[ltp] T40: installation report

[Fabrice Bellet]

Hi!

On Thu, Jun 12, 2003 at 11:29:17PM -0400, Neil Weisenfeld wrote:
> I'm interested in your memory errors.  I'm having the same thing.

I no longer feel alone with my problem :-)
I also remember reading a post on comp.sys.laptops of a person having
app crashes on winxp with his new centrino thinkpad, and asking if
centrinos can reliably be used for processor intensive applications.
It could be related. I cannot find the reference in google, I'm still 
searching.

Do you also have crashes on windows ?

> I also have an odd problem with my T40p since the beginning and I've
> tried a number of different things.  I think that the culprit may be
> these memory errors.  It will be interesting to see if it's truly a
> problem or a memtest bug/incompatibility.
> 
> The issue I'm having is random crashes of almost every application on my
> machine.  From the X server to the kernel itself to various panel
> applets, etc.  About 5 times a day something just folds up and
> disappears for no reason.  I pulled the 512MB chip and it will be
> interesting to see how tomorrow goes.

Well, the next thing to test would be to access the main memory chip (supposed
to be ok), and to swap it with the other one (supposed to have problem),
so I could identify if the problem comes from the memory chip itself,
or from the socket on the motherboard, or other kind of circuitry 
black magic... 

I've been told that the keyboard needs to be removed to access the main memory 
chip. I don't feel confortable with this operation...

Asking IBM to change their supposed culprit memory chip is tedious too, 
because no memory problems are detected by their own diagnostic program
(pc-doctor). So it's easy for them to hide behind the curtain, by saying
that linux and memtest86 are not supported on this laptop.

> Re: the built-in wireless (not that you asked me, but it was on your web
> page ;-).  I don't think that the open-source project is going to really
> get anywhere anytime soon, though I'd love to see it happen.  From what
> I've read, the Atheros chipset is basically the WinModem of wireless --
> most of the work is done in the drivers, so that implementing them is
> far from trivial.  They also, apparently, already sent their lawyers
> after the guy heading up the open-source driver effort, although he's
> outside of the US and seems not to care very much (he also seems to know
> what he's doing).  Someone (Andy Ts'o?) talks on his web page about
> pulling the mini-PCI card and replacing it w/ a Prism-II based model and
> that may end up being the easiest path for now.

I was not aware of these details. Thanks. 

BTW, not all mini-PCI cards are accepted by the BIOS, according to :
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0306.0/0637.html
We can confidently guess that this is certainly not related to TCPA,
but rather to FCC certification issues, see Ted's message
about TCPA clarification and his cisco wireless choice :
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0306.1/0700.html

best wishes,
-- 
fabrice