Dell Inspiron 5150 and PCMCIA lock ups

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Thursday, 24 July 2003 at  1:46:44 -0400, Joe Marcus Clarke wrote:
> I just got a new Dell Inspiron 5150 thinking it would be a nice
> replacement for my 8100.  So far, I'm not impressed.  The BroadCom
> BCM440x ethernet controller isn't supported, and everytime I insert a
> PCMCIA card, the machine locks.

Heh.  Ditto, s/5150/5100/

> I'm running 5.1-RELEASE, but I want to move to -CURRENT if I can get
> a network connection.  Basically, if the machine is up and running,
> and I insert the card, it locks (no console messages, nothing).  The
> only solution is to hold the power button down until the machine
> shuts down.  If I have the card inserted at boot time, the machine
> gets to:
>
> Mounting root from ufs:/dev/ad2s3a
>
> Then locks up the same way.
>
> ...  I have tried NEWCARD and OLDCARD.  I am
>
> I'm really hoping there's some hope here.  So far, the only good news is
> that sound works.  Thanks for any advice you may offer.

You're a little ahead of me here.  I'm still backing up the disk
contents.  Knoppix (Linux) doesn't recognize the Broadcomm card, but
it does initialize the PCMCIA card OK.

Duncan Barclay has a beta driver for the Broadcomm card.  See
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-mobile/2003-July/001109.html
for more details.  Also, I've been given a pointer to a Linux page,
http://cabibbo.physics.wm.edu/~bryan/computer/inspiron5100.html, which
I haven't read yet.

I think the way I'm going to go is:

1.  Install 5.0-RELEASE (because that's what I have on CD-ROM).
2.  Move the -CURRENT sources, including Broadcomm driver, to the box
    (probably via CD-R).
3.  Take it from there.

If anybody has some other suggestions, I'd be pleased to hear them.

Greg
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