[SOLVED] HP DM1Z wifi, hard locks[11], no card reader

[HorrorCode]

Theres 2 main questions here, both have been asked but don't involve this specific netbook, and none seem to fix this issue, so instead of hijacking an old thread heres a new one.

DM1Z is still fairly new, and I can get the Ralink wifi/bluetooth working fine under 10 & 11.

Under 10, the ehternet seemed to work fine, but after fresh installing 11 earlier today, I noticed the driver/gnome network-manager applet seems to have changed. It now reports:

Driver: r8169
Speed: 100 mbs

Maybe its my imagination but the ethernet is a gigabit device, and it seemed to be faster under 10, but I havent tested again in 10 to be positive if its a driver change or not. lspci reports the lan as:

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01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)

so this question is, did the driver changed, if so can i get the old one going again, and could this indeed be the cause of my more often occuring hard locks?


#2: does anyone have any idea how to get this card reader working, lsusb reports:

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Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0bda:0138 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. 

the card reader support was the main reason i freshly installed 11, a i hoped it might be supported in the new kernel, but its not supported and all of the other tricks ive tried still dont get it going, this is the other post about it: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=73389

any help will be greatly appreciated, i do understand this is new hardware, so i have nothing but patience here

[HorrorCode]

I went ahead and reinstalled 10 on a separate partition, and it seems I was wrong, 10 & 11 are using the same Ethernet driver for me, so I'm stumped. It does seem these hard locks only occur when I'm transferring a lot i.e copying 2-5+ gb's from my backup box at a time, if I do it in smaller increments everything seems stable. Under 10, never even a hiccup. Does anyone have any ideas?

[HorrorCode]

Just an update. I do know that network manager could be a culprit in this matter, as it has had issues for a while, but the odd thing is it's even worse with 11/natty, for me at least. So I was just curious, could this be something to do with Xorg/Compiz, as the DM1Z is alot newer, maybe something to do with the video was supported better in 10?

Bear with me I'm just trying to narrow it down as much as possible, right now I'm steadily using 10, and while the network/network manager stops transferring altogether occasionally, Julia is much more stable for me. Oh and I neer provided any real specs, so heres some real info:

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$ inxi -s -S -N -I -C -F
System:    Host l300lvl Kernel 2.6.35-22-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Distro Linux Mint 10 Julia
CPU:       Dual core AMD E-350 (-MCP-) cache 1024 KB flags (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips 6384.4 
           Clock Speeds: (1) 800.00 MHz (2) 800.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card ATI Device 9802 X.Org 1.9.0 Res: 1366x768@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer AMD Radeon HD 6300 series Graphics GLX Version 4.1.10750 Compatibility Profile Context Direct Rendering Yes
Audio:     Card-1 ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA) driver HDA Intel BusID: 00:14.2
           Card-2 ATI Device 1314driver HDA Intel BusID: 00:01.1
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.23
Network:   Card-1 Realtek RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller driver r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI at port 2000 BusID: 01:00.0
           Card-2 RaLink Device 539f BusID: 02:00.0
Disks:     HDD Total Size: 320.1GB (10.2% used) 1: /dev/sda WDC_WD3200BEKT 320.1GB 
Partition: ID:/ size: 14G used: 2.9G (22%) fs: ext4 ID:/home size: 266G used: 28G (11%) fs: ext4 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 59.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 59.00C 
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A 
Info:      Processes 174 Uptime 11:25 Memory 794.1/3562.6MB Runlevel 2 Client Shell inxi 1.4.12 

As you can see I haven't even updated the kernel yet, but I shall today.

[t0adman]

I've got a dm1z as well and every time I've loaded up an 11 beta version (Mint or Ubuntu) I've had no network support, wireless or otherwise, and no bluetooth functionality. I'll be watching this post closely as I'd much prefer to run LinuxMint 11 than Win7.

[HorrorCode]

I cant speak for Ubuntu, but Mint 11 Rc works fine in regards to the Bluetooth, but it only works once youve actually installed Mint to your hd. After install you may need to reboot once, and it may also help to install blueman As far as ethernet, it works on the Rc live and after installed, it just has serious issues, Im gonna try installing conman in a bit to see if that makes a difference. Regarding the wireless, it does work but you have to build the drivers yourself, I'll post the directions on it when I find em again.

Right now Im gonna download the 11 final release and see if anything changes, but I was told theres no major difference between the rc and the final, and all I needed to do was update the rc, but we'll see. I'll post back with my results with conman soon.

There is a chance you have a different model than I do though, can you post the results of lspci here so we can match up the ethernet?

[HorrorCode]

Im back on 10 now, getting ready to get the wireless going. will post then, for now everything is smooth, a definite must is to install the ati catalyst 11.5 driver and not the one in the repos/drivers app. you have to do this each time you update your kernel.

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http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.1&product=2.4.1.3.42&lang=English

once installed, i recommend opening ati control center(search ati in menu) going to display options>tear free>enable tear free and then Power Play>Disable vari bright, and apply. vari bright obviously conflicts with power manager, and im not too sure if the light sensor works at all.

i have been getting an error about a sensor though, so that could be it.

[HorrorCode]

ok. sorry took me so long, but regarding wifi this is the best i could find, assuming you have the ralink 5390 as i do:

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http://ubuntulinux.co.in/blog/ubuntu/wifi-card-ralink-5390-configuration-in-ubuntu-10-10-64-bit/

if you need a hand getting it going post here and ill be happy to assist, just read through it carefully and you shouldnt have a hitch, takes about 10-20 minutes depending on ones patience... good luck!

EDIT: I dont know why but under my newer 2.6.37 kernel from liquorix, I kept getting error 2 when running make, so I did some more searching and found this:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1743525

just involves another simple edit and you should be good to go.

EDIT: I've since removed the liquorix kernel due to its lacking cpufreq support, so I went back to the default 2.6.35-25 and then updated it to 2.6.35-28 and the wifi drivers built and installed flawlessly.

[HorrorCode]

I got a response from the guy over here, regarding the card reader:

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http://www.sensicomm.com/main/linux/acer_5253/index.shtml

so basically for me i just had to do:

sudo rmmod usb_storage

next i ran dmesg, and did it in between all steps to watch what was happening, now i did

sudo modprobe usb_storage

it reloaded the module, and automatically mounted the device(yay!). this could be due to the newer kernel im using but i havent verified it yet, if you want more info read the links above and check the other post about it here:

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http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=73389&p=430259#p430259

the hard locks were an issue on 11, but if youve been following this youll see i switched back to 10, so now basically everythings working, I just havent figured out what sensors work and which dont, and theres one more error on boot-up but everything smooth & stable now, so I'm marking this as solved!

[HorrorCode]

trying to solve what i thought were minor boot up errors, i found this post which is in regards to the sp5100 tco timer error, this may fix the lock up issue in 11, and it may also fix the splash screen if it was displaying broken

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https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=118447

$ sudo rmmod sp5100_tco
$ dmesg
$ sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

add to the last line:

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# sp5100 tco mmio error
blacklist sp5100_tco

ctrl x then y to save, then reboot.

a brief explanation of the sp5100_tco module:

Hardware watchdog driver for the AMD/ATI SP5100 chipset. The TCO
+ (Total Cost of Ownership) timer is a watchdog timer that will reboot
+ the machine after its expiration. The expiration time can be
+ configured with the "heartbeat" parameter.

taken from http://lwn.net/Articles/411825/

[t0adman]

Wow, great series of posts. I clearly waited a little long (or just the right amount of time?) to check back. Now I have some projects to undertake when I find some spare time. I'm really looking forward to running LinuxMint, and if everything goes well, making it my only OS. Thanks for all your research and insight and I'll definitely reach out to you if I run into problems. I'm not shy!

[HorrorCode]

update: im working on getting everything going on 11 and making the switch now and the bluetooth was giving me problems, i never experienced this, so this under mint 11 64 bit(natty) with the default 2.6.38-8 kernel, basically it just doesnt start properly so i found a temporary solution which just adds to init, the fix is this comment on launchpad:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/system76/+bu ... omments/99

to test this is whats affecting you, try this first:

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sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth restart 

now bluetooth should be working ok, and just as a precaution, ive never had problems with init scripts but the last time i saved this one i somehow botched my grub install and had to reinstall, so before you reboot after editing and saving /etc/init.d/bluetooth, please run sudo update grub(just look for an image that isnt memtest to be sure things are normal), for my own peace of mind.

Geert wrote on 2011-06-25: #99

I also have the Bluetooth disabled issue. When running the command '/etc/init.d/bluetooth start' I always get an error that the version of hci0 can't be read because the adapter is down. After bringing it up with 'hciconfig hci0 up' I can execute '/etc/init.d/bluetooth start' without error and bluetooth is working again.

Based on this observation I added the command 'hciconfig hci0 up' to the script '/etc/init.d/bluetooth'. I placed it in the beginning of the script, just before the 'Test' commands. Now bluetooth starts automatically after booting. (Kernel 2.6.38-8).