[ltp] possible fan firmware bug after WLAN was active on X61s

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Tue, 15 Jul 2008, Tino Keitel wrote:
> - I enable the WLAN (load the driver, assosicate to an AP), use the
>   connection a bit
> 
> - the fan now always runs and doesn't go off anymore

Even if you somehow cool the ThinkPad a great deal for half an hour?

> - the fan still runs forever, even after 10 minutes after I disabled
>   the WLAN

10 minutes might not be enough for it to cool down as far as it wants to to
turn off the fan.  There is some thermal hysteresis in that fan control
algorithm, and if it is something like 5°C, it will be HARD to get it to
turn the fan off.

> - suspend to RAM, followed by an immediate resume

That will reinit the fan control loop, so it goes to the other slope of the
hysteresis curve.

> To me, this looks like a firmware bug. Were there any fan bugs fixed in
> recent firmwares?

Firmware?  The changelongs don't say much.  BIOS, *yes*.  You really should
keep them up-to-date.

> I have not updated mine, as I don't know how to do that without windows
> and without a docking station. I tried a USB CD drive and the .ISO
> image supplied by Lenovo, without success (the drive wasn't found by
> the boot floppy part). Any hints are welcome.

http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_Upgrade/X_Series

Has some tricks that should help you.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh