it thinks it's PS/2, (b) there is a fragment of
dirt - or otherwise loose connection - somewhere, that very occasionally
isn't making contact at the point during boot that it looks to see if
it's there. (PS/2, unlike USB, are only detected at that point; if you
plug them in afterwards, Windows doesn't notice you've done so.) The
most likely place, I suppose, for the grit is in the ribbon connector
under the keyboard; I don't know the T500 as such, but most
laptops/netbooks have a keyboard which is a separate module, connected
to the motherboard by a ribbon connector. Not usually a plug-and-socket
like EIDE or even SATA - it tends to be a "connector" formed by the end
of the ribbon cable itself made stiffer by the addition of side
contacts, which goes into a slot, and is held down by a fragile clamp.
But it _could_ be somewhere else - my second guess would be where the
connector (the slot part _is_ a board-mounting connector) is soldered to
the motherboard. (Or possibly where the other end of the ribbon is
connected to whatever's inside the keyboard module; I've never been in
there; a replacement keyboard would probably be easier.)

Or it _could_ be a software fault, though I can't think what.

In the meantime - Start | Run | osk to get the on-screen keyboard, which
you can use with the mouse, and it should remain in the Run memory so
you can bring it up next time it happens, and use it with the mouse (or
set it to come up, minimised, with Windows, or from a desktop shortcut)
- that'll allow you (somewhat tediously) to do simple things when it
happens without needing to reboot, if you'd only turned on the machine
to do something trivial. (Don't wait for it to happen - do it now; you
need a keyboard to type the O, S, and K!) Or get a USB (external)
keyboard. (If, next time it happens, you plug in a USB keyboard, and it
_doesn't_ work, that may be useful information too.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Science fiction is escape into reality - Arthur C Clarke