First character typed lost

[Warren Block]

On a Gateway ML6732 notebook, FreeBSD 9-stable is working great.  Video 
works (i915), sound works, the only thing that isn't quite right is that 
the first character typed after the FreeBSD kernel loads is lost. After 
that, it works normally.  This makes entering a passphrase more 
challenging.

Any suggestions on what to check?  ACPI? atkbd hints?

Currently it's running 9-stable, but did the same thing with 8.x.  Of 
course it works normally for the BIOS and boot menu, FreeBSD loader 
menu, Windows, and Xubuntu.

The system is not terribly old, a Pentium Dual T2390, and this is with a 
GENERIC kernel.

sysctl shows

   dev.atkbdc.0.%desc: Keyboard controller (i8042)
   dev.atkbdc.0.%driver: atkbdc
   dev.atkbdc.0.%location: handle=\_SB_.PCI0.LPCB.PS2K
   dev.atkbdc.0.%pnpinfo: _HID=PNP0303 _UID=0
   dev.atkbdc.0.%parent: acpi0
   dev.atkbd.0.%desc: AT Keyboard
   dev.atkbd.0.%driver: atkbd
   dev.atkbd.0.%parent: atkbdc0

dmesg shows

   atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
   atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0
   kbd0 at atkbd0
   atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]