freebsd stable - Jan 2011 - Keyboard repeat issues with Dell Optiplex 980s

We've recently upgraded a few desktop workstations from Dell Optiplex 
960s to Optiplex 980s.  We were running FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE.  The 
migration was performed by simply swapping the drives into the new 
systems.  Immediately after switching people over, they all began to 
report bizarre keyboard issues - things like infinite key repeats 
(letters, numbers, "enter") for keys they did not hold down.  The key 
repeats continue indefinitely until another key is pressed.  
Occasionally, even mouse input will trigger similar infinite keyboard 
input repetition.  In addition to the repeat issue, sometimes physical 
key-presses are not registered by FreeBSD, leading to typos and angry 
developers.

We've tried doing fresh installs of FreeBSD 8.2-RC2 on two of these 
systems, and the issue persists.  Because of the observed behavior, I'm 
thinking that this is due to new hardware in the 980s which isn't timing 
or handling interrupts correctly under the FreeBSD kernel.

Looking at a 'pciconf -lvb' from each system, I noticed that the 980 has
two USB controllers which probe under ehci(4), while the 960 (which does 
not exhibit this problem), enumerates six uhci(4) controllers and two 
ehci(4) controllers.  To cut to the chase here, the 960 users' keyboards 
probe under a USB1.0 uhci(4), while the 980s only have ehci(4) devices 
to attach to.

So, I guess what I'm asking is - has anyone else seen any keyboard 
repeat or other USB craziness with ehci(4) ports or otherwise Intel PCH 
controllers?    Any fellow Optiplex 980 users?  I'd be more than happy 
to provide pciconf or other output if requested.

Thanks,
Steve Polyack

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 04:40:13PM -0500, Steve Polyack
wrote:
> 
> We've recently upgraded a few desktop workstations from Dell
> Optiplex 960s to Optiplex 980s.  We were running FreeBSD
> 8.1-RELEASE.  The migration was performed by simply swapping the
> drives into the new systems.  Immediately after switching people
> over, they all began to report bizarre keyboard issues - things like
> infinite key repeats (letters, numbers, "enter") for keys they
did
> not hold down.  The key repeats continue indefinitely until another
> key is pressed.  Occasionally, even mouse input will trigger similar
> infinite keyboard input repetition.  In addition to the repeat
> issue, sometimes physical key-presses are not registered by FreeBSD,
> leading to typos and angry developers.
> 
> We've tried doing fresh installs of FreeBSD 8.2-RC2 on two of these
> systems, and the issue persists.  Because of the observed behavior,
> I'm thinking that this is due to new hardware in the 980s which
> isn't timing or handling interrupts correctly under the FreeBSD
> kernel.
> 
> Looking at a 'pciconf -lvb' from each system, I noticed that the
980
> has two USB controllers which probe under ehci(4), while the 960
> (which does not exhibit this problem), enumerates six uhci(4)
> controllers and two ehci(4) controllers.  To cut to the chase here,
> the 960 users' keyboards probe under a USB1.0 uhci(4), while the
> 980s only have ehci(4) devices to attach to.
> 
> So, I guess what I'm asking is - has anyone else seen any keyboard
> repeat or other USB craziness with ehci(4) ports or otherwise Intel
> PCH controllers?    Any fellow Optiplex 980 users?  I'd be more than
> happy to provide pciconf or other output if requested.
Try adding the following to /boot/loader.conf then reboot and see if
the "excessive repeat" behaviour changes:

hint.kbdmux.0.disabled="1"

It would also help if you would state exactly what brand/model of
keyboard is used.  Yes, believe it or not, it matters.  dmesg output
would be helpful in this case.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc@parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.               PGP 4BD6C0CB |