mouse/keyboard not responding under Xorg

[michael]

On Thu, 2008-01-03 at 15:51 +0000, michael wrote:
> I've not managed to define precisely when I get problems but I'm  
> noticing
> the following symptoms and was wondering if some kind soul would help me
> debug what's going on in order to get to a solution? Thanks, Michael
> 
> set-up: etch, gnome (eg gnome-core 2.14.3.6), metacity 2.14.5-4 and
> Dell/Logitech USB optical mouse (seems to work fine in WinXP), with
> nVidia graphics card/TwinView and 2 monitors (diff resolutions)
> 
> symptoms (occasional and not sure how to repeat)
> 
> a) double clicking won't select anything
> b) in evolution, clicking on a new message or folder has no effect
> c) the cursor (arrowhead) disappears - if I set prefs to show cursor by
> depressing 'CNTL' I get the moving rectangles but there's no cursor
> there)
> d) focus doesn't move to new window (as it should and usually does)
> 
> I think the following is also a symptom but not 100% sure:
> e) doing ALT-TAB to move between windows does nothing on very first
> ALT-TAB
> 
> If it's the keyboard that's failed then using I also cannot get Gnome  
> menus (it selects the top level but nothing is shown) but can use the  
> mouse to open more new app/windows and then at some pt the keyboard  
> seems to be 'reset' such that it starts working again.
> 
> I've tried KDE and that also has the keyboard not responding (eg if I  
> try to switch desktops quickly then the keyboard stops responding) -  
> opening the control centre and changing options in there appears to  
> 'reset' the keyboard.
> 
> Any thoughts either on what's going on or how to debug it to narrow  
> down the issues? I've asked on the Debian mailing list but am still  
> stuck. I've had this line in my xorg.conf re Mouse device:
> 	Option         "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
> although it's a USB mouse I'm using, but commenting it out I still see the same issues

adding boot kernel option 'noapic' (as suggested on some fora) doesn't
help