HP Spectre X360 KB/TP

[GTP]

HP Spectre X360 Model i3-4128TU
Keyborard and Touchpad not working in Windows.

I have tried...
Installed a brand new genine HP keyboard (direct from HP)
Asked "Auntie Google"
removing drivers/reinstalling drivers
checked every possible setting related to KB and TP
searched the physical KB for a switch/button to turn it on
searched the outside of the laptop for a switch/button
updated the BIOS to current
restored a backed up BIOS (previous version)
returned all BIOS settings to default
Fabs'd and formatted. Reinstalled Windows 2004 (also tried 1909, 1903, 1809)

There is a key (F5) that lights up on the keyboard on bootup and the keyboard/touchpad works perfectly until the Windows logon screen.
It disables at this point.
Interesting that during the reformat and reinstall of 2004 the KB/TP worked perfectly until a sound driver was installed.
Uninstalling/reinstalling the sound driver did not correct the problem.

This is doing my head in so any help is greatly appreciated.



oh... the keyboard/TP works perfectly in Linux, Fabs PE and Gandalfs PE

Edited to add: There is a setting in the BIOS "F5 Enabled" with no description of its function.
Disableing it makes no difference as far as the KB/TP being active.
The F5 key lights up for several seconds during boot up and whilst the F5 key is lighted the KB/TP works normally.
But it turns off at the logon screen and KB/TP activity ceases.

 

[Markverhyden]

F5 turns on the kb backlighting according to The Goo. When you've done the nuke and pave have you loaded all the OEM drivers?

 

[GTP]

F5 turns on the kb backlighting according to The Goo. When you've done the nuke and pave have you loaded all the OEM drivers?

Interesting. All it does for me is make the F5 key led light up for a few seconds intermttantly.
Yes I got all the latest drivers from HP.
I explained to the client that I've reached the point of where the cost of continual diagnosis is getting to high.
He has the touchscreen and OSK, also he can use and external (USB) keyboard.
The laptop also has a dodgy USB port that just stops now and then, requiring anything plugged into it to be pulled out and put back in.

Faulty motherboard is my opinion, but then it works perfectly in Linux and the PE's?

 

[Markverhyden]

Faulty motherboard is my opinion, but then it works perfectly in Linux and the PE's?

Wouldn't be the first time. Back when CompUSA was alive I got a couple of very nice Wintel laptops because they kept BSOD'ing in M$ but ran peachy king in Linux. And PE's load a limited set of drivers.

 

[GTP]

And doesnt Linux interface with hardware differently as well?
The client is happy enough to use the OSK/ext KB idea so I guess its just a waiting game for the thing to fail altogether.

 

[Markverhyden]

And doesnt Linux interface with hardware differently as well?

Yes and know. Obviously Linux doesn't use the same names for OS components but the concept is the same, you have to load code to "use" things. But there is one big difference. The registry, which exists in M$ but not Linux. That's always been M$'s achilles heel. corrupt that one single file and your whole boot up goes up in smoke.

 

[HCHTech]

The registry, which exists in M$ but not Linux. That's always been M$'s achilles heel. corrupt that one single file and your whole boot up goes up in smoke.

How does Linux replace the functionality of the registry? IOW, how does it keep track of the various OS, hardware & software settings? I'm guessing there are a bunch of files to read for this on bootup, if only based on watching Linux boot over the years...

 

[Markverhyden]

modprob is a key component in getting additional things running. It'll load kernel modules for the device or app in question. Now a days with UPnP there's a lot of auto discovery going on. I think most *nix's use udev which, as I understand it, uses modprobe. .conf files are used widely as well for configurations. Kind of like .inf files. But much like Apple and M$ there's not a lot of that type of under the hood tinkering needed like years ago. I think it's been more than 10 years since I've touched modprobe.

 

[NJW]

And doesnt Linux interface with hardware differently as well?

Linux is much less likely to take BIOS information on blind faith and it's easier to manually tune troublesome parts (e.g., acpi, which often reports complete b*ll*cks). As mentioned, udev finds stuff dynamically and calls modprobe to load the appropriate driver stuff (forgive the jargon ...). AFAIK, there is no static hardware specification – refreshed on every boot.

Nowadays, systemd complicates things (for all senses of 'complicates'), of course.