Re: Flaky HW: keyboard & power (Compal/TuxTops 20U)
> It's that trusty TuxTops box again.
>
> Two things I've noticed in the past few days:
>
> - Slight adjustments of the power cord cause the box to switch in and
> out of battery / AC modes. This is accompanied by a high-frequency
> squealing sound, and logs APM events to system logs (which I monitor
> via xconsole on xrootconsole.
The cord or the power-connector may be going bad. Contact ARM and have them
check it? I'm pretty sure you're still under warranty :)
Of course lowlevel drivers have been known to make it look like hardware's
the culprit before. Change APM to new code at all recently?
> - The built-in keyboard appears to have cut out. I can plug in a
> Happy Hacker keyboard into the side port and enter commands. On
> rebooting, the system didn't respond to keypresses.
Probably that tiny little cable every laptop keyboard has inside, has crawled
out of its little keyboard-cable socket. Either that or it's not fond of
being confused about how much power is coming through.
> I'm inclined to pop the box open and look for any visibly loose
> connectors. Not sure what the proscribed surgical techniques are, the
> accompanying manual doesn't address disassembly.
(General for any laptop)
1. always have tiny screwdrivers available.
2. and a clean dry static free place to work on.
3. a little jar or plate for screws is good, they are easy to lose :(
4. only open one section at a time if you can avoid it.
5. most people don't realize how the keyboard can come out. Usually there
is a "top side" defended mostly by the keyboard, and all the things on
the "bottom side" don't require the top to be opened.
6. be really slow when moving things upward, tiny plastic cables are usually
in a small flat socket (often white, sometimes black) and it may not be
obvious which is the right one to put it back into, if you didn't see it
when it was still connected.
7. a good lanp is your friend. A magnifier is sometimes also useful, but
that depends on your vision, unless you're trying to read chips.
8. check that all socketed items are re-seated before sealing back up; may
as well reduce "thermal crawling" while you're in there, anyway.
> Thoughts?
Yeah, that you actually live in the area, so you could probably drive the
thing over to ARM and have it all settled pretty quickly, possibly including
a chance to watch them professionally pop it open. I seem to recall that
getting at the hard drive in yours is a PITA; luckily you don't seem to be
expressing disk problems.
* Heather Stern * star@ many places...
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