# Corsair K95 RGB problems and reccomandations for alternative

## marco.difresco

Hi all,

I have been using a Corsair K95 RGB for about 7 months and while at first it was working fine, lately it started to give me problems.

The most common is key repetition: usually it is just the letter 'm' (on the videogames I play the letter 'm' is mapped to the Map function, so it is a key that I press quite often), but today I occasionally got the problem with the letter 'x'; the worst part is that the problem is not constant: some time the characters get repeated (even several time in a minutes depending on how often I press the character) and in other times I don't get the problem for almost an hour (for instance I have been using several 'm' on this very post and I am spending quite some time writing it and I never got any occurence).

The second problem is when I boot as the keyboard isn't recognized and I can't type anything; so far the only way I found to make it work is to start the computer without ckb-daemon loaded and unplug/plug back the keyboard few time; during those unplug/plugin times I get the following on dmesg:

```
new full-speed USB device number 38 using xhci_hcd

usb 1-5: unable to read config index 0 descriptor/all

usb 1-5: can't read configurations, error -110
```

and these messages get repeted for every unplug/plug attempt until the keyboard is finally recognized and I get:

```
usb 1-5: new full-speed USB device number 41 using xhci_hcd

usb 1-5: New USB device found, idVendor=1b1c, idProduct=1b11

usb 1-5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3

usb 1-5: Product: Corsair K95 RGB Gaming Keyboard 

usb 1-5: Manufacturer: Corsair

usb 1-5: SerialNumber: 1802000BAEA90CA554E75C3CF5001940

input: Corsair Corsair K95 RGB Gaming Keyboard  as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-5/1-5:1.0/0003:1B1C:1B11.000F/input/input27
```

and I can finally start typing.

I tried to use the keyboard under Windows and it doesn't show any problem (but I have to admit I haven't tried for long sessions), therefore I don't think the cause is hardware.

I tried to use compressed air to clean potential dust and derbies, but without success.

I am not confident enough to try to remove the characters cap to check for potential problems.

As for potential conflicts with some package update, unfortunately the key repetition problem started very subtly (an occurrence every blue moon and I thought it was just a finger-stutter) and the emergence of the boot problem is hard to track since I usually reboot once every 30+ days, therefore I cannot pinpoint any particular update.

I tried to use the lever on the back that, as far as I understood, control how often in milliseconds the key signal is read from the keyboard, but 1 every 10 times it just mitigate the problem for few minutes and the other 9 times the keyboard freeze: I can't write anything and I can't even turn on/off the lightning and I have to plug an old keyboard to open a terminal to manually reload ckb-daemon.

Do you have any idea on how can I debug the above problems?

If there isn't any good solution (I don't know, maybe because Corsair uses a too proprietary mechanics or other causes for a reliable open source reverse-engineered drivers), can you please recommend another keyboard that is well supported under Linux? I don't need something too fancy (for example I don't use the G keys in either this keyboard or the old Logitech G15 I had), but I need:

* the retro-illumination that must be turned on and off from the keyboard (I have it in my room so I have to turn it off before going to sleep);

* media player controls;

* must be very robust (I am very clumsy and when I type very fast I often push the keys from the cap border or from a strange angle, therefore the keyboard should correctly recognize the character and not wear off too quickly because of it - it is one of the reasons I tried a mechanical[/glsa] keyboard for the first time.);

* as mentioned, very good Linux support of course  :Very Happy: 

Thanks in advance.

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## marco.difresco

Any recommendation?

Today I had a power outage and I spent 45 minutes of reboots and unplugging/plugging back in before I regained control of my computer; and in those 45 minutes I tried to log on the Windows partition and the keyboard worked fully and immediately so it isn't an hardware problem.

Thanks in advance.

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