Keyboard Input Issues on Asus ROG Strix 16 (2025) with CachyOS During Gaming

Issues & Assistance
1

I have a problem with my Asus laptop. I’ve installed CachyOS and the ROG Control Center from asus-linux.org. Everything works fine—except when I play games. For example, when I play Space Marine 2 or other games, the keys on my laptop keyboard start sticking. I can no longer control my character properly. Once I exit the game and return to the desktop, everything works perfectly again.

I’ve already asked an AI for help, but it couldn’t solve the issue. I’ve also permanently disabled the power-saving mode for the keyboard, but that didn’t help either. I own an Asus ROG Strix 16 (2025) with an RTX 5080, and an external keyboard works without any issues. Does anyone have another idea?

2

What I have already tested (without success):

  • USB Quirk Cleanup: Removed all non-applicable usbcore.quirks (since the keyboard is internal I2C, not USB).

  • Direct Hardware Routing: Tested i8042.nopnp=1 i8042.direct=1 to bypass standard ACPI abstraction.

  • Bus Isolation: Tested psmouse.synaptics_intertouch=0 to rule out touchpad/keyboard bus conflicts.

  • I2C Clock Lock: Tested i2c_designware.clocks_always_on=1 to prevent the I2C controller from entering power-saving states under GPU load.

  • Interrupt Enforcement: Tested i2c_designware.force_irq=1 to force hard IRQs for the designware controller.

  • Proton Layer Bypass: Added PROTON_ENABLE_HIDRAW=1 to Steam launch options to enforce raw input handling.

3

My problem is similar, but differs for specifics. I have an ASUS ROG Strix G615LR laptop with an Nvidia 5070 TI. My laptop keyboard works fine when I haven’t launched a Steam game. Whenever I launch Diablo IV i lose the ‘c’, ‘v’ and ‘esc’ keys completely (as in no input from the keys). In addition, other key entries sometime repeat rapidly (after initially touching them). Pressing the backspace key can remove one or all of the key entries, again in rapid succession.

This all started after updating CachyOS to kernel 6.18. My build and laptop information:

Operating System: CachyOS Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 6.6.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.26.0
Qt Version: 6.11.1
Kernel Version: 6.18.33-2-cachyos-lts (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland
Processors: 24 × Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 275HX
Memory: 32 GiB of RAM (30.7 GiB usable)
Graphics Processor 1: Intel® Graphics
Graphics Processor 2: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop GPU
Manufacturer: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Product Name: ROG Strix G16 G615LR_G615LR
System Version: 1.0

I’ve also found that slowing the keyboard delay and repeat rates does not resolve the issue, so it is not an input lag problem.

If I shut down the game and close Steam, my laptop keyboard functions as normal.

However, if I alt-tab out of Diablo IV and try typing - such as in a search window in my browser app - the same keyboard issues noted in the game follow (ie no ‘c’, ‘v’ or ‘esc’ key inputs and the rapid letter repeats or deletion of key entries). After alt-tabbing out of the game, closing Diablo IV and Steam down doesn’t restore the normal keyboard functions/responses, it stays bugged.

At that point, if I try rebooting I still have no ‘c’, ‘v’ or ‘esc’ keys input response. The only way to I’ve found to restore full keyboard function is to perform an EC reset.

At this point I’d love to stick with the updated kernel, as builds before 6.18 don’t appear to work with ASUS ROG Control Center, but if it means every time I try to play a game on Steam I’m rolling the dice on whether or not my laptop’s keyboard input is going to fully work, then I may have to rollback to a pre-6.18 kernel build.

Would appreciate any assistance on this issue, or if someone else who’s having the same or similar problems has a work-around.

4

UPDATE: The keyboard lag is definitely tied to Nvidia dGPU activity, not just gaming. Even opening Discord on the desktop triggers the exact same internal I2C keyboard lagging as soon as the Nvidia card is engaged in the hybrid setup (Intel iGPU + Nvidia dGPU). External USB keyboards remain unaffected

5

Just popping in to say I have the same issue, it has been happening for two months or so at this point. Copy pasting a post I made on the cachyos subreddit 10 days ago, everything up to date though.

This is on an ASUS Strix G16 G615LW.

System information

      System:
         Kernel: 7.0.11-1-cachyos arch: x86_64 bits: 64
         Desktop: niri 26.04 (8ed0da4) Distro: CachyOS

      Graphics:
         Device-1: Intel Arrow Lake-S [Intel Graphics] driver: i915 v: kernel
         Device-2: NVIDIA GB203M / GN22-X9 [GeForce RTX 5080 Max-Q Mobile]
           driver: nvidia v: 610.43.02
         Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.23 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.12
         Compositor: niri driver: N/A resolution: 2560x1600~240Hz

Description of the issue:

  • Open steam, not necessary to have a game launched, sometimes this is enoughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh (this is literally my h key getting stuck while writing this post, right after opening steam, if I wait a little bit, it works itself out and I can keep steam open, but if a game is open, then only closing it fixes the issue).

  • Attempt to use the keyboard, or click. It appears as if it’s freezing, but the system is fine, maybe every third keystroke doesn’t register, and I have to press it multiple times. Release events are the same, as in, I press a key, release it, but it never sees the release so it’s as if I’m still holding it down. If I run evtest while this is happening, I can see that it indeed does not see certain keystrokes and key releases.

Example after launching a game:

For instanceeeeee re’s me tryni to type while having gme open, as you can see somekys done regier and some get flooded.

  • Closing the game causes everything to go back to normal.

Another workaround WAS using the LTS kernel. It had no issues. An update broke it as well, now it happens on either kernel.

Also, saw this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/cachyos/comments/1tt2884/keyboard_misses_keystrokes_or_repeats_them_while/

This person also has a Strix laptop, and they’re describing the exact same issue. My controller also works just fine in game. The keyboard does not.

Seems like this is specific to our laptops.. no wonder I haven’t been able to find much about this online. Thankfully I play most of my games on controller, but it’s still very very annoying when I want to alt tab, because the problem persists as long as the game is open.

Also, as @diemuellermilch said, this isn’t just steam, I only realized this recently while playing on emulators (Vita3K, shadPS4)

6

This may be relevant: https://www.reddit.com/r/hardware/comments/1rvqfzr/asus_rog_laptops_ship_with_pcisig_specification/

Not sure if this is related at all since I did not have this issue until a certain kernel update.

But I also found these:

So it seemingly happens on a Fedora-based distro as well. The second link mentions a fix: sudo systemctl stop asusd.service. It did not fix the issue for me, but mentioning it anyway in case it helps someone.