Problem with checking battery status

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Revision as of 19:46, 7 March 2006 by Fooka (Talk | contribs) (Changed from possible to partial, because of APM findings.)
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R31 laptops have a problem where anytime ACPI or APM events are polled (e.g. checking battery status), causes the mouse to jerk around the screen clicking on things. Also sometimes repeating keypresses are generated.

Causes

Anomaly in the way the kernel driver handles the i8042 keyboard/mouse controller in the R31.

Related Symptoms

These messages in dmesg seem to be related:

psmouse.c: TrackPoint at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost synchronization, throwing 2 bytes away.
psmouse.c: TrackPoint at isa0060/serio4/input0 lost synchronization, throwing 2 bytes away.

Workarounds

Don't query the battery. Remove any battery applets from your panel.

Partial Solution

Use the following kernel parameter, without quotes, at boot: "i8042.nomux=1". Add this to your "append=" line in lilo.conf or append it to the kernel line in the menu.lst of your grub configuration.

Make sure to use ACPI, as this does not work if you boot with APM.

References