[ltp] BIOS upgrade IHET42WW messes up display?

[Michael Kroh]

On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Shigeo Tanai wrote:

>
>I installed the BIOS IHET42WW (v.1.10) released in Oct. 00 and
>configured it. Everything was fine in Win98, but when booting in Linux
>the screen goes blank in the boot sequence. The visual boot image screen
>is fine as is the next image where the image starts to load, but when it
>executes the kernel (I belive it is) the screen goes blind and there is
>nothing one can do. The machine comes up perfectly and fully, but no
>screen. reinstalling the 1.00 BIOS put everything back to normal again.

Have you tried some of the intermediate bios revisions?  Have you tried
1.09, 1.08, etc.?

The newer bios version might have adjusted the video bios, and to find out
more about that, look under Documentation/svga.txt and
Documentation/fb/vesafb.txt in the kernel source tree.

Here's something I found at ibm that might be of more help...

http://www.pc.ibm.com/qtechinfo/DSHY-43DNQ5.html

Ah - have you tried disabling the "Simple Boot Flag" in Easy-Setup.
Don't know where that would be exactly, but from reading the link above, I
can see where that might cause problems.  Apparently if you're only using
windows98 or some such, then it won't bother to "configure such hardware
resources as system interrupts, memory ranges, and I/O port ranges"...

Straight from that web page:

(Important Notice)
If you are using multiple operating systems in addition to Windows 95/98,
you must DISABLE the Simple Boot Flag in Easy-Setup.

To modify the Simple Boot Flag:

1.Hold down the F1 key on the ThinkPad and power on the system.
2.Open the Config icon.
3.Open the Quick Boot icon.
4.Set Simple Boot Flag to Enable or Disable depending on configuration.

>
>Anyone seen the same thing - or anyone having a suggested BIOS level to run?

I've seen the same thing - on a completely different model, though... I've
got an a20m.  When you're configuring your kernel, you have the option to
include a VESA VGA graphics console (CONFIG_FB_VESA), as well as "Video
Mode Selection Support" (CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT).  This is under Console
Drivers.

You can eliminate those, or (if you enabled CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT) you can
just have lilo ask you what you want.  You can shunt the problem totally
by editing your lilo.conf file to include the line

vga=normal

in the global section up top.  There should only be one 'vga=' line (at
least in the global section before defining specific images), so if you
have one there already then comment it out.  That's not to say that you
won't be able to get a boot logo or more video modes for your console,
it's just that you'll have to find out what the valid modes are.

To try this out without screwing with lilo.conf, you can always enter it
at the bootprompt.

Of course, it could always be something like APM.  What kernel are you
running?  I'd also try (after the vga=normal thing) turning apm off by
specifying "apm=off" at the boot prompt, eg:

LILO: linux apm=off vga=normal

see what happens...

Have you tried hooking up an external display?  Try configuring a VERY
minimalistic kernel - just the basics - only what you need to boot and see
if that works...

Hmmm... are you running loadlin instead of lilo?  If so, you can always
pass options to the kernel with loadlin, too, for instance:

loadlin vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro vga=normal apm=off

>
>Sorry if this has been asked already. I just signed up on the list and the
>archive only goes to October.
>

Tell me about it - I just signed up, too and I wish there was somewhere
the archives could be kept for a longer period of time.  I've got some
room where I work, but I don't know if I can swing it with the suits...

But if I could, is there any interest in doing so?

Regards,
Kroh

>/Nils
>
>
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