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X40 - USB Blues

X20/X21, X30/X31, X40/X41 Series
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sicelo
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X40 - USB Blues

#1 Post by sicelo » Wed Jul 06, 2016 12:05 pm

Hi
I have received an X40 as a gift. Unfortunately, the USB ports are not working, which appears to have been a common problem with the X40.

What I wish to find out is - if i purchase a cardbus USB card, can the X40 boot off it to install an operating system? I know for example it cannot boot off the SD card (which works).

Or does the BIOS handle PCMCIA USB differently, and therefore be unable to boot from it?

Neil
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Re: X40 - USB Blues

#2 Post by Neil » Wed Jul 06, 2016 5:21 pm

USB is dead in my X40 too so I use a PCMCIA card. No..try as I might, it won't boot from the add on card.
Collection = T430 - T500 - R400 - X300 - T61 (14" WXGA+) - R61 (15" SXGA+) - T60 - X40 - T43p - T43 - T42p - A30P

dr_st
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Re: X40 - USB Blues

#3 Post by dr_st » Thu Jul 07, 2016 8:43 am

CardBus! You're using CardBus! (PCMCIA is the old slow 16-bit variant of the same form factor). :D

And no, it won't boot from that. You have to add special support in the BIOS for each individual controller to be able to boot from it. I haven't seen a Thinkpad that had BIOS support for booting from anything CardBus.
Thinkpad 25 (20K7), T490 (20N3), Yoga 14 (20FY), T430s (IPS FHD + Classic Keyboard), X220 4291-4BG
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axur-delmeria
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Re: X40 - USB Blues

#4 Post by axur-delmeria » Thu Jul 07, 2016 10:32 am

Plop Boot Manager states that it supports booting from Cardbus USB cards: https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/pcmcia.html.

Note that I haven't tried this, so I don't know if it will work or not.
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sicelo
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Re: X40 - USB Blues

#5 Post by sicelo » Thu Jul 07, 2016 11:30 am

Thank you all for your replies.
I will buy the card for regular USB usage, and install Linux in another way (e.g. TFTP or move HDD across)

sicelo
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Re: X40 - USB Blues

#6 Post by sicelo » Sat Jul 23, 2016 2:53 pm

Just as a follow-up:
- I did get the add-on USB Cardbus card for general USB use. Works very well
- Took out the 60GB SSD in the X40 hoping to install Linux on it while connected to an adapter. Eventually scrapped this plan as I was not too sure about voltage levels of the SSD (3.3V?) and the adapter (5V?)
- Decided to set up TFTP boot, and this worked awesomely.

So the X40 currently runs Debian 8/Jessie. Gnome3 works just well on it, although there is one nasty bug (Debian Bug #770130 & 776911) which can be work-arounded. KDE4 also works fine and is what I'm currently on.

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Re: X40 - USB Blues

#7 Post by teamde78 » Fri Jul 29, 2016 7:17 am

sicelo wrote:Just as a follow-up:
- I did get the add-on USB Cardbus card for general USB use. Works very well
- Took out the 60GB SSD in the X40 hoping to install Linux on it while connected to an adapter. Eventually scrapped this plan as I was not too sure about voltage levels of the SSD (3.3V?) and the adapter (5V?)
- Decided to set up TFTP boot, and this worked awesomely.

So the X40 currently runs Debian 8/Jessie. Gnome3 works just well on it, although there is one nasty bug (Debian Bug #770130 & 776911) which can be work-arounded. KDE4 also works fine and is what I'm currently on.
Glad it is working for you. My X40 had similar issues last year, and I ended up not trying to fix it. I may just try to now and see if I can get a work around to those pesky USB problems.
Thinkpads: X1C 5th Gen (daily Driver), T430, T60, Z61, T410

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