Posted by Andy Warne on 11, 2000 at 10:03 AM:
In Reply to: Testing keyboard blew port. posted by Nick Chambers on 8, 2000 at 10:58 PM:
Hi,
On most M/B the 5 volts for the keyboard is passed through a tiny wired-in fuse. It will be somewhere near the keyboard connector and look like a resistor. To check you can meter between the 5 volts connector to the M/B and the 5 volt pin on the keyboard plug. If open then it is a blown fuse. Normally it isnt a good idea to wire across a fuse but in this case it is probably OK. There is no safety issue, just if you short the 5v the board may fry rather than blow the fuse next time! Many recent boards dont have a fuse anyway. So don't throw away the board just yet!
If you need any help identifying this fuse mail me.
: I took apart a keyboard to get the circuit board out to make a controller. I plugged the sucker into my computer and started testing the matrix with a wire (with keyscan running). After a few keystrokes, it froze with the pause key activated. The computer worked fine, but my keyboard did not. Then it would not boot because it couldn't detect the keyboard at all. Luckily I just happened to have another motherboard lying around to replace it with. Why did this happen? I am sure it is because of the keyboard and not the program. How can I prevent this from happening again.