PS/2 dead, keyboard in mouse?

[kidscruff]

PS/2 keyboard into mouse socket?

Well it seems my motherboard's keyboard (ps/2) connector has died overnight. I've never hot-swapped the ports. Keyboard isn't recognised in DOS or Windows, but Everest diagnostics does detect an "unknown" something on the port.

As a last resort I plugged the keyboard into the mouse ps/2 connector, and it actually works!

Is this going to be ok though? I was always led to believe the keyboard/mouse ps/2 ports should never be interchanged.

Update: Seems it could be the physical connections rather than something shorted. An old ps/2 mouse was detected just fine in the keyboard connector. Seems my motherboard is happy whatever you plug in!

 

[state4plasma]

Hi kidscruff

Well it seems my motherboard's keyboard (ps/2) connector has died overnight. I've never hotswapped the ports, and my keyboard was as good as dead.

As a last resort I plugged the keyboard into the mouse ps/2 connector, and it actually works!

Is this going to be ok though? I was always led to believe the keyboard/mouse ps/2 ports should never be interchanged. Cheers

That's some old hardware you got there. Forgot what those things look like hehe

Anyway, interesting that it actually worked (which is the first hurdle you had to cross) - so congrats on that

Now it's true that the ports should never be interchanged and definitely not hotswapped; but, if you have a relatively new-ish motherboard, you should be fine. Also, I highly recommend you switching to USB if possible