CONFIRMATION: 1804 with WWAN swap

Message

short101 · #31 Post by **short101** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:35 am

An interesting take on that excuse provided by IBM
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpa ... round.html also this
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpad/wireless.html

#32 Post by **shfawaz** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:42 am

short101 wrote:An interesting take on that excuse provided by IBM
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpa ... round.html also this
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpad/wireless.html

More examples of corporate greed and self service. Restrict the user so you buy more of the products that the entitiy itself allows for and upgrades that they are somehow compensated for directly for via licensing.

Now one can argue they are doing this to maintain hardware harmony, or to minimize complaints resuting from users installing 3rd party hardware that may cause other hardware failures since other manufacturers don't follow stringent specifications for certain components. But thats a null argument since the whole PC model is build your own and hardware manufacturers understand-be compatible or die. Simple as that.

While I understand the need to restrict some upgrades, wireless cards are not one that needs to be. It should be like upgrading the hard drive or even RAM.

This is the same business model that has kept Apple Computers from ever achieving double digit market penetration from its otherwise stellar OS and hardware offerings. But the argument here is that by restricting upgrades, you minimize the chance of hardware failure due to sub-standard quality upgrades. Hogwash.

Apple has carried this model to its wildly popular iPhone hardware, and more importantly, its locked down OS, going further by not only locking the hardware (no bluetooth A2DP for example) and even more so by locking down the software and preventing third parties from developing apps that users want. Again, self serving.

But the community of iPhone users shunned that notion, broke the lock and are happliy adding apps to the iPhone that should have been there in the first place. Yes they finally released a dev kit, too little too late. The horse left the corral six months earlier.

So why hasn't anyone figured out how to BREAK this bios level restriction on the Thinkpad. Or have they??

#33 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:27 am

shfawaz wrote:But thats a null argument since the whole PC model is build your own and hardware manufacturers understand-be compatible or die.

So go and buy a PC rather than a laptop!

short101 · #34 Post by **short101** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:55 am

Well, I got my 875u in the mail today. Some good news and some bad. Upon dissecting the usb modem, I was happy to find the mc8775 mini-pcie card inside it

Before ripping the card out of the USB stick, I plugged it in, and sure enough, the product id is 6812 (as I suspected it would be), I could connect with it and all is good. Then I ripped the guts out and replaced my 8755 with said card. Without putting the laptop back together, (just plugging the keyboard back in) my heart was in my mouth when I didnt get a bios error code, and the wwan led was even lit up for the post. After that, the light goes out, and the kernel doesnt see the card. So, I am a little confused due to not getting a bios error, and still hopefull to find a way to alter the product id of the card and see if that gets it to work.

short101 · #35 Post by **short101** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:56 am

bill bolton wrote:
shfawaz wrote:But thats a null argument since the whole PC model is build your own and hardware manufacturers understand-be compatible or die.
So go and buy a PC rather than a laptop!

Or just about *any* brand of laptop except IBM or HP

#36 Post by **shfawaz** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:16 am

bill bolton wrote:
shfawaz wrote:But thats a null argument since the whole PC model is build your own and hardware manufacturers understand-be compatible or die.
So go and buy a PC rather than a laptop!

Wow! Great response Bill-and invaluable contribution to the thread. You must be proud of this irrelevant answer. I guess this is how you achieved 1600+ posts on this forum

Posts like this sets a great example for others to follow. Just what this boards needs--answers to thread telling people what to do and offering little in the way of material or usable information.

Nice. From a Board Admin no less. Bet you Bill Morrow would be proud of this post.

Switchcorp · #37 Post by **Switchcorp** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:31 am

short101 wrote:Well, I got my 875u in the mail today. Some good news and some bad. Upon dissecting the usb modem, I was happy to find the mc8775 mini-pcie card inside it Before ripping the card out of the USB stick, I plugged it in, and sure enough, the product id is 6812 (as I suspected it would be), I could connect with it and all is good. Then I ripped the guts out and replaced my 8755 with said card. Without putting the laptop back together, (just plugging the keyboard back in) my heart was in my mouth when I didnt get a bios error code, and the wwan led was even lit up for the post. After that, the light goes out, and the kernel doesnt see the card. So, I am a little confused due to not getting a bios error, and still hopefull to find a way to alter the product id of the card and see if that gets it to work.

I also had this the first time i plugged my option card into my X61T ! I had to reboot my laptop to see my card working and also the 1804 error ! It's strange ... Are you sure that the WWAN is active in the bios ? (because there is a setting to enabled or disabled it)

#38 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:59 pm

short101 wrote:Or just about *any* brand of laptop except IBM or HP

Its simply not practical to "build" a laptop from separate parts

At best you can get the manufacturer to initially configure it from a pick list of parts they supply, and then add or subtract a few components once you receive it....... which is quite a different "model" from a PC.

Cheers,

Bill B.

short101 · #39 Post by **short101** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:16 pm

I realise this. The point I was making is that dell, sony's and everything but thinkpads and now some HP's dont have bios whitelists, so at least you can upgrade components without having to jump through hoops or pay through the nose.

And yep, I am sure the card is enabled in bios. I even reset the WAN setting from on to off, then on again.

#40 Post by **bill bolton** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 8:35 pm

short101 wrote:now some HP's

Now? HP have been doing it since at least 2004!

Cheers,

Bill B.

short101 · #41 Post by **short101** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 12:54 am

Rather than continue this pointless conversaion, I would like some constructive comments on how we may work around the issue.

Switchcorp · #42 Post by **Switchcorp** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:11 am

short101 wrote:And yep, I am sure the card is enabled in bios. I even reset the WAN setting from on to off, then on again.

You said that you had the led WWAN on .. and after not !

If you look in your devices (in control panel) do you have the modem detected or not at all ? Try to reboot 2-3 times and watch each time ...

If you don't find the modem inside, try to disable it in bios, reboot ... then shutdown, re enable it and then reboot.

It's strange because it seems that your card is automatically disable by the computer ... when i had my option GTM378 inside it didn't disable it ... but I had 1804 error !

Why do you think the modem is not recognize ? I had also this impression ... it was because software were already installed ... and when I put it inside ... it didn't install new drivers !

When you load your wwan software does it said that it can't find your hardware ?

short101 · #43 Post by **short101** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:31 am

I dont have control panel as I run linux on this box. When the original card is installed, the led is on during the whole boot sequence and I can see in my kernel log that the card is recognised. With the 8775 in there, the wan light is on during post and for about 10-15 seconds after, then it goes out. When I load the module for the card, the device isnt created, and also it doesn't show up in the lsusb output (linux version of device manager sort of) When I replace the card back into the usb enclosure and plug it in, the kernel sees it and creates a device that I can use as the modem. So, yep, its odd that I dont get a bios error, yet it seems the bios just disables the card, and then the operating system cant see it.

Switchcorp · #44 Post by **Switchcorp** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:55 am

It's weird !

There is no link between hardware and os ... so it would be the same under Vista or XP !

If you don't have any access to the module I think it'll be difficult to find a solution.

Is there a way to extract a firmware of a genuine card and reflash it in yours ?

Switchcorp · #45 Post by **Switchcorp** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 6:02 am

What was the old card you were using ? (the one that is recognized by your linux)

Is there a way that the new one cannot be loaded by your linux ?

Or other solution : there is no way you can test it under windows ?

short101 · #46 Post by **short101** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 6:37 am

I'm not sure you understand me. When the card is inside its usb enclosure, it works fine. When the card is plugged directly into the mini-pcie slot, the bios seems to disable it. The old card is an mc8755 and the same kernel module (driver) is for both cards. In either case (whether the card is plugged into the the usb enclosure or directly into the notebook) the linux kernel sees it as a usb serial device.

Switchcorp · #47 Post by **Switchcorp** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 7:27 am

Ok now it's clear !

It's gonna be difficult to re enable it ! Do you have any idea on how to proceed ?

Switchcorp · #48 Post by **Switchcorp** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 7:39 am

I don't know if it can help you but if i don't try i'll never know :

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/131167

Oh crap, i've just found on ebay a seller for a MC8765 Lenovo module

It's the version for the X60(t)

I sent him an email to know if he can have a genuine MC8775

Switchcorp · #49 Post by **Switchcorp** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:52 pm

Any news Short101 ?

Switchcorp · #50 Post by **Switchcorp** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 1:29 am

Does anyone know how to unlock a card ? I've found one but it's lock to cingular and the seller has contacted many unlock website and they can't provide an unlock code !

short101 · #51 Post by **short101** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 5:02 am

Switchcorp, no good news as yet. (still working on it, but busy with work atm) If its a cingular card, then they should be able to supply the unlock code (they may make you pay I guess)

Switchcorp · #52 Post by **Switchcorp** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 4:59 pm

Yes it's a cingular but they don't provide a code until xx days of activation and utilisation of the cingular network ...

short101 · #53 Post by **short101** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 3:59 am

I tried hotplugging the 8775 in today after post but before the OS loads. Several people seem to have done this with unauthorised wireless cards. Its probably not such a good idea with the WAN card though. When I took the old one out, all was fine, but as soon as I plugged the new one in, the screen blanked. Hitting enter to try and boot into the OS didnt appear to have any effect either. The good news is that the WAN light came on and stayed on when the new card was plugged in, but not being able to boot the OS, its hard to say if it would work or not. Being an optimistic chap, I like to think it will

Now we just need to be able to change this product id. Not having much luck finding info on that yet.

Switchcorp · #54 Post by **Switchcorp** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 4:36 am

Short101 don't you have another computer or a friend/family computer ?

It would be less difficult to plug the 875U in another and change the product ID there

short101 · #55 Post by **short101** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 10:45 pm

Hmm, I decided to see if I could poke around inside a firmware upgrade file. After finding one on the net for my 8755 and extracting it (amazingly I could on linux with cabextract and unzip) I found a devices.xml file which has the following interesting snippet, and I woonder if editing this file and flashing might work. Heres the interesting snippet, dunno how the firmware installer interacts with it yet of course..

<Device>
<Modem>8775</Modem>
<HWID>
<HWID.1>SWMUXBUS\SW_NET_0_VID_1199&PID_6812</HWID.1>
<HWID.2>SWMUXBUS\SW_NET_0_VID_1199&PID_6813</HWID.2>
<HWID.3>SWMUXBUS\SW_NET_0_VID_1199&PID_6814</HWID.3>
<HWID.4>SWMUXBUS\SW_NET_0_VID_1199&PID_6815</HWID.4>
<HWID.5>SWMUXBUS\SW_NET_0_VID_1199&PID_6816</HWID.5>
<HWID.6>SWMUXBUS\SW_NET_0_VID_1199&PID_6817</HWID.6>
<HWID.7>SWMUXBUS\SW_NET_0_VID_03f0&PID_1E1D</HWID.7>
</HWID>
<Name>
<Name.1>VID_1199&PID_6812</Name.1>
<Name.2>VID_1199&PID_6813</Name.2>
<Name.3>VID_1199&PID_6814</Name.3>
<Name.4>VID_1199&PID_6815</Name.4>
<Name.5>VID_1199&PID_6816</Name.5>
<Name.6>VID_1199&PID_6817</Name.6>
<Name.7>VID_03f0&PID_1E1D</Name.7>
</Name>
</Device>

I guess its just part of the installer that shows which cards it supports or something. Can anyone thats run a firmware upgrade confirm what the installer does/looks like?

edit: heh, the file has a typo at the top too. Dierra Wireless

edit edit: Are these the strings that are reported by windows hardware manager?

Mikis · #56 Post by **Mikis** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 1:47 pm

Deja-vu.

Check this out:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... f288b8edd6

Some interesting tidbits:

1. Novatel cards (dell branded) cost ONE THIRD of what SW cards cost (read: 150$)

2. Novatel EU730 (aka Dell 5500) (HSDPA-850/1900) incurs an 1804 only on reboot, not on boot from powered-off state. If you keep your machine perpetually on and make it sleep, this is more of a neusance than a showstopper (too bad I use an HSDPA-2100 network).
3. Novatel EU740 (aka Dell 5505) (HSDPA-2100) incurs an 1804 always.

4. None of the 1802 tools work.

5. The cards are PCI Express/USB and will be hotpluggable. If you have a hardware means of keeping the card physically powered down until after the 1804 check, you can bypass the check

6. Forget [5] above. Forget whitelisting specific PCI IDs, that would help a small subset of people who will actually need this now and in the future. 2 words: BIOS HACK. Anyone up for it?

7. I've contacted Tisheng Chen (author of the no-1802 assembly code someone thoughtfully posted earlier in this thread) and he agreed to take a look if I provide him a bios dump, which I have as of yet not found the time to do

Does anyone here run linux on an X6* and feel like giving me a .bin file?

I've neither got a linux install at the moment nor an easy way to sort one out...

Alternatively, I might look for a tool to dump bios from vista.

If you do, shoot it across to mikishapiro {at] gmai l dot com, I'll put it in the right hands.

Gents, this is pro'lly the way forward.. help appreciated.

Cheers.

short101 · #57 Post by **short101** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:47 pm

I think you'll find that almost all the tools are windows/dos based. I am looking into getting a dump from my t60. I still think changing product id on the card is a safer way to go, but it would be nice to disable the whitelist in bios too. Heres a page that has a list of tools that mathew garret used to work around it.
http://www.paul.sladen.org/thinkpad-r31 ... i-ids.html

Mikis · #58 Post by **Mikis** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 11:15 pm

Ok, I used winphlash to grab an image of my bios, so that's done.

Personally I much prefer a generic skip-the-check bios fix, as that'll solve the problem for everyone, and allow us to use new cards as they come out or become cheaper than what's already whitelisted.

Flashing the card itself to lie about its pci-id is not always trivial, and if the first option was not available, I'd be tempted to just go into the bios image with a hex editor, dig out where the sierra wireless pci-id is stored, replace it with that of my card and re-flash.

short101 · #59 Post by **short101** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 12:57 am

Well, I think you are probably right. I took the case off my mc8775 to see if I could get any info on the chips. Not much luck there, I was hoping for a small eeprom that could be hacked. It appears that all the info is stored in the firmware, so hacking that is probably going to be [censored] near impossible. Am looking into the bios hack now too. Reinstalling windows on my old r40 so I can play with some of these tools.

short101 · #60 Post by **short101** » Wed Jan 02, 2008 3:49 am

Hmm, getting a bios dump in linux is proving difficult

CONFIRMATION: 1804 with WWAN swap

Already been there

Here goes

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