Dell Laptop USB keyboard and mouse freeze for seconds and then resumes

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1

I have tried all the suggested things in every linux forum that google suggested

set the usb suspend to -1
killed off ibus
new batteries in the keyboard and mouse.
tried different USB port and different hub.
swapped memory with different identical laptop
I am getting another identical laptop to swap with this primary without thunderbolt USB - all other laptops are connected via VNC.
no errors in dmesg other then the normal startup errors (scsi messages)
this laptop has latest BIOS

it seems to happen after a few seconds of no mouse or keyboard input - this laptop has thunderbolt USB - I wonder if that is the problem.

any great ideas to try

> inxi -Fxz
System:
  Kernel: 5.3.18-lp152.41-default x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.5.0 
  Console: tty 15 Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.2 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Latitude 7490 v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: Dell model: N/A serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 1.13.1 
  date: 11/08/2019 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 57.0 Wh condition: 57.0/60.0 Wh (95%) 
  model: LGC-LGC7.780 DELL 2X39G7A status: Full 
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_1 model: Logitech Wireless Keyboard 
  charge: 55% (should be ignored) status: Discharging 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i5-8350U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake rev: A L2 cache: 6144 KiB 
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx 
  bogomips: 30399 
  Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 400/3600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 
  3: 800 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 620 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Device-2: Microdia type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-5:3 
  Display: server: X.org 1.20.3 driver: intel 
  unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa tty: 80x24 
  Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell 
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1f.3 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.3.18-lp152.41-default 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-LM vendor: Dell driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k 
  port: f040 bus ID: 00:1f.6 
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
  Device-2: Intel Wireless 8260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: f040 
  bus ID: 02:00.0 
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 17.65 TiB used: 8.98 TiB (50.9%) 
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Crucial model: CT1000P1SSD8 size: 931.51 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb vendor: Seagate model: ST4000DM000-1F2168 size: 3.64 TiB 
  ID-3: /dev/sdc type: USB model: SDLF1CRM-017T-1HST size: 1.55 TiB 
  ID-4: /dev/sdd type: USB vendor: Western Digital model: WD My Book 25EE 
  size: 5.46 TiB 
  ID-5: /dev/sde model: SDLF1CRM-017T-1HST size: 1.55 TiB 
  ID-6: /dev/sdf type: USB vendor: Western Digital model: WD easystore 2624 
  size: 4.55 TiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 883.93 GiB used: 182.59 GiB (20.7%) fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 32.23 GiB used: 109.0 MiB (0.3%) 
  dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 47.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 3425 
Info:
  Processes: 388 Uptime: 19h 59m Memory: 31.24 GiB used: 19.94 GiB (63.8%) 
  Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 7.5.0 Shell: bash v: 4.4.23 
  inxi: 3.1.00 
>
2

I have tried all the suggested things in every linux forum that google suggested

set the usb suspend to -1

Can you clarify a little more here with the exact way this was done?

3

Maybe run top or some system monitoring that can tell you in real time if your system is busy and what might be busy… Example, file system indexing running at an inopportune time is a common cause of the system “pausing.”

TSU

4 
> cat /sys/module/usbcore/parameters/autosuspend
-1
>
5

I have htop running - it rarely goes over 33%

15.2 running MATE desktop with ext4 disks.

Overnight I dd’ed every drive - no read errors and the elapsed time was within 1 minute for all 7 laptops for the same drives. I had an ssh to each of the 7 from my raspberry pi 4 to run the test - other than the time to move the mouse to the next ssh terminal - they were all started within 30 seconds.

Since I killed ibus the mouse seems to no longer sleep for moments. The keyboard still does but not as frequently.

This machine has 32gb of ram running Virtualbox and 5 virtual machines 4 are Opensuse 15.2 and one is Windows XP (no network access) to run some old 16 bit apps in Quickbasic. No virtual machine has more than 4 CPU’s and 4096GB of ram. The XP is one CPU and 2048GB ram. One is my main internet access, one is my website (Apache), one is my gateway when I am offsite, one is “disposable” to test software - It has my IBM Hecules machine. It is faster than the real IBM I used to System Program in the 1970’s. The real 3330’s took 4 hours to load 1GB (10 drives) - in Hercules on a NVME disk less than 1 minute to load the same database.

6

Hardware details?

/usr/sbin/hwinfo --mouse --keyboard

Can you swap this hardware out?

Some ideas and questions…

Leave the following running in a terminal

dmesg -w |grep -i acpi

Any additional ACPI messages generated when keyboard freezes temporarily? Is it only apparent within the desktop environment? Do you have an alternative DE to test behaviour with?

7

I think I found the issue.

The Windows XP had an old Guest Addition - I updated it to the current 6.1.14 from the 6.0.4 and the mouse/keyboard delay is back to normal (sometimes it gets 1 or 2 keys behind but catches up).

8

Oh, you never mentioned anything in your opening post about a VM in the mix. Good to read it’s sorted now.