Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Two outta three ain't bad...

Yeah...  2 out of 3...

A quick recap:  Number one is, of course, Manjaro on the T410s, which is performing absolutely perfectly.  It has its quirks, but I rather like it.  I've been toting this system around with me everywhere, and not a single problem.

Number two is the Thinkpad 380XD.  The 64 MB RAM expansion arrived yesterday, and I installed it as soon as I could, replacing the 16 MB stick that was in the system.  Worked perfectly.  So, I decided to move on to Phase II, which was a test boot with Wary Puppy 5.3.

The 380XD booted fine off the CD.  The only problems encountered were my first time 'round, when I tried the boot with the Compaq PCMCIA wireless card (which came with the system when I bought it) installed.  The software almost booted, then gagged on PCMCIA drivers.  A second attempt with a later IBM-branded card boggled also.  Booting without the cards installed worked fine.  (I did make a slight mistake when I accepted the "recommended" screen resolution of 640x480.  The 380 series uses 800x600.)  (And, yeah, don't those resolution numbers bring back memories..?)

Number three, however, is the "out"...  The T30 arrived today, and appeared to be in quite good shape.  However, when I went to test it, I quickly discovered...  NO wireless, even though it was advertised with wireless included.  (!?!)  Not the least bit happy, I sent a message to the seller

While waiting for a reply, I remembered the late, lamented R40 was lying about, waiting to donate parts to the cause.  It just happened to have a wireless card...

Well, you know where this is going.  I rapidly did the transplant, closed everything back up, and went to reboot...

And got a major error message.  What I have since found is the 01C9 and 1802 errors.  It appears the chipset in the wireless card reads as "ethernet" to the system, and that just isn't kosher.

Well, I went all wonky, and started fiddling with hardware, thinking I should remove cards or something.  Unplugged one of the cards in the wireless bay, not even sure what the hell it was, and tried a reboot, which didn't make any difference anyway.

Disgusted, I put the T30 away, thinking I'd take it to the Shop-Across-the-River tomorrow.  (I think I made up a few new words, too...)

In the meantime, the seller had contacted me, and very graciously offered to correct the wireless screwup by sending me the appropriate parts.  Not really wanting to get into it, I accepted.  (This did make me feel better about the gentleman.  He was very professional and pleasant about it, something that is far too lacking today.)

And, in the further meantime, I also did what I should've done in the first place concerning the card errors.  I let my fingers do the walking.  I typed my question, not into Google, but into DuckDuckGo (hey, I'm being experimental here!), and got back a good analysis of the problem.  And a possible quick solution, using some Linux tools.

However, I'm just a bit too worn out right now.  However, I feel a bit better about Number Three.  Maybe it's not all too wonky-ed up...

We shall see.

In the meantime, do you think anyone would notice if I hold onto my T410s like it's a teddy bear..?

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