Thinkpads Forum

Hello again

I am just continuing my little T30 Linux Mint project, and have some new problems I want to share. The last couple of weeks since I came back to the US, I have been using the T30 a lot. It is a handy little laptop, so I am using it for having internet access at my desk while doing my studies. The initial issues that I had (http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=85771) seems to be ironed out now, and the laptop works pretty much like I want it to.

However, the last couple of days it has started to freeze. To some extent it responds to input, but it takes 2-3 minutes to perform the task. The observations I have done so far is:

-When this happens, I manage to enter another virtual terminal (Crtl+Alt+F1). Here I can see the message:
(xxxx.xxxxxx) eth1: Error -110 writing Tx descriptor to BAP
being written 30-40 times every minute. The numbers (x) are different each time, one example is (7273.803594) I didn't find any good answers to this error messaage online.

-I use the Alt+PrtSc+REISUB command to reboot, and on reboot it sometimes ask me for the key to the wireless connection. The last time this happened, it wouldn't even reconnect on the wireless, so I am now on a wired connection.

-It has now been running wired for some hours, and the freezing has not occoured then.

-The fan seems to be running a lot. I am not sure if it runs too much though, unfortunately I don't remember how my old T30 with XP behaved. I installed powernowd, as adviced by Adda, but I am not sure if anything else in the Linux environment can influence this.

My conclusion so far is that the wireless card must have gone bad, or that something happened to something that's related to it. But how can I do hardware or even general troubleshooting in Linux? What tools are available? I miss the hardware device manager that Windows provide me with, and also the other tools that I am used to having access to.

I will try reseating the wireless card, and I will probably try to get another one, but I would like troubleshooting a little first. Just to learn how to do it.

Thank you for any advice!

If you think some process might be running away with the CPU , run top from a console. It is like task manager but for Linux. Look for a process with a high CPU utilization. You can stop top by closing console or hitting the ctrl-C combination on the keyboard. For a diagnostic try PC-Doctor.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 56222.html

Thanks for the answer.

I have the system resources monitor in the GUI, but thanks for letting me know how to access it in the terminal. The CPU usage isn't high. Between 3-10%, with some random peaks to 30-35%, caused by Firefox. I guess I didn't explain good enough, I was wondering if there were *other* factors than the plain CPU usage when it comes to heat. And I am not even sure if it's too hot, so I won't bother about this right now.

So, to the main issue. PC-Doctor didn't find any errors, not even in the Wireless LAN Test Category. It passed all 3 Intel tests. I even ran them several times, but nothing. So I booted back into Linux, reconnected through wireless and let it stay on until it froze again. Then I immidiately booted back into PC-Doctor environment, and ran the wireless tests over again. And this time the "Intel SRAM Read/Write" test took 10-15 minutes to process, as opposed to 7 seconds usually. It did pass, but took an awful long time. I am not sure what Intel SRAM refers to, I guess it can be some internal memory (Static RAM) on the WLAN card. Anyway, it seems to be an intermittent issue here. The card was taken out and reseated before this.

Anyone with other views here? I guess this is no longer any Linux issue, but rather a T30 specfic hardware issue, so I will try a post in the T30 section, and also a WTB for a card in the Buy/Sell section.

Edit: When trying to run the Intel tests now, I suddenly get N/A, like the card doesn't exist..

Sounds like a bad card. I can't think of another test other than to try the card in another Thinkpad.

Just to be on the safe side you could try this command.
Does it show some abnormally high temps?

Tried that, and I get 8 numbers, which I assume are temperatures in Celcius. Only the 3 first are valid, the last 5 are all -128.

After 5-10 minutes in GUI with Firefox open, the fan kicks in, and the 3 first ones show 55 51 47. After a while in terminal environment, the fan turns off, and an update shows 43 43 44. Anything below 60-65C should be acceptable, so I guess I was wrong about this. The fan activity seems to be very dependent on whether I am in the GUI or not, so apparently this is resource demanding, especially with several tabs in Firefox open at the same time. It also seems to run a little less now that I am on a cabled connection.

Takker så meget, du har vært til stor hjelp.

For you guys' reference: It was the wireless card. I changed it, and I have now used the computer for a couple of weeks with the new one installed, and had no issues at all.

Thanks for the input.