[ltp] Wireless hardware radio switch does not work on X60s

[linux-thinkpad@linux-thinkpad.org]

On Thursday 31 May 2007 08:52, Florian Reitmeir wrote:
> wlan enable/disable works
> ah ok .. bluetooth dosen't work anymore (so i missed this)

You had my hopes up there with your previous post as I have been having a hard 
time figuring out how to get bluetooth on toggle (via Fn+F5) to work. It 
still does not work when ibm-acpi is loaded.

> > Also, could you test if *all* hotkeys are being reported properly?  You
> > just need to echo 0xffff >/proc/acpi/ibm/hotkey and run acpi_listen, and
> > then press each hotkey...

Thank you for the heads up on acpi_listen. I did not even know it existed.

> f1,f2,f3,f4,f5,f6,f7,f8,f9,f11,f12 all execpt f10 produce an acpi event
> mute,up,low, access work via thinkpad-keys
> light works, but doesn't generate an event
> brightness up/down produce an acpi event
> fn+space, is doing nothing
> stop,play/pause,forward,backword also work via thinkpad-keys

Are you sure they all produce an acpi event every time. For example, a few 
days ago Fn+F2 worked just fine but now it does not produce an acpi event. 
Although this may have something to do with using acpi_listen. acpi_listen 
seems to be broken because while it was starting and listening, I pressed 
Fn+F5 and it worked to turn off which it did, but no acpi event was 
registered. Although it is also possible that it bypassed acpi altogether. 
ibm_acpi was loaded of course. Turning on bluetooth does not work.

The following fn key work as of now according to acpi_listen (although doing a 
reboot into single-user mode may give different results):
f3,f5,f12

Note that there is something wrong in acpi_listen because PgUp (light) works 
and so does Home/End (brightness up/down). Although brightness works in a 
delayed way which tells me that there is something fishy going on. Probably 
multiple signals are being sent out (this always happens). ScrLk (num lock) 
also works.

I would have to restart the machine, preferably in single-user mode and not 
start acpi_listen to test the acpi events. If someone wants me to do this, 
please ask.

> and i do like the new models, where instead of ati an nvidia card is
> builtin. hopefully the support gets better for those.

There are drawbacks however. Keyboard is worse. It is no longer the very 
responsive keyboard that existed on the IBM model Thinkpads. The addition of 
an extra key between ctrl and alt is not too good, especially on the right 
side as it made the other keys way too small. Half of a regular key in fact. 
They should have made the spacebar smaller and kept the keys regular size. It 
is huge compared to the other buttons, and while it needs to stay bigger so 
that both thumbs can easily reach it, it is still too big and the corners are 
never hit.

The cooling in an X60s is _much_ better. The fan is on a lot of the time but 
at a very low rpm. Much, much lower than the previous X laptops. The wireless 
card making heat is worse, no doubt, but at last it is the right palm rest 
and it is not really that bad. The previous models had worse cooling that 
made the keyboard unbearable sometimes. However, now when the wireless card 
gets too hot, the underneath gets unbearable. No "lap" sessions, but then 
again the same was true for the previous models.

The X60s has a much better screen. Whites are not as "white", however. They 
are what can be described as matte white. The power plug is better designed 
but the impemintation is much worse. First, it is bigger. Why? On the other 
side, it is deeper and thus I suspect it goes in further and seems to "snap" 
in better. Second, it is loose. It will not come out, but it is loose 
side-to-side. Previous laptops, even after years of use, did not have this 
looseness.

The plastic overall is worse. I would say much worse. A 50% decline if you 
were to say that 100% was the great plastic on certain older IBM Thinkpads, 
and 0% being other brand plastic which is cheap, no matter how expensive the 
laptop seems to be. The bottom plastic is horrible. I would rate it at about 
20%. The RAM plastic piece actually bends in pretty easily. This is 
unacceptable for a Thinkpad. The plastic itself, while it looks more 
polished, feels cheaper than the plastic on the old Thinkpads. It just does 
not feel as scratch resistent as the previous plastic type. Hard to explain. 

The "side" body is much improved. If I squeeze on the two sides of the laptop 
it does not budge. And I squeeze HARD. It must be reinforced by solid metal. 
The same goes for the screen bezel, however, if pressed on the front/back 
side of the screen bezel, the plastic is horribly reinforced.

SD card slot feels very solid. Much better made than the strange CF slot of 
previous models. Modem is on right side, ethernet on the left. This is 
backwards because the power cable is to the right side which should match the 
ethernet port so that both cables are on the same side. Modem is rarely used 
so it should have been placed whereever there is room.

3 instead of 1 USB port is large improvement. And firewire stayed put which is 
a surprise seeing the jump in usb ports.

Printer port is gone. The oldest and greatest port is no longer available. I 
just now noticed this. No more easy hacking of gizmos.

The extra keys next to the "ThinkVantage" key and including it, are much worse 
implementation wise. They feel cheap. They press in at an angle which is not 
nice and makes them feel very cheap. The hinges seem worse. While still very 
solid, they do not have the same resistence as the older Thinkpads, even 
after they were used for years.

Trackpoint seems better. I have not had a pull-back yet. Otherwise it feels 
the same.

Battery behind LCD is better placement than the previous underneath palmrest.

Summery: Reinforcement is better, overall build quality worse. Screen is much 
better. The old X serires screens were much worse than the T seriers ones. 
The screen is what made me purchase this laptop in the first place. Besides 
the wifi card, the cooling is much better.

Cheers!