Computers Affected: six Digital HiNote laptops, 3 x CS450 & 3 x CT475
Symptoms: after a random period of mouse movement (between 1s and 30s), the
virtual console or X session being used locks up. Computer runs as normal,
but no keyboard or mouse input is accepted; there is no feedback, no
beeping. Killing gpm or X (as appropriate) restores the system to normal.
X or gpm can then be restarted, but the problem recurs after a further
period of mouse usage.
Conditions: no problems using any 2.0 kernel, including 2.0.38. Tested
kernel 2.2.5, 2.2.10, and 2.2.14, and the problem occurs under all of these.
The mouse driver is compiled directly in, not as a module. Unrelated to
PCMCIA or other services -- failure even in single user with only gpm
running. Short, fast mouse movements are less likely to cause freezes than
long, slow, interrupt-intensive movements, like moving in circles. By using
the mouse only sporadically, the system can be kept from crashing for some
time, perhaps indefinitely.
Kernel 2.2.14 PS/2 driver source file drivers/char/pc_keyb.c controls both
keyboard and mouse, a change from the 2.0 kernels:
* Combined the keyboard and PS/2 mouse handling into one file,
* because they share the same hardware.
* Johan Myreen <jem@iki.fi> 1998-10-08.
This file appears to be the source of the trouble.
Questions: is this a known problem; is there a patch; is there anything I
can do about it, as an inexperienced C programmer?
Paul
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 23 2000 - 21:00:32 EST