Thinkpad R31
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Contents
General Info
The article is for linux operation system only.
This is a Thinkpad R31 2656-65G with
- PIII M(obile) Intel Prozessor
- 1024MB Ram (max)
- (not very powerful) Intel i830 Grafics prozessor
- 100 Mbs Network
- USB 1.1
- No wlan
- Trackpoint, no tochpad
- Bios Version 3.110 1FETF1WW (2004-11-16, Embedded Controller Version 02.29.12)
Unfortunatly, a very few time after buying this laptop, a lot of better versions of the R-series thinkpads arrived. I noticed, that the USB 1.1 and sloppy Intel Graphics Chip where no good choice. But this was my very first modern laptop.
Within the next years with excessive use during my studies in computer science I had a lot of trouble getting the direct rendering and stable USB support running.
Nevertheless this is a thinkpad in best traditions, easy to use, comfortable and with excellent support. The latter I had to use 2 times replacing my motherboard.
dmidecode
dmidecode get's the following
BIOS Information
Vendor: IBM
Version: 1FETF1WW (3.110)
Release Date: 11/16/2004
Address: 0xF0000
Runtime Size: 64 kB
ROM Size: 512 kB
Characteristics:
ISA is supported
PCI is supported
PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported
PNP is supported
APM is supported
BIOS is upgradeable
BIOS shadowing is allowed
Boot from CD is supported
Selectable boot is supported
EDD is supported
Japanese floppy for NEC 9800 1.2 MB is supported (int 13h)
Japanese floppy for Toshiba 1.2 MB is supported (int 13h)
3.5"/720 KB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
3.5"/2.88 MB floppy services are supported (int 13h)
Print screen service is supported (int 5h)
8042 keyboard services are supported (int 9h)
Serial services are supported (int 14h)
Printer services are supported (int 17h)
CGA/mono video services are supported (int 10h)
ACPI is supported
AGP is supported
Smart battery is supported
and
Processor Information
Socket Designation: U11
Type: Central Processor
Family: Pentium III
Manufacturer: Intel
[...]
Signature: Type 0, Family 6, Model 11, Stepping 1
Version: Pentium(R) III-M
Voltage: 1.6 V
External Clock: 133 MHz
Max Speed: 1133 MHz
Current Speed: 1133 MHz
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82830 830 Chipset Host Bridge (rev 04) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 04) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #1 (rev 02) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #2 (rev 02) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM USB Controller #3 (rev 02) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 42) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801CAM ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02) 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801CAM IDE U100 Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM SMBus Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02) 00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801CA/CAM AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 02) 01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82801CAM (ICH3) PRO/100 VE (LOM) Ethernet Controller (rev 42) 01:09.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 02) 02:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43) 02:00.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43) 02:00.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04)
Bios
Settings
- Floppy, Serial Port, Parallel Port and Infrared Port are disabled
- The PCI Settings are all set to auto (do not set the IRQs manually)
Custom ACPI table for linux The bios acpi is buggy. I use the latest Version 3.110 1FETF1WW of 2004-11-16 and fixed it.
- Use this DSDT.zip (contains the fixed DSDT.aml for the above BIOS), unzip it and put it into the /etc/initramfs-tools directory. Afterwards you have to recreate your initramfs.
Later in this section you have create initramfs too because of the removal of usplash so to safe time you can skip this for now.
sudo unzip /wherever/DSDT.zip -d /etc/initramfs-tools sudo update-initramfs -c -k all
After reboot your dmesg should show something like
root@ibmr31:~# dmesg | grep DSDT [ 885.444768] ACPI: Looking for DSDT in initramfs... successfully read 20423 bytes from /DSDT.aml. [ 885.444823] ACPI: Table DSDT replaced by host OS
Now you are shure, your new DSDT was loaded.
Kernel boot parameter
There are some problems running this laptop with a modern 2.6.x linux kernels. Do not set the IRQs in the bios's PCI section manually or your xserver will fail with DRI.
The problems resulting in misbehaviour of your ethernet or usb are all related to a wrong ACPI table of your bios. This is a known bug for many bios's.
Please see
for additional informations about ACPI and the linux kernel.
i386 Version of ubuntu kernel
I am using the actual ubuntu 386 kernel 2.6.14-2-386.
apt-get install linux-image-386 linux-restricted-modules-386
(20:08, 25 December 2007 (CET))
But the generic version seams to run also with the applied changes in this section.
Trackpoint
The trackpoint does erratic mouse movements out of the sudden
- Solution: add i8042.nomux=1 as kernel parameter
Failure on IRQ - unusable USB/Ethernet
An IRQ problem leaves the usb and ethernet bus unusable (kernel-oops). The dmesg message is
dmesg | grep nobody # irq 11: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option)
- Temporary solution: add irqpoll as kernel parameter (this works for my thinkpad submodel - it might not work for you)
- adding noirqdebug will remove the debug messages
This leads into the following /boot/grub/menu.lst additions
## ## Start Default Options ## ## default kernel options # [...] # kopt= [...] ro irqpoll i8042.nomux=1
If you are using an pcmcia usb 2.0 card doing the following might restore the ethernet or usb port in case of a failure
modprobe -r ehci-hcd && modprobe ehci-hcd
Unfortunately the problems appeared for all linux 2.6 kernels by now. It also affects a lot of other thinkpad users. See Bug 8853 irq NN: nobody cared on ThinkPad X61T,T61.
Usplash
Direct rendering is broken, if you use usplash.
- Uninstall usplash
Ubuntu Gutsy
/etc/network/interfaces
With support for tuntap, used by virtualbox.
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback auto eth0 iface eth0 inet manual # The primary network interface auto tap0 iface tap0 inet manual tunctl_user a_username uml_proxy_arp ibmr31 uml_proxy_ether eth0 # - install more if necessary # - don't forget to add them to br0 # auto tap1 # iface tap1 inet manual # tunctl_user a_username # uml_proxy_arp this_server # uml_proxy_ether eth0 # bridge auto br0 iface br0 inet dhcp address 192.168.0.11 netmask 255.255.255.0 gateway 192.168.0.254 bridge_ports eth0 tap0 bridge_maxwait 0
Xorg / Video
GLX and DRI works, but it is a little buggy and not very performant. I don't recommend using compiz. Also it uses a few percent (2) of additional cpu power and causes some artifacts in some OpenGL applications, like e.g. celestia or stellarium.
Additionally you HAVE TO boot into save graphics mode and fix the xserver like described as followed.
Troubleshooting
I had some real trouble getting X11 with direct rendering to work after a system upgrade occured. X11 hung and the whole system froze. I assume that the main reason for this is the buggy ACPI implementation found in this - and many other - machines.
If this happens boot in safe mode and use the following option in your xorg.conf
Section "Device"
Option "noaccel" "true"
for starting the xserver.
Heres what I did:
1. I removed usplash and run update-initramfs for ALL (!) kernel flavours on the machine.
apt-get remove usplash usplash-theme-ubuntu update-initramfs -c -k `uname -r`
2. I removed the xserver-xorg-video-intel driver package. It hinders the xserver to work properly with this chipset. Reinstall xorg-video-i810.
apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-intel apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-video-i810
3. I rebooted the machine
Now the Xserver should work with direct rendering.
X11
Trackpoint
The trackpoint can be configured specially for scrolling in conjunction with the middle mouse button. See the xorg.conf in one of the following sections.
Section "InputDevice"
[...]
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
Please read the following article for more informations about using the trackpoint: Thinkwiki - Configure the TrackPoint
xorg.conf
# /etc/X11/xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf(5) manual page.
# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg
Section "Files"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc"
# FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi/:unscaled"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi"
FontPath "/usr/share/fonts/X11/encodings"
# path to defoma fonts
FontPath "/var/lib/defoma/x-ttcidfont-conf.d/dirs/TrueType"
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "i2c"
Load "bitmap"
Load "ddc"
Load "extmod"
Load "freetype"
Load "glx"
Load "int10"
Load "vbe"
Load "dri"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Generic Keyboard"
Driver "kbd"
Option "CoreKeyboard"
Option "XkbRules" "xorg"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "de"
Option "XkbOptions" "lv3:ralt_switch"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "mouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"
Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
Option "EmulateWheel" "true"
Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]"
Driver "i810"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
#
# Enable the next, if X hangs and the system freezes
# Option "noaccel" "true"
#
# Often seen in howto's but
# automatically used by driver
# VideoRam 65536
# Option "DRI" "true"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Standardbildschirm"
Option "DPMS"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller]"
Monitor "Standardbildschirm"
# Use 16 as default depth because of performance issues
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 1
Modes "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 4
Modes "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 8
Modes "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 15
Modes "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
EndSubSection
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768""1024x600" "800x600" "768x576" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Default Layout"
Screen "Default Screen"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
Additional informations for ACPI issues
As I mentioned above see
for additional informations about ACPI and the linux kernel.
These are ACPI related boot parameters:
acpi=off pci=routeirq acpi=noirq pnpacpi=off pci=noacpi noapic nolapic irqpoll
If you change one of them you have to run update-grub AND update-initramfs -c -k `uname -r`. Remember to always keep a kernel that will boot, either the generic or the 386 flavor. Never run update-initramfs on both kernels.
Here is what happens to the bus:
dmesg | grep 0000:00:1f.1 [ 15.932137] ata_piix 0000:00:1f.1: version 2.11 [ 15.932166] ACPI: Unable to derive IRQ for device 0000:00:1f.1 [ 15.932170] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:1f.1[A]: no GSI [ 15.932233] PCI: Setting latency timer of device 0000:00:1f.1 to 64
dmesg | grep ACPI [ 15.932166] ACPI: Unable to derive IRQ for device 0000:00:1f.1 [ 18.446255] [<c0106597>] do_IRQ+0x37/0x70 [ 18.446289] [<c010659c>] do_IRQ+0x3c/0x70 [ 18.446855] Disabling IRQ #11
dmesg | grep irq [ 0.000000] Kernel command line: root=UUID=e0342b0c-ee00-4205-919b-6d93a3c35532 ro irqpoll i8042.nomux=1 quiet splash [ 12.842728] PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq". If it helps, post a report [ 18.446145] irq 11: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option) [ 18.446222] [<c0148594>] __report_bad_irq+0x24/0x80 [ 18.446247] [<c01491f1>] handle_level_irq+0x81/0xb0 [ 18.446273] [<c0120d5c>] __do_softirq+0x2c/0xa0 [ 18.446283] [<c0120e15>] do_softirq+0x45/0x50 [ 18.446426] [<f8878590>] (usb_hcd_irq+0x0/0x60 [usbcore]) [ 18.446578] [<f8878590>] (usb_hcd_irq+0x0/0x60 [usbcore]) [ 18.446723] [<f8878590>] (usb_hcd_irq+0x0/0x60 [usbcore])