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How To Disable Keyboard on Compaq?

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George Stone

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Jun 17, 2002, 11:00:40 AM6/17/02
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I have an old Compaq Deskpro (Pentium I) that I want to make headless,
keyboardless, and mouseless but I can't find an option to disable "Halt
on keyboard error." In order to get the BIOS options I had to boot from
a diskette, but I can't find anything referring to disabling "Halt on
keyboard error."

Any suggestions? Thanks.
--
George Stone

Skylar Thompson

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Jun 17, 2002, 4:33:27 PM6/17/02
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On Mon, 17 Jun 2002 10:00:40 -0500, George Stone <timeman...@directvinternet.com> wrote:
> I have an old Compaq Deskpro (Pentium I) that I want to make headless,
> keyboardless, and mouseless but I can't find an option to disable "Halt
> on keyboard error." In order to get the BIOS options I had to boot from
> a diskette, but I can't find anything referring to disabling "Halt on
> keyboard error."

I have heard of plugs for PS/2 or XT keyboard ports that emulate a
keyboard. Alternatively, you can throw an old crappy keyboard in, and just
not use it. I've had to do that for mice with a friend's Intellistation
that I've been working on. For some reason, the Intellistation's BIOS has a
keyboardless operation mode, but no mouseless operation mode, so it still
probes for a pointing device and halts the boot when it doesn't find one. I
solved that by rummaging through a drawer full of computer supplies and
finding an old two-button M$ mouse and plugging it in.

--
-- Skylar Thompson (sky...@attglobal.net)

David Van Cleef

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Jun 17, 2002, 11:11:27 PM6/17/02
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In article <3D0DF998...@directvinternet.com>, George Stone wrote:
> I have an old Compaq Deskpro (Pentium I) that I want to make headless,
> keyboardless, and mouseless but I can't find an option to disable "Halt
> on keyboard error." In order to get the BIOS options I had to boot from
> a diskette, but I can't find anything referring to disabling "Halt on
> keyboard error."
>

short a 10k ohm resistor between pins 4 and 5 if its an AT connector, pins
3 & 4 if its a ps/2.

That will fake the machine into believing there's a keyboard installed.

--
David Van Cleef - Engineering Manager
d...@gol.com - Exodus Communications, K.K.
d...@aeug.org - Global OnLine Japan
-- "We have forgotten at least two things..." --

John Smith

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Jun 20, 2002, 4:40:59 AM6/20/02
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Don't remember exactly but I put a 'Supervisor Password' in the
Bios-Settings of an Deskpro 2000 with a Pentium I 133 Mhz. So when
theres no Keyboard attached the machine starts with a Bios message 'No
Keyboard attached. Network Server Mode' or similar, and it starts with
no problem.

Can't look up settings as I have no keyboard attached ;-) and don't
want to kill the uptime of the Linuxbox.....

Bye,
Thomas

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