SOLVED: Compaq Presario c500 keyboard buggy on precise 5.4.9

[kurtdriver]

Hi, I've reinstalled several times and keep having this problem. The keyboard continues to repeat the first character typed, a long string of "ggggggggggggggggg" or what have you that doesn't stop untill I kill the window. This happens in Seamonkey'ssearch bar, pfind, Geany, or the terminal.

This laptop belongs to a guy I work with, I agreed to install an operating system for him, bum I'm at my wit's end. Anyone have any ideas? I should add that this same keyboard has at some installations not worked at all.

It works and is wonderful, I sent him an email Sunday eve, when 5.4.3 was on it telling him how impressed I was and how zippy it is. I don't think he'll be impressed with needing to carry a USB keyboard around.

I'm having this problem both with the full install to the hard drive and when booted from a USB key.
Kurt

[darkcity]

Hi KurtDriver

One possibility is the keyboard has a mechanical fault, you could try clean the keyboard.
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docu ... ct=3318985

Another possibility is the delay/repeat settings have been set incorrectly, one of these topics may help-
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=33823
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=18019

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Does the problem occur if you USB boot without loading the SaveFile?
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HowToAvoidLoadingSaveFile

[kurtdriver]

Hi thanks for your reply. I think I've found a reliable solution; booting with numlock off causes the keyboard to not work at all, turning it on causes it to work but with the repeating character, and turning it off again causes it to work normally. It's worked like that through several reboots. I turned numlock on, which is persistant, can you think of any way to turn it off automatically, after it goes on?

[darkcity]

Num Lock can to configured to be on/off on startup see PersonalizeSettings. There is also the numlockx command to control the key.

For example you could make a script and put it in ~/Startup

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
#toggle num lock
numlockx on
numlockx off

seems like an odd problem though, maybe something else is at play as well as the Num lock?

[kurtdriver]

I found some stuff on the internet about that particular property of the keyboard. Turns out the numlockx file exists in Startup, so I just added a line at the end to turn it off. Thanks for your effort, darkcity.