So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

mtcupps · 2012-07-21 02:20:54

I have a Lenovo S10-3t netbook, and I've used Arch Linux on it for a few months since I bought it. I'd been using Xfce on top of an otherwise fresh Arch install. Last night, while putzing around, I decided to get randy and try a couple other UIs and see how they worked with the Lenovo's touchscreen.

I decide I'd first try Gnome Shell. I decide to update first, and the update gives me xf86-video-intel, coreutils, grep, kbd and kernel 3.4.5-1. No big deal. I then install gnome and gdm. Again, fine. I reboot, load into Gnome and play around. It's dandy. Then, the touchscreen gets a bit wonky, and it seems I can't get out of Gnome's activities view. I reboot, thinking nothing of it. That's when things go downhill fast.

Next boot, in Gnome it shows my wifi as disabled. This happens from time to time, as the hardware switch is in a crappy spot on my netbook. But I check, and it's on there. Weird, so I click the little icon to re-enable wifi. And my machine locks up. Hard. Total freeze. I have to power down and back on. And again, Gnome loads, I click wifi, and instant freeze. Now I'm concerned.

Third time I boot, I skip out of X, and uninstall Gnome, thinking maybe that caused my problem. From the command line, I get an error message that my wifi has been soft-blocked. So I get rfkill, and try to unblock it. Another freeze. I reboot, check a few things, try another rfkill unblock, another freeze. I start checking dmesg, messages, and a bunch of other logs... nothing. I find online that a couple drivers (ideapad_laptop and wmi, from what I found) could be causing an issue with trying to unblock. I rmmod them, and I can now run rfkill unblock on my wifi. Beautiful, it's not blocked.

However, now whenever I try to bring up wifi (ifconfig wlan0 up) or try to connect to anything (via GUI or wpa_supplicant)... my netbook completely freezes. There's nothing in the logs that I can see. Rfkill is not showing any softblock (I blacklisted the two modules). And I even rolled back my update from last night (back to kernel 3.4.4-1)... and nothing. I've found next to nothing with Google, and not having wifi on this guy is a huge, huge detriment. Has anyone ever heard of this or have any idea what's going on?

Last edited by mtcupps (2012-07-21 02:21:03)

Trilby · 2012-07-21 03:12:58

HA HA!

I'm not alone anymore!

Very good news for you: I know exactly what the problem is and I know a sure-thing solution. Bad news is the solution is a bit of a PITA to implement.

See here for some details, or for the short version: follow one of the online guides to dissassemble the machine and remove the cmos battery and keep it out long enough to reset the bios (15 minutes is often recommended). Then reassemble.

Then .... write a really nasty letter to Lenovo *&^@$ing them out for not doing anything about this problem.

edit: a system backup would be a good idea first to be on the safe side, but removing the battery should not lead to any data loss. After reassembly, my machine booted right back up again without any issues except for the system clock being reset and thus drastically off. This lead to a minor fuss about the timestamp of the partitions, but this was pretty straigtforward to set right.

edit2: I little bit of trivia: you can always know if a Lenovo S10-3 has linux as it's sole OS based on the small glob of super-glue that is holding the wifi-kill-switch in the "on" position. On that note, if you dual boot with windows there is a much easier solution. If that is the case, ask about that - otherwise, grab a screwdriver.

Last edited by Trilby (2012-07-21 03:25:30)

mtcupps · 2012-07-21 03:37:43

Yeah, so further testing shows I'm one of a lot of people with my wifi stuck in hard-blocked mode. I reinstalled Arch on the netbook, and it looks like my netbook boots with softblock on. When I unblock it, all looks normal, but when I try to connect to anything, it fails and hard block is now on. My options are the CMOS or installing Windows and changing the hardblock that way, from what I've read.

Are there any guides to disassembling it? I took the bottom off last night, looking for the CMOS, and wasn't sure how to get to it.

Trilby · 2012-07-21 03:47:39

here's the one I used.

That is for a S10-3, not S10-3t. I don't know if there are many differences - google will give you plenty of disassembly guides. I kinda made it sound bad, it's really quite easy - you only need to go though to first few steps to get to the CMOS battery (take out main battery, unscrew keyboard connection, pull out keyboard, disconnect, unscrew under keyboard, separate main body).

I just couldn't believe that I needed to do any of that simply because the manufacturer doesn't care if their bios f----s up in linux.

mtcupps · 2012-07-21 16:34:31

http://i.imgur.com/nQjph.jpg

So I managed to dismantle the thing. But I can't find the CMOS. I know that sounds batshit insane... but I seriously can't see anything that looks/seems like the battery. I removed on little black circle in the front, but upon Google'ing its part number, it's the microphone.

Any idea what I'm looking for or where it's hiding?

ewaller · 2012-07-21 16:48:50

mtcupps wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/nQjph.jpg
So I managed to dismantle the thing. But I can't find the CMOS. I know that sounds batshit insane... but I seriously can't see anything that looks/seems like the battery. I removed on little black circle in the front, but upon Google'ing its part number, it's the microphone.
Any idea what I'm looking for or where it's hiding?

Well, battery packed RAM is just one form of nonvolatile memory. There are many others that may be in use -- EEPROM, Flash, FRAM. You could also have battery backed CMOS memory supported by a supercap.

Are there any reset buttons hiding behind little 1mm holes?

Trilby · 2012-07-21 16:54:23

here is what you are looking for.

That is odd, at that stage in the disassembly of the S10-3 the cmos battery was sticking out quite conspicuously just as pictured in my link above.

The overall layout of the S10-3t looks similar, and from googling and finding things like the above ebay link, the S10-3t uses the same type of battery as the S10 ... but where the hell is it?

~~edit: I see what might be a vacant connector. Are there a red and black wire pair hanging from the upper part of the case you have removed?~~

edit: FOUND IT See here for a video of a full disassembly of the S10-3t. You will see Waldo (ie the cmos battery) on the upper left corner of what's left at 12:30 to 12:55. I hope/suspect there is an easier way to get to it than this level of disassembly.

YEA (yet another edit): if there is a reset button it would be worth finding. In my digging to learn about the S10-3, I couldn't find any reference to resets other than removing the battery.

Last edited by Trilby (2012-07-21 17:43:05)

mtcupps · 2012-07-21 18:27:53

Thanks for that. So I managed to pull out the motherboard entirely, and the CMOS was on the back. I reset the BIOS, and super-glued the stupid wifi switch in the on position.

Rebooted, the BIOS was totally reset, and booted into Arch... same issue. I boot into it, and soft- and hard-blocks are off. As soon as I run wpa_supplicant or dhcpcd, it fails and rfkill list shows a hard block on. UGH

I guess I need to try installing Windows and fixing it that way. God save the poor soul who created this stupid-ass wifi switch if I ever find him...

Trilby · 2012-07-21 22:12:43

That didn't work? Hmm. Sorry, that was a crap load of work on your part to follow my unhelpful advice.

The wifi switch was "on" when you replaced the battery right?

Last edited by Trilby (2012-07-21 22:14:01)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-07-21 02:20:54

So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

#2 2012-07-21 03:12:58

Re: So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

#3 2012-07-21 03:37:43

Re: So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

#4 2012-07-21 03:47:39

Re: So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

#5 2012-07-21 16:34:31

Re: So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

#6 2012-07-21 16:48:50

Re: So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

#7 2012-07-21 16:54:23

Re: So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

#8 2012-07-21 18:27:53

Re: So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

#9 2012-07-21 22:12:43

Re: So Arch just took my wifi card to the woodshed...

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