Bizzare crashes on IBM Thinkpad A22e

Bizzare crashes on IBM Thinkpad A22e

[Tester]

Hi,

I've just received an IBM Thinkpad A22e. Using kernel 2.4.2-2 (redhat 7.1
version) or the stock 2.4.4 or 2.4.9 (they all exhibit the same problem).
When I use any of the APM functions or any of the thinkpad keys (volume
keys and Fn-Fx keys.. for suspend and even display brightness), the whole
system freezes without any other indication. This is using a kernel with
APM compiled it, but without any other option. If I compile in ACPI
instead of APM, it freezes even before the kernel is done booting. But, it
worked perfectly well with the 2.2.19-2 kernel form Mandrake 7.2

Everything else seems to work fine... can anyone help?

-- 
Tester
tester@videotron.ca

Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer

Re: Bizzare crashes on IBM Thinkpad A22e

[Erik Mouw]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 11:46:19AM -0400, Tester wrote:
> I've just received an IBM Thinkpad A22e. Using kernel 2.4.2-2 (redhat 7.1
> version) or the stock 2.4.4 or 2.4.9 (they all exhibit the same problem).

Uh-oh, another broken Thinkpad BIOS.

> When I use any of the APM functions or any of the thinkpad keys (volume
> keys and Fn-Fx keys.. for suspend and even display brightness), the whole
> system freezes without any other indication. This is using a kernel with
> APM compiled it, but without any other option. If I compile in ACPI
> instead of APM, it freezes even before the kernel is done booting. But, it
> worked perfectly well with the 2.2.19-2 kernel form Mandrake 7.2

Hmm, linux-2.2.19pre4 got the "thinkpad E820 edx overwriting" for a
Thinkpad 600X from Marc Joosen. The same fix also went into
2.4.0-test13-pre6, so that can't be the problem.

> Everything else seems to work fine... can anyone help?

Could you try to boot with "mem=one MB less than the machine actually
has" and see if that fixes the problem? So "mem=127M" for a 128MB
machine. If that fixes the problem, I think there is a bug in the e820
BIOS memory map and you should ask IBM to fix their BIOS.


Erik

-- 
J.A.K. (Erik) Mouw, Information and Communication Theory Group, Department
of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems,
Delft University of Technology, PO BOX 5031,  2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-15-2783635  Fax: +31-15-2781843  Email: J.A.K.Mouw@its.tudelft.nl
WWW: http://www-ict.its.tudelft.nl/~erik/

Re: Bizzare crashes on IBM Thinkpad A22e

[Adrian Bridgett]

On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 19:50:41 +0200 (+0000), Erik Mouw wrote:
[snip]
> Could you try to boot with "mem=one MB less than the machine actually
> has" and see if that fixes the problem? So "mem=127M" for a 128MB
> machine. If that fixes the problem, I think there is a bug in the e820
> BIOS memory map and you should ask IBM to fix their BIOS.

You can actually use the number that showd on boot (mem=125435K or
whatever...)

OTOH since I switched to 2.4 I havn't needed that (TP770X).

Adrian

Email: adrian.bridgett@iname.com
Windows NT - Unix in beta-testing. GPG/PGP keys available on public key servers
Debian GNU/Linux  -*-  By professionals for professionals  -*-  www.debian.org

Re: Bizzare crashes on IBM Thinkpad A22e

[Tester]

Hi,

Its a 256 megs machine.. Celeron 800..
I tried using mem=255M or mem=200M and it did not change anything and
still crashed. The celeron A22e seems to have the same bios as the A21e...

Btw, I received it as part of a ThinkPad University program (laptop at
school) from IBM with the old mandrake installed. And they IS guy of the
university told us that they didnt install the latest released because IBM
had not approved it... IBM probably already knows of the problem... So a
message to IBM and IBMers: Why dont you fix your known bugs?

Also it works correctly in w2k, but win2k uses ACPI and not APM (and it
has a IBM pm driver...)

Tester
tester@videotron.ca

On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Erik Mouw wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 11:46:19AM -0400, Tester wrote:
> > I've just received an IBM Thinkpad A22e. Using kernel 2.4.2-2 (redhat 7.1
> > version) or the stock 2.4.4 or 2.4.9 (they all exhibit the same problem).
>
> Uh-oh, another broken Thinkpad BIOS.
>
> > When I use any of the APM functions or any of the thinkpad keys (volume
> > keys and Fn-Fx keys.. for suspend and even display brightness), the whole
> > system freezes without any other indication. This is using a kernel with
> > APM compiled it, but without any other option. If I compile in ACPI
> > instead of APM, it freezes even before the kernel is done booting. But, it
> > worked perfectly well with the 2.2.19-2 kernel form Mandrake 7.2
>
> Hmm, linux-2.2.19pre4 got the "thinkpad E820 edx overwriting" for a
> Thinkpad 600X from Marc Joosen. The same fix also went into
> 2.4.0-test13-pre6, so that can't be the problem.
>
> > Everything else seems to work fine... can anyone help?
>
> Could you try to boot with "mem=one MB less than the machine actually
> has" and see if that fixes the problem? So "mem=127M" for a 128MB
> machine. If that fixes the problem, I think there is a bug in the e820
> BIOS memory map and you should ask IBM to fix their BIOS.
>
>
> Erik
>
> --
> J.A.K. (Erik) Mouw, Information and Communication Theory Group, Department
> of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems,
> Delft University of Technology, PO BOX 5031,  2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
> Phone: +31-15-2783635  Fax: +31-15-2781843  Email: J.A.K.Mouw@its.tudelft.nl
> WWW: http://www-ict.its.tudelft.nl/~erik/
>

Re: Bizzare crashes on IBM Thinkpad A22e

[Tester]

Another thing,

Linuxcare has certified this laptop as being compatible with Linux 7.1
http://www.linuxcare.com/labs/certs/ibm/thinkpad/A22e/pada22e-2655-rh7-sys.epl

Did they do something that I dont know of? Is there anyone left there?

Tester

On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Sean Hunter wrote:

> <Possibly not relevant to your problem>

It is indeed not relevant.. I dont have any pcmcia card as there is an
integrated Network adapter... (Intel EEPro100)

> I have a thinkpad and had all sorts of wierd and unpredictable crashes until I
> removed the old 3com pcmcia network card and replaced it with a new cardbus
> card.  The old card works fine in all sorts of other laptops, but the thinkpad
> just wasn't having it.
>
> Since replacing the card its worked great.
> </>
>
> Sean
>
> On Thu, Aug 30, 2001 at 06:30:27PM -0400, Tester wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Its a 256 megs machine.. Celeron 800..
> > I tried using mem=255M or mem=200M and it did not change anything and
> > still crashed. The celeron A22e seems to have the same bios as the A21e...
> >
> > Btw, I received it as part of a ThinkPad University program (laptop at
> > school) from IBM with the old mandrake installed. And they IS guy of the
> > university told us that they didnt install the latest released because IBM
> > had not approved it... IBM probably already knows of the problem... So a
> > message to IBM and IBMers: Why dont you fix your known bugs?
> >
> > Also it works correctly in w2k, but win2k uses ACPI and not APM (and it
> > has a IBM pm driver...)
> >
> > Tester
> > tester@videotron.ca
> >
>

-- 
Tester
tester@videotron.ca

Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer