(Thomas is the author of tpctl, Debian maintainer and allround guru!)
Thomas - have you any ideas?
On Tue, May 14, 2002 at 07:08:13 -0400 (+0000), Tom Allison wrote:
> Pavel Epifanov wrote:
> >Hi All,
> >
> >I've had my IBM ThinkPad model 380Z dead (laptop not going thru POST,
> >suspicion
> >is about flash BIOS was wiped out) after "apt-get dist-upgrade" and
> >following
> >hibernation last Friday.
The only thing I'm aware of is a warning from the lm-sensors package which
comes up if you try and install lm-sensors-source (not sure about other
lm-sensors packages:
--debconf--
The upstream lm-sensors maintainers know of a problem using lm-sensors
with IBM ThinkPad computers, resulting in firmware corruption. If you
are installing this package on a ThinkPad, you should wait until the
upstream maintainers have solved this problem before building modules
from it.
For more information, see
/usr/share/doc/lm-sensors-source/README.thinkpad.
IBM ThinkPad brokenness -- really install lm-sensors?
--debconf--
--README.thinkpad--
**** WARNING: IBM Thinkpad users should not install I2C/Lm_sensors! ****
There have been some reports that the eeprom and/or firmware of IBM
Thinkpads have been corrupted after installing I2C/Lm_sensors. It's not
clear why and what specific action (most likely scanning/probing for chips)
causes the Thinkpad to corrupt it's eeprom. Unless you know otherwise, we
suggest that users avoid installing I2C/Lm_sensors support on IBM Thinkpads
until it becomes known what exactly is causing the corruption.
Though you may disagree about whose fault this is, fact is that seemingly
the Thinkpad can become corrupted even when only reading information from
the i2c/SMBus. Be assured that we never, ever write any information to
the bus while scanning(*), and that no halfway sane client implementation
should change its internal state, not to mention overwrite system-critical
information.
For more information, see:
http://www.linux-thinkpad.org/
(*) Actually, we do write some information to the bus, but only as specified
in the i2c/SMBus protocol to select a certain chip address and to
start/stop i2c transactions.
------
Apparently this manifests itself as "EEPROM CRC ERROR" or "Invalid RFID
Serialization Area".
> >It could be due to this 3 y.o. laptop was broken itself or due to new
> >thinkpad*
> >related packages installed (I remember tpctl for sure).
> >
> >Does somebody else have the similar problem?
> >Could it be really caused by problems during new package installation?
> >
> >I have a second new ThinkPad and I don't want to take any risk to damage
> >it too
> >(the same packages are installed but not upgraded yet).
> >
> >There was up-to-date Woody installation on it with custom 2.4.16 kernel
> >and old
> >thinkpad-source & pcmcia-cs modules compiled/installed.
> >
> >Pavel.
> >
> >PS: I know that my IBM TP BIOS had several mistakes in it (i.e switching
> >occasionally LCD display off when on AC power).
[snip]
Adrian
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