Thinkpad 600E-2645-58G - no Connect - Help Please

[JohnC]

Hello - has any body any experience connecting Thinkpad & Mint to Internet - I know its problematic !!
Im stumped - The Thinkpad works fine with 98/2000/& XP - it will not connect DHCP Auto or Static address - no Wireless - Direct Cable
connect - I have tried Ubuntu( ver 5.10 ) Puppy / DSL and now Mint.

The Bios is set to quick boot disabled & the PCMCIA is a Xircom RE100. The Thinkpad has no other operating system on it - no dual Boot - only Mint.

One error message which flashes up is "The Panel encountered a problem whilst loading OAF11D Gnome Mixer Applet - if this is sound related I would rather concentrate on the Internet connection first. I also have to manually turn the off switch once the machine has finished closing down.

The Spec is 300 MHz Processor 288 MB Memory

There is some help here http://www.mueller.ch.vu/misc/tp600e_en.html but it is not very explicit in how to carry it out - or of it is relevant to Mink

any help very gratefully received - please - many thanks - John Collins

[Husse]

I have no knowledge of thinkpads but there are members of the forum with working ones (I think the model is rt61)
Search for thinkpad and you get a lot of hits. Look for a user GraywizardLinux - you may get some inspiration there

[Guest]

Hi Husse,

Im just going around in circles actually - Im ok with Dos & Windows - my experiences with Linux so far have not been good
very often I can find a thread with a similar problem - but it has either been resolved or there is no answer. The Mint Interface looks so good - seems a pity to give up with it. Thanks for your reply anyway - john

[Husse]

If the Xircom RE100 is your wifi run lspcmcia and see what you get
It may not work - then run lspci
Post the result here so we can figure out which chip it's using

[JohnC]

Good Morning Husse,

I think of Sweden - & I think of Volvo & snow Chains !!

lspcmcia I type as follows

socket 0 Bridge [yenta_ cardbus] ( bus ID 0000:00:02:0)
socket 1 bridge [ yenta_cardbus] (bus id 0000:00:02:1)
socket 1 device 0 [xirc_2ps_cs] ( bus id: 1.0)

lspci

Host bridge: Intel Corp 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX host bridge rev 02

pci bridge : intel corp 440BX/ZX/DX - 82443BX/ZX/DX AGP Bridge Rev 02

Cardbus Bridge Texas Insts PCI 1251A
Cardbus Bridge Texas Insts PCI 1251A

Multimedia audio controller Cirrus Logic CS 4610/11 Crystal clear sound fusion audio accelerator rev 01

Bridge : Intel Corp 82371AB/EB/MB P11X4 IDE rev 01

USB controller Intel Corp 82371AB/MB P11X4 USB rev 01

Bridge Intel Corp 82371AB/EB/MB P11X4 ACPI rev 02

VGA compatible controller : Neomagic Corp NM2200 MagicGraph 256AV rev 12

Husse I have typed this from the 600E ( sorry If I may have made a few typos ) the 600E is a rather nice lap top with a lovely clear screen - a pity this one is a little slow & dated 300 Mhz 288 MB Mem. I have since my first post renewed the BIOS battery - but not the main battery which is full of electronics - it would not let me load win 2000 with this duff battery inserted - but no problem with it removed.

My demands are not very critical - no gaming - just - surfing - e mail & the odd letter.

Many thanks once again for your help - john

[JohnC]

I forgot to tell you - I am direct cable connect - cat 5 ethernet router / Modem Cable - no wireless -

Should be simple - if anything in computers ever is!

[Husse]

Well -snowchains is more or less a memory in southern Sweden now - haven't had much snow in many years...
I did not see anything about networking though - should say ethernet controller or so
I'll mark this topic and get back to it, I can't make much sense of it right now

[Husse]

So you are behind a router?
Give me the result of

Code: Select all

cat /etc/network/interfaces

and

Code: Select all

ifconfig

[JohnC]

Good Morning Husse,
It was Fathers Day yesterday here in England - so I made the most of it & let my Son cook me a Roast Lunch - I hope you had a good weekend too & wasn't worrying to much about thinkpads !!

I did flash the BIOS on this & then did another Install on top of the original - There is some error noted by MINT on booting during booting relating to wrong version of bios pre 1999 and also ISCP - but it wont pause for me to read either with pause/break or ScrLK.

Even with these results which I publish I cant really understand what is going on ( or not as the case may be ) - its strange really with the millions of articles on Thinkpad or 600E and/or Linux I can't not progress this on my own

I have tried to be careful in copying & retyping this - so I apologise in advanve for any Typos.

Cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
if eth0 inet loopback

iface eth0 inet DHCP
auto etho


Ifconfig

Eth0
Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:10:A4:A3:DB:18
UP Broadcast Running Multicast MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX Packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX Packets:0 errors:4 dropped:0 overruns:0 Carrier:0
Collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 ( 0.0 b) TX bytes:30357 ( 29.6KB)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0X300

Eth0:avah
Link Encap:Ethernet Hwaddr 00:10:A4:A3:DB:18
Inet addr:169.254.7.38 Bcast:169.254.255.255 Mask;255.255.0.0
UP Broadcast Running Multicast MTU:1500 Metric:1
Interrupt:3 Base address:0X300

Lo
Link encap:Local Loopback
Inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP Loopback Running MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX Packets:198 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX Packets:198 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 Carrier:0
Collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes 10956 ( 10.6KB ) Txbytes:10956 ( 10.6KB )


Many Thanks Husse for your help with this

John C

[Husse]

Your interfaces look OK
There is some sort of connection as can be seen from
RX bytes:0 ( 0.0 b) TX bytes:30357 ( 29.6KB)
But the fact that you have an IP in the 169 range tells the opposite
Can you ping?
Lets say

Code: Select all

ping 130.244.127.169

[Guest]

Hi Husse - thanks for your reply - I am very surprised at the lack of replies to this post - I know the 600E is an awkward beast - but surely the technique in resolving these issues is similar whatever the platform.

I tried ping from menu>adminstration>Network tools & I get nothing.

I am quite used to running an old toshiba laptop with XP & this 500MHz running Win 2000 - so I understand clearing the router before I connect the cat5 cable to the computer.

I am uncertain that I have the correct Xircom RE100 driver + acpi=force & pci=nopci - could be confused ?

I also have the OAF11D problem & I have to close down with the on/off switch - I wonder if these problems are related

any suggestions gratefully received - John C

[Husse]

Added to my unsolved list - recent events have kept me from the forum so it's getting long now....

[Husse]

Sorry I'm at a loss here - can't find anything useful about this Xircom RE100
The thing left is to analyze dmesg
try

Code: Select all

dmesg | grep eth0

and possibly variations of it
and

Code: Select all

dmesg | grep -i xircom

You should definitely get something there
Sorry for slow answering, but I really have problems finding anything here