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Did I experience a firmware attack? What do I do? (lemmy.today)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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[–] 6 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Seems like something to do with the Operating system. Had a similar issue lately with fedora Linux where both of my laptops had I/O issues. Restarting and updating fixed the issue.

Now it's possible that your keyboard could be going bad.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

    I can't input almost anything into the bios on Good Laptop now. The caps lock/shift problem happens in the bios too. If it was just an OS problem, it wouldn't impact the bios.

    First a Debian keyboard going bad, then immediately after I plug in the Debian hard drive into the Fedora device suddenly the Fedora keyboard starts going bad in the exact same way but doesn't survive reboot? That seems too unlikely to be just a coincidence.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    Process of elimination. You could try things like format the drive and reinstall the OS and using a USB keyboard on the laptop to narrow down the possible sources. Keep going until you have your answers.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 months ago*

    It's a decent idea, but there's risks of doing things that way.

    The Debian laptop has a damaged keyboard no matter what I do, this includes when I am using the bios, and this includes when I plug in a USB keyboard, which also seems to always have caps locked/shift held down with this laptop and certain keys not working. That suggests a damaged keyboard controller right?

    The Fedora laptop is currently working. When I plugged in the Debian hard drive in an enclosure via USB, the keyboard suddenly stopped working normally, with caps lock held down and shift held down, and then I unplugged it and rebooted.

    I can't test the Debian laptop. I already reflashed the bios and the keyboard doesn't work in that, so I know experimenting with a new OS isn't going to change anything. I also tried another OS on it and had the same problem. The Debian laptop is damaged. I have no idea where, I suspect it's a keyboard controller or motherboard firmware, but I don't know.

    If I test the Fedora laptop, I risk transferring firmware malware over that may survive a reboot, unlike last time. It could be the bios and chipset is just resistant to this attack and it will never persist. It could also be that I just noticed it quickly and it wasn't able to gain permanence, but would have done so with time.

    To test this involves a risk of damaging motherboard or chip firmware that I can't simply reset. I could test this again by plugging in the Debian hard drive into the working Fedora laptop, playing the Lana del Rey song again, and just seeing what happens. But what if this breaks the Fedora laptop too?

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