disconnecting keyboard: big trouble !?!

Wayne Sierke ws+freebsd-questions at au.dyndns.ws
Mon Mar 22 22:55:53 PST 2004


On Tue, 2004-03-23 at 16:52, Shaun T. Erickson wrote:
> Steve Ireland wrote:
> 
> > This is a PS/2 thing, not an operating system thing. You really can
> > fry your motherboard plugging and unplugging PS/2 devices while the
> > system is powered up.
> 
> I suppose it's possible, but I know I 've never fry'd one. I'm always 
> unplugging and pluging mine back in.

I'd never fried one either until just recently. Of all things when I
plugged a mouse back in. It disabled the keyboard as well. Luckily the
'fried' part turned out to be a fusible link on the motherboard and was
easily repaired. This was an old board, though, and I've certainly not
had any problems with more recent boards. I'm not sure why fusible links
were thought to be necessary. Possibly it was the early days of PS/2 and
there was uncertainty about what people would be plugging in to those
connectors.


Wayne




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