Touchpad, keyboard and boot problems

[oldmankit]

I'm having a strange problem.

A couple of weeks ago my laptop touchpad stopped working completely, both in windows and in ubuntu. I cannot enable/disable it by the usual key combination, fn+f7.

At the same time I started having problems with grub2. The problem is intermittent. Sometimes I will not be able to use a keyboard, either the laptop one, or a usb one. It will not recognise any input, with or without the usb keyboard plugged in. It will countdown 10 seconds, then load ubuntu. After this, both the laptop keyboard and usb keyboard work fine. Other times, there is no problem at all (excpet no touchpad mouse).

Now, at grub there is no countdown! I cannot get any response from either keyboard, and since it's not counting down, it will not boot into Ubuntu.

I have logged in via an incredibly useful flash drive installation I made of Ubuntu 9.10. A lifesaver.


This is all over my head. I expect its a hardware problem, but what's up with grub?

[oldmankit]

Update. When grub displays no countdown timer (effectively meaning I cannot boot into linux or windows), I also cannot go into bios. If I press F2 at the appropriate time nothing happens, followed by the unresponsive grub screen.

Restarting a few times results in being able to enter the bios and having a responsive grub screen, or at least a grub with a timer!

[oldmankit]

I spilled a big glass of water over my laptop this morning. :D

This prompted me to finally pull the thing to pieces, to try and help it dry out. I found a manual for my laptop, which for a beginner like me was totally necessary.

There was a huge clod of dust stuck in the fan. I hope it runs cooler now I've cleaned that out.

To get at the physical touchpad I had to take a lot of components out. It was really interesting.

I gave the whole thing a good dusting with a brush, cleaned contacts with a tissue, and blew away a nice lot of dust. I know this doesn't sound professional, but hey, it worked!

I have my touchpad back. No more boot problems.

Let this be a lesson to us all. It pays to open up your computer and give it a spring clean every now and then. I live in a really dusty environment, too (Northern Thailand).

Too bad about the monitor, which now has some very weird-looking patches from where the water got into it! :popcorn: