Lately there is a severely annoying trouble with my laptop using all GNU/Linux operating systems I have. Whether I use Ubuntu or others, this trouble stopped me from working for days. When booting I can use my keyboard just fine but when I come into login screen I failed to press any button. The only clue I have is that after doing suspend in login screen I can use keyboard for just a few seconds. My diagnosis comes down into my touchpad cable and finally the solution is to unplug that cable and the trouble is gone. I share my experience below hoping this helps somebody else out there.
(Imagine you can enter a livecd but cannot type anything nor press any key that's so frustrating of course)
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Issues
- I cannot type anything at login screen in any of all GNU/Linux operating systems I have. No matter it is with or without swap, in hdd or in flash drive, actually installed or just LiveCD. This happened often and randomly.
- I cannot enter BIOS as any of Esc, F2, and F12 buttons won't do anything.
- I cannot login to my installed operating systems.
- I cannot access tty consoles in all systems.
- I don't know what is the cause it's so frustrating.
Clues
- Keyboard works fine and is not physically damaged.
- Mouse works fine.
- I can type just fine when in grub bootloader screen (all keys) just before I got blocked in the login screen afterward.
- Several days before this I got my coffee spilled on my desk.
Solution
I removed touchpad cable from its housing and then now I can work with keyboard freely without the trouble. The only drawback is that now I cannot use my touchpad (it is already broken anyway). Of course I need to remove my laptop casing first.
Cause
I don't know except I suspect my touchpad interrupts my keyboard and the actual culprit is some coffee on the tip of touchpad cable probably caused unstable inputs to system.
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