ThinkWiki - User contributions [en]

MCR's laptop death

2006-04-15T18:50:14Z

Mcr: /* Michael's dead laptop story */

==Michael's dead laptop story==

This is a personal story about my laptop.

I received my T42 2373 model laptop in August 2004. I needed a replacement laptop
somewhat urgently after a Toshiba Satellite that I had used since 2000 toasted its
north bridge while at H2K2. As such, there were some details that I didn't worry about, such as the brand (or presence) of the Atheros 802.11abg adapter in the unit. I am not a fan of devices that require binary-only HALs, and I don't buy 90% of the FUD coming from the wireless
makers about having to comply with regulations --- they could have found a smarter way to do this.

But, changing or omitting the adapter would have required some kind of custom system build
vs getting a unit shipped to me from stock, and I was in a rush. (Still took three weeks... vs 9 weeks!)

I have a CableTron Systems PRISM 2 802.11b adapter that I've used in three laptops that I bought
at an IETF meeting back in 1998 or so. It has served me well, and frankly, there is never
any mystery about whether or not I meant to use the wireless: if it is plugged in then I want to use it. If I remove it, try the wires. (ifplugd does all of that for me)

In October 2005, I had reached a stable point in my kernel use (I do kernel development), so
I figured I'd try the madwifi driver. It installed relatively easily, and seemed to work just fine.
While I work at home most days, I tend to be out on Friday's, and when I return home on Friday, my laptop goes on the kitchen table for the weekend, descending back to my office on Monday morning. That way, any work that I happen to do on the weekend is in the company of my wife and child.

That weekend, I got the wireless working on Friday night and I used the laptop a bunch over the weekend. On monday, I sat down to pack the laptop up so that I could travel to a client's site. Strangely, my irc windows were disconnected, and my remote Xterms had disappeared. Hmm. What's with my network? Did my wireless router crash? Well. I had to go so I typed 'poweroff' and packed it up.

When I got to the client site, I attempted to turn the laptop on. It didn't.
The CPU fan made noise. That was all. I tried again. Same thing. I pulled batteries and
power cords, and let it sit, thinking it needed a full powerfail. Nothing. I then got some tools
and opened it up. (This client builds custom ppc405 based linux platforms... lots of tools).
Nothing obviously wrong. I hadn't before taken the system completely apart. I did notice that
the wifi is right under the mouse pad, and right about the north bridge.

I went home. I used the wife's desktop to reach www.ibm.com, and found a service place only
blocks from my house. They were closed until after lunch. I took my wife and kid out to lunch
and tried not to swear too much. (I was travelling that Friday!)

The system got repaired no questions asked: they replaced the system board and the keyboard.
The new keyboard didn't quite feel the same. (Still doesn't). I pulled the hard disk out to
plug into another server case while I waited for the repair. (I did the same thing when the Toshiba died, and had all of the right connectors/adapters already). The disk was dead.
I bought a new disk (I have yet to RMA the dead disk) and re-installed and restored from backups, and was functionaly by mid-afternoon. I got the T42 back on Wednesday afternoon, and inserted
the new disk, and all was well.

Well, almost. I noticed a week later that my 802.11abg card was dead.

In telling this story to someone (I don't recall who now), I was informed that some versions
of the madwifi driver possibly run the Atheros 802.11abg too hot, and this can toast the
north bridge. I don't know. It sounds plausible to me. North bridge goes... so does power regulation. Could that take out the hard disk too? Maybe. Seems unlikely. Maybe I toasted
it plugging it in, but that also seems unlikely.

So, I'm leaving this note on the wiki. Maybe there are others with this experience.
I hope to RMA my disk and 802.11abg this month... 6 months later.

[http://www.sandelman.ca/mcr/ Michael's web page]

MCR's laptop death

2006-04-15T18:49:09Z

Mcr:

MCR's laptop death

2006-04-15T18:48:26Z

Mcr:

* Michael's story *

This is a personal story about my laptop.

I received my T42 2373 model laptop in August 2004. I needed a replacement laptop
somewhat urgently after a Toshiba Satellite that I had used since 2000 toasted its
north bridge while at H2K2. As such, there were some details that I didn't worry about, such as the brand (or presence) of the Atheros 802.11abg adapter in the unit. I am not a fan of devices that require binary-only HALs, and I don't buy 90% of the FUD coming from the wireless
makers about having to comply with regulations --- they could have found a smarter way to do this.

But, changing or omitting the adapter would have required some kind of custom system build
vs getting a unit shipped to me from stock, and I was in a rush. (Still took three weeks... vs 9 weeks!)

I have a CableTron Systems PRISM 2 802.11b adapter that I've used in three laptops that I bought
at an IETF meeting back in 1998 or so. It has served me well, and frankly, there is never
any mystery about whether or not I meant to use the wireless: if it is plugged in then I want to use it. If I remove it, try the wires. (ifplugd does all of that for me)

In October 2005, I had reached a stable point in my kernel use (I do kernel development), so
I figured I'd try the madwifi driver. It installed relatively easily, and seemed to work just fine.
While I work at home most days, I tend to be out on Friday's, and when I return home on Friday, my laptop goes on the kitchen table for the weekend, descending back to my office on Monday morning. That way, any work that I happen to do on the weekend is in the company of my wife and child.

That weekend, I got the wireless working on Friday night and I used the laptop a bunch over the weekend. On monday, I sat down to pack the laptop up so that I could travel to a client's site. Strangely, my irc windows were disconnected, and my remote Xterms had disappeared. Hmm. What's with my network? Did my wireless router crash? Well. I had to go so I typed 'poweroff' and packed it up.

When I got to the client site, I attempted to turn the laptop on. It didn't.
The CPU fan made noise. That was all. I tried again. Same thing. I pulled batteries and
power cords, and let it sit, thinking it needed a full powerfail. Nothing. I then got some tools
and opened it up. (This client builds custom ppc405 based linux platforms... lots of tools).
Nothing obviously wrong. I hadn't before taken the system completely apart. I did notice that
the wifi is right under the mouse pad, and right about the north bridge.

I went home. I used the wife's desktop to reach www.ibm.com, and found a service place only
blocks from my house. They were closed until after lunch. I took my wife and kid out to lunch
and tried not to swear too much. (I was travelling that Friday!)

The system got repaired no questions asked: they replaced the system board and the keyboard.
The new keyboard didn't quite feel the same. (Still doesn't). I pulled the hard disk out to
plug into another server case while I waited for the repair. (I did the same thing when the Toshiba died, and had all of the right connectors/adapters already). The disk was dead.
I bought a new disk (I have yet to RMA the dead disk) and re-installed and restored from backups, and was functionaly by mid-afternoon. I got the T42 back on Wednesday afternoon, and inserted
the new disk, and all was well.

Well, almost. I noticed a week later that my 802.11abg card was dead.

In telling this story to someone (I don't recall who now), I was informed that some versions
of the madwifi driver possibly run the Atheros 802.11abg too hot, and this can toast the
north bridge. I don't know. It sounds plausible to me. North bridge goes... so does power regulation. Could that take out the hard disk too? Maybe. Seems unlikely. Maybe I toasted
it plugging it in, but that also seems unlikely.

So, I'm leaving this note on the wiki. Maybe there are others with this experience.
I hope to RMA my disk and 802.11abg this month... 6 months later.

[http://www.sandelman.ca/mcr/]

IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter II

2006-04-15T18:33:05Z

Mcr: /* Related Links */

__NOTOC__
{| width="100%"
|style="vertical-align:top" |
<div style="margin: 0; margin-right:10px; border: 1px solid #dfdfdf; padding: 0em 1em 1em 1em; background-color:#F8F8FF; align:right;">
=== IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter II ===
This is a Mini-PCI WiFi Adapter that is installed in a Mini-PCI slot

=== Features ===
* Chipset: Atheros AR5004X
* Radio Chip: Atheros AR5112
* MAC Processor: Atheros AR5213
* IEEE Standards: 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g
* PCI ID: 168c:1014
</div>
|style="vertical-align:top" |
[[image:mini-pci-wifi-card.gif|Mini-PCI WiFi Adapter]]
|}

=== IBM Partnumbers ===
'''Ambit parts''' 
IBM Option PN (WW): 73P4301 
IBM Option PN (Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, China): 73P4302 
IBM Option PN (Japan): 73P4303 
IBM FRU PN (WW): 93P4262 
IBM FRU PN (Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Taiwan, China): 93P4264 
IBM FRU PN (Japan): 93P4266 

'''Bartlett parts''' 
IBM FRU PN (US): 27K9944 
IBM FRU PN (EU): 27K9946 
IBM FRU PN (Japan): 27K9948 
IBM FRU PN (Taiwan): 27K9999 

=== Also known (in IBM literature) as.... ===
* 802.11a/b/g Ambit wireless Card
* 802.11a/b/g Bartlett Wireless Card
* ThinkPad 11a/b/g Mini PCI Adapter II

=== Additional features ===
The chipset supports Atheros eXtended Range (XR) technology, and Atheros [[Super A/G]] (Turbo) modes.

=== Linux WiFi driver ===
This is an Atheros chip and works with the [[Madwifi]] driver "out of the box". This card will be also detected by open-source [http://www.ath-driver.org ath-driver], but as of
now (end of January '06), it doesn't support actual wireless operations.

Make sure that your kernel supports "CONFIG_SECURITY_CAPABILITIES", or you might get some message from the Atheros hal that it does not support all features.

=== ThinkPads this card may be found in ===
* {{R51}}, {{R52}}
* {{T41p}},{{T42p}},{{T43}}, {{T43p}}
* {{X32}}
* {{X40}}, {{X41}}
* {{Z60m}}

=== Related Links ===
*Specifications: [http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-57210 MIGR-57210]
*Users Guide: [http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-57217 MIGR-57217]
*Service Parts: [http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-57214 MIGR-57214]
*War stories: [[MCR's laptop death]]

[[Category:Components]]

IBM 11a/b/g Wireless LAN Mini PCI Adapter II

2006-04-15T18:31:39Z

Mcr: /* Related Links */