[ltp] BIOS upgrade IHET42WW messes up display? (fwd)

[Nils Smeds]

Hello again,

I just wanted to make known that I repeated my attempt on installing BIOS
1.10 (IHET42WW) on my IBM Thinkpad 600E 2645-550. Despite the good advice I
got last time I think that I can with at least some confidence state that
this BIOS level did not work for me. I'll file a bug report to IBM, but just
wanted you to know. The kernel is 2.2.17 running on a RedHat 7 release.

The following is now known to me:

BIOS 1.10 makes the screen on my machine go blank as the kernel starts to boot.
(I.e. no problem during LILO). The symptoms are independent of the BIOS
variables (as named by PS2) SCREEN, STARTUP, HVEXPANSION and F8. It is also
independent on whether I state vga=normal to the kernel at boot or not.

Installing the BIOS 1.09 made the problem disappear and the screen works fine.

I did not try different X servers as the problems appear long before the X
server starts.

Just wanted you to know. 

/Nils

PS. I still have to get tpctl, apm and power-down to work, but I think this is
now an unrelated issue. This worked fine for me when still in RedHat 6.2, but
not any longer. There are many possible causes for this apart from the BIOS (as
e.g. new kernel release, new kernel configuration, newer apmd etc. etc.) I'll
be fiddling with this as times permit - any input is welcome. Maybe I was
just lucky that everything worked magically under RedHat 6.2 if I did not run
the apmd daemon.

This is my current guess in kernel parameters:

$ grep APM /usr/src/linux/.config-2.2.17-2 
CONFIG_APM=y
# CONFIG_APM_IGNORE_USER_SUSPEND is not set
CONFIG_APM_DO_ENABLE=y
CONFIG_APM_CPU_IDLE=y
CONFIG_APM_DISPLAY_BLANK=y
CONFIG_APM_IGNORE_SUSPEND_BOUNCE=y
CONFIG_APM_RTC_IS_GMT=y
CONFIG_APM_ALLOW_INTS=y
CONFIG_APM_REAL_MODE_POWER_OFF=y


smeds@vislab.usyd.edu.au said:
> I am running RedHat 7, linux 2.2.17, on a IBM Thinkpad 600E 2645-550.
> A year ago I was bitten by a BIOS upgrade where I couldn't boot Linux
> after upgrading so I downgraded to BIOS 1.00.

> Today I was thinking of upgrading to maybe get more functionality in
> tpctl working. I get the message: tpctl: SMAPI BIOS error 0x53 ("SMAPI
> function is not available") -- exiting.

> 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.

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

PPS. I submitted the bug report to IB yesterday and noticed that they are
now at BIOS 1.13 (with 1.11-1.12 not given to the public).

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