hi there,

at last, i got my efika board, i connected it to the monitor (via low profile radeon 9200), connected ps2 keyboard and ps2 mouse via 2xps2 -> usb converter, connected atx power, and power switch.

i turned it on... and after a while i saw the smartfirmware messages and 'ok'. but... keyboard (although it blinked on power on) didn't respond. i tested the ps2 converter on another computer, and it was okay, i removed the ps2 converter, and tried another keyboard now usb only... on power on, i saw only some gfx card text, and bplan logo, nothing else, the same situation, like when i removed the keyboard completely, everything seamed to be frozen.

later i tried to connect it together with an usb stick, and my external usb hdd, and... the keyboard started to work. :) AT LAST! yeah!

so i tried to access the external hdd by sth like:

ls /builtin/usb/scsi/disk@0,0

and the result was... not responding keyboard...

so... my question is... does keyboard on EFIKA work without HDD connected? does usb keyboards work at all? (i have two, and both frozen booting on bplan logo, like when no keyboard connected)...

any help?

thanks in advance!!!

bye, MarK.

i had some troubles as well. My Cherry Cymotion Linux keyboard (usb) doesn't work at all. I tried a logitech (usb) which didn't work as well. They both work on my Pegasos2 (through ps2 adapter though). Finally, a cheesy keysonic keyboard (usb) and a noname one (usb)worked perfectly.

It seems like the Efika only like cheap kboards ???

!!!

ouch...

i tried 3 keyboards (one usb logitech with ps2 adapter, one usb wireless logitech, and one chinony ps2)

usb keyboards was dead for me (frozen on bplan logo, like when nothing connected)

those with ps2 adapter/connector, and dual back to usb adapter (understand?) booted, but didn't work without another usb device (stick and hdd tested). but well... worked only until i accessed the usb device...

i have a keyboard/mouse/monitor switch, and wanted to connect all three machines (peg1, peg2, efika) together... but this... makes me sad.

bye, MarK.

probably a stupid question, but did you reboot ?
because my keyboard is sometime not recognized until I reboot.
It's a logitech USB/wireless mouse+keyboard.

well... i didn't... because i had no reboot button in my old case :) but today i will check it out :) if you say, that it works for you, i guess, it should work for me also :)

thanks for the tip!

bye, MarK.

cool if that helps you :-)

Here is something found into the EFIKA.readme pdf that explains the problem :

Q: I only get the bplan logo on my screen but no console. What is wrong?
A: The Firmware was not able to detect a keyboard and automacicaly switch to the failsafe console which is forwarded to the serial port. Check that the USB keyboard is correct connected and USB support is enabled in OF variable (the usb-enable? variable).By the way, connecting many USB devices on a single non self-powered HUB may not provide enough current to every devices and cause unpredictable behaviour. It is always recommended to use self-powered hub and/or devices when using loads of USB devices.

well, i tried to reset the machine successfully, but... it didn't solve the problem. anyway i investigated a bit more, and found out few things:

(i use usb logitech internet navigator keyboard with ps2 adapter connected to dual ps2 -> usb adapter together with a ps2 optical mouse)

when efika is reseted/turned on, the keyboard does a flash... and when the console is active, the keyboard doesn't respond. but when i during the flash press any key (like shift or ctrl), the keyboard works pretty well. (except for right ctrl, after this key, the keyboard seams to work... strange. possibly a firmware bug?)

but... after this all, when i access any connected usb device, in my case it was to list out an index of my usb flash drive, the list was correctly displayed, but on the 'ok' prompt i again wasn't able to use my keyboard, because it stopped to respond...

this gives me a possibility to boot with some boot image, and to hope, that the os itself will use keyboard somehow else...

tonight i will check it out...

anyway, thanks for the tips, and i'm looking forward for another testings :)

bye, MarK.

Did you try a "pure" USB keyboard (wire or wireless) ?
Sometime PS2/USB adaptaters work strangely, even on other computers.

yes, i tried two different usb logitech keyboards, and my usb-enable? variable is true...

this isn't my priority now... as it seams to work with a pressed key... now... i can't boot the DI_EFIKA installator it usualy ends after a while with:

error: bootimage format is of an unknown format

any way to solve this?

thanks again and in advance! :)

bye, MarK.

ps: perhaps this was already talked here... i will check out...

edit:

seams, i have solved the problem... i have a bad usb stick... with another one, it seams to work okay...

hi !
sorry, but my usb key works fine too...
You're unlucky :-(

Try to plug your key & keyboard when EFIKA is off. Then switch the power on.

I'm having the same problem with my PS2-USB adaptor. PS2 keyboards won't work, even with the key-pressed trick you said.
Some USB keyboards also refuse to work. So, I'm afraid that if I buy a USB keyboard, it won't work...

For now, I'll borrow a keyboard from my lab...
:roll:

The keyboard I use for my EFIKA is the Logitech wireless
keyboard I got with my ODW. It only works after one
reboot...

I don't understand why it's so hard to initialze a simple
keyboard.. I mean.. BIOS starts like every keyboard out
there.. (Otherwise they can't sell it, I know. But I don't think
the keyboard makers has to do anything special to make
it BIOS-compatible..)