Are there any "switch off USB to conserve power" settings in the BIOS?
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2025
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No, however there are a couple other settings that are concerning:
- Always On USB [Enabled] : The USB ports can charge external device during low power states.
- Charge in Battery Mode [Enabled]: Enable or disable chargin external device when system is in hibernate or power-off state and in batter mode.
- Fool Proof Fn Ctrl [Enabled]
- DPTF [Enabled]
- Slow Slew Rate for IA Domain [Enabled]
For the record, disabling Always on USB hasn't worked.
Yeah the others don't seem like they would be the solution. Have you tried a USB keyboard? Not as a permanent solution, but more to see if other keyboards do it too.
Is the laptop still in warranty? If so, take it back, if not then maybe see if you can source a replacement keyboard. Might be annoying to replace depending on the chassis but probably easier than replacing the whole mainboard.
How does the cable connecting the keyboard to mainboard look? Have you tried reseating it? Is it running through any pinch points?
Yep, this is a very very common problem.
I do use an external keyboard for this computer but on linux, the usb errors cause kernel panic, and I'm sure I could find a way to disable that input but I have no idea.
The laptop is no longer under warranty, but this doesn't seem to be a hardware issue as the keyboard works perfectly on first start up. I have tried reseating the keyboard to the main board, but I haven't removed the mainboard itself, and I can't tell if there's any pinch points since the cable runs all the way behind the board, but the end looks clean.
Tried this?
Do you mean disabling the linux warnings? I mean even if I can, it doesn't solve the problem does it.
No I meant draining the battery completely, you should be able to achieve the same result by disconnecting the battery if it's in an accessible location
Oh yea, I have completely disconnected the battery, the problem still persists. This becomes especially a problem with distros that have menu in the bootloader because the keyboard will only work in the bootloader then stop working in the os itself.
We'll, the next step is ripping out the keyboard, it would be interesting to see if it boots and works fine with the internal kB disconnected and an external kB connected. That is, is it something on the keyboard that's screwing with the USB or is it the USB itself. I once had a laptop (I think it was actually a Lenovo) that you could remove the keyboard from the top with a small probe, not so common these days. The mb should come off relatively easy. You could replace your thermal pastes while you've got everything dismantled.
Well Windows, the default OS, works normally with the external keyboard (even though one usb port doesn't work with keyboards, works with anything else though).
However, Linux doesn't get past starting systemd.
I take it that's with the built in keyboard still connected?
No, that's with the keyboard disconnected and the external connected.
When keyborad is connected, linux launches fine and has usb errors, and the external works as well.
That's bizarre, I'm surprised Linux is unable to deal with the disconnected internal kB, what's the systemd error before it packs it in?
You should be able to boot with the intkb disconnected to failure then switch off, reconnect the intkb, boot normally then use jounald to see the last boot logs.
When it boots to windows with only the extkb connected, does the extkB still fail following sleep?
it doesn't give an error, it just says 'starting systemd udevd' and then hangs for a long time. It becomes completely unresponsive and I have to unplug it to get it working.
In windows, no, the external keyboard works regardless.
I would have thought the logs would share more than that.
The weird Linux function aside, sounds there's something in the intkb that's toast. There seems to be a firmware update for that kB, have you tried updating that (or rolling it back)?
After downloading windows before, it, of course, became the default OS, and so in trying to recover my linux installation, the NixOS installer won't launch (due to the problem above).