Changed fan assembly - got 1802 error

[tiorapatea]

Gave myself a fright. I installed a new fan assembly on my wife's T30. Powered on and felt air blowing from the CPU vent on the side and the initial boot splash screen popped up. I wrongly assumed things had gone well because then nothing else happened at all. I pressed F1 to get into the BIOS and was told I needed to reset the date and time and also that I had a 1802 error.

I had been concerned I hadn't reseated the CMOS battery connector properly - it is hard to do - so I redid that and tried again - same errors. I changed the date and time. Still no boot. I hit F12 for boot options and after about ten seconds just got an ominous double beep followed by a power down.

That frightened me. Anyway, I searched these forums and found that dead wifi cards could bring up a 1802 and stall the boot process. So I pulled out my mini-PCI wifi card and, lo and behold, I was back in business.

Strange that the card should have died just as I was swapping out the fan assembly - I am not that violent or clumsy and the card is miles away from all the fan assembly action. It is one of those Atheros b/g cards that supposedly is immune from 1802 errors but it seems that is only true up to a point - like maybe while it is still alive. Haven't had a chance to test it elsewhere to determine if it really is dead.

Any thoughts?

[rkawakami]

Static charge? Might be possible that an electrical shock took out the card, although with it firmly socketed (I'm assuming) that's a very small chance. May also be a contact problem; you can try cleaning the pads on the edge of the MiniPCI card with alcohol and/or rubbing a pencil eraser across them.

[Neil]

Might just try applying the no-1802 BIOS patch, and then see if the wireless card still works. I had a T30 years ago that did the same thing after I swapped LCD panels. It was the same card that was in the machine when I got it, but I don't know if it was original to the machine or not. Anyway, all was fine once again after the BIOS patch.

[Harryc]

Good idea on the Patch Neil. The BIOS might have been patched all along until the battery was disconnected ...

[tiorapatea]

Interesting. Yes, I suspected some sort of BIOS reset had disrupted things and led to a rejection of a previously accepted card. I had thought I was running an unpatched original BIOS because the machine came with the standard 802.11b plus modem card and a standard BIOS id - but maybe the previous owner had upgraded the card only to reinstate the original wifi card when he sold it to me.

But would a CMOS battery disconnect undo the no-1802 patch?

Furthermore, as I said before, my b/g card was supposed to be one of those few Atheros cards that do not trigger the 1802 thing.

All a bit confusing but I will definitely try one of the 1802 workarounds - any tips on what is the safest method? I would hate to hose my wife's machine, especially as the wireless card is not really an essential component in the T30's current use.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Harryc]

But would a CMOS battery disconnect undo the no-1802 patch?

Yes

[ajkula66]

No Atheros-chipped card is native to T30, hence the once patched BIOS, and the current "1802 error", mystery solved.

[tiorapatea]

Hmm, ok. I think I was forgetting that I had myself applied the no-1802 and no-01c9 patches on the T30 and that these patches were only effective for a certain type of Atheros card. I knew I had spent time trying to find a specific type of Atheros card and had assumed that the reason had been those cards' immunity from 1802 errors but I do now dimly recall making a live CD with the BIOS patch on it.

I just hope I don't surprise myself next time I look at a mirror!

Searching around a bit, there are a lot of dead links to BIOS fixes and some remaining old stories about the fix etc. Does anyone have an up-to-date view on how this is best resolved in 2010 and, if necessary, a live link to any software patches?

[RealBlackStuff]

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_w ... et_devices
Look under the red Attention block:

NOTICE: The Live CD Version 2 is released now. Download it via Rapidshare here. (~ 4 MB).
Download links appear to break regularly but will be fixed whenever necessity arises.

Go to that wiki page and click on the word here

[tiorapatea]

Thanks! Finally got around to fixing the BIOS, although I just used the old boot CD I had made back in 2006. Seemed not to need the 01C9 fix, just the no 1802.

My T60 needs some fan treatment so the T30 is back in service!