[rescue] Best brains: Dead keyboard ports on PC hardware

[Phil Stracchino]

Mike Hebel wrote:
> In a fit of angst Phil Stracchino gargled the following:
> 
>> Anyway, everything on the machine works fine, and it has a brand new
>> install of win2KProSP4, but .... on the final reboot before finalizing
>> the install, it fried its PS/2 keyboard ports.  As far as I know, its
>> BIOS has support for USB keyboard and mouse at boot ... but it's not
>> enabled.  So, it's still perfectly usable ... if I can turn on the USB
>> keyboard support in the BIOS, for which I need a working keyboard at
>> boot time, for which I need USB keyboard  support enabled so that I can
>> get into the BIOS setup to enable USB keyboard support so that I can
>> have a working USB keyboard at boot ... well, you get the idea.
> 
> Well...if you're desperate you might see if the keyboard port in question
> has a fuse on it.  It usually looks like a small green resistor.  Use two
> tiny alligator clips to short that and see if the ports work again.  That
> will allow you to enable usb provided you don't want to permanently solder
> in a new fuse.

I don't see a fuse unless it's under the sheetmetal cover over the
ports, which it appears I can't remove without desoldering retention
tabs from the motherboard.

I wouldn't have thought to look for such a thing though.  I had no idea
PS/2 ports might be fused.  (Not a bad idea, as electrically fragile as
they've historically been.)  Thanks for the information.


-- 
        Phil Stracchino                CDK#2
 Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net   alaric at caerllewys.net
 Landline: 603-429-0220           Mobile: 603-320-5438
        It's not the years, it's the mileage.