Keyboard Freezes On Dell 600m With Suse 10.0

Hi.
I am running Suse 10.0 on a Dell Inspiron 600m. Sometimes without any warning the keyboard will freeze and stop responding. No matter what I do I can't make it activate again. Actually, at the same time this freezes I cannot acees system programs (like Yast, Power management, and even some other programs like open office). Others will work though. The touchpad works fine though. I have to manually press the off button to restart (yeah, log out does not work either, i click it and it just never opens). If I am on the interent at the time, I am stil l able to surf, just can't type anything. Any ideas?

-Mike

Is there not another keyboard driver you can try under YaST? You may wish to backup your xorg.conf file, prior to making any changes to the keyboard driver in YaST. Be certain to restart xwindows for any new keyboard setting to be applied.

I see there is another user who is running SuSE-10.0 on a Dell 600m, without mention of this problem:
http://egofanatic.com/linuxonlaptops/Dell600m.php

That gives me confidence that this means either a hardware problem, or you need to select a better driver. You could also check your BIOS, to ensure there are no strange keyboard settings selected there.

There are also other linux users running this laptop, again no mention of keyboard problems:
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html
http://tuxmobil.org/dell.html

Is there not another keyboard driver you can try under YaST? You may wish to backup your xorg.conf file, prior to making any changes to the keyboard driver in YaST. Be certain to restart xwindows for any new keyboard setting to be applied.

I see there is another user who is running SuSE-10.0 on a Dell 600m, without mention of this problem:
http://egofanatic.com/linuxonlaptops/Dell600m.php

That gives me confidence that this means either a hardware problem, or you need to select a better driver. You could also check your BIOS, to ensure there are no strange keyboard settings selected there.

There are also other linux users running this laptop, again no mention of keyboard problems:
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/dell.html
http://tuxmobil.org/dell.html
[/b]

How do I go about changing the keyboard driver. I see keyboard layout in Yast, but no driver info. Actually, I look around and see people having similiar problems, not necessarily with a laptop, but I see no fixes mentioned.

-Mike

Actually, I look around and see people having similiar problems, not necessarily with a laptop, but I see no fixes mentioned.[/b]

I haven't noticed this. At least not wrt there being a problem wrt the keyboard.

Freezes I have read about are not because of the keyboard, but rather because of underlying PC hardware problems, or because of graphics driver problems, or because of powermanagement software problems. And typically the mouse will freeze too.

Speaking of which, ... is your Notebook on a LAN? Are you by chance accessing other PC's on the LAN with your notebook?

How do I go about changing the keyboard driver. I see keyboard layout in Yast, but no driver info. [/b]

You were there! Don't stop!!

Goto YAST > HARDWARE > KEYBOARD LAYOUT and then you have a choice for TYPE, LAYOUT, VARIANT. If you look under TYPE there are MANY keyboards.

For example, in my case (for my desktop PC) I have chosen:

- TYPE: Generic 104-key PC
- LAYOUT: US English
- VARIANT: Basic

If you find you have the correct keyboard chosen, and you are still experiencing complete freezes (for all applications at once), then you need to look at hardware, graphic driver, and powermanagent (IMHO).

I haven't noticed this. At least not wrt there being a problem wrt the keyboard.

Freezes I have read about are not because of the keyboard, but rather because of underlying PC hardware problems, or because of graphics driver problems, or because of powermanagement software problems. And typically the mouse will freeze too.

Speaking of which, ... is your Notebook on a LAN? Are you by chance accessing other PC's on the LAN with your notebook?
You were there! Don't stop!!

Goto YAST > HARDWARE > KEYBOARD LAYOUT and then you have a choice for TYPE, LAYOUT, VARIANT. If you look under TYPE there are MANY keyboards.

For example, in my case (for my desktop PC) I have chosen:

- TYPE: Generic 104-key PC
- LAYOUT: US English
- VARIANT: Basic

If you find you have the correct keyboard chosen, and you are still experiencing complete freezes (for all applications at once), then you need to look at hardware, graphic driver, and powermanagent (IMHO).
[/b]

Ok, so I tried the keyboard thing. I changed it to one that was for another laptop; that did not fix the problem. Then, I noticed that it is not really a keyboard problem because I could change the brightness which is more of a built in feature I guess and also programs were not activating. And it seemed that it would only happen if I left the computer unattended for a while. So, I was thinking about the power management settings, but I already had the cpu set to always full. Then I figured maybe when the hard drive goes into a resting mode or something. I went into the IDE hard drive controller and changed it to the generic one instead of the one that was there. Also, I changed the hard drive DMA settings from just DMA on to DMA ultra 1000 which is the one my laptop has. I have not had the freezing problem since, except when I manually locked the screen and did not touch it for like 5 minutes (oh yeah, i turned off automatic locking of the screen) . So, I am not sure why this works, but it seems to be working, any ideas?

-Mike