ThinkPad - UltraBay battery magic

[Dan Langille]

On 19 Jun 2006 at 14:59, Marko Zec wrote:

> On Monday 19 June 2006 12:44, Dan Langille wrote:
> > On 17 Jun 2006 at 20:39, Kevin Oberman wrote:
> > > > From: "Dan Langille" <dan at langille.org>
> > > > Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 21:08:54 -0400
> > > >
> > > > On 17 Jun 2006 at 16:54, Kevin Oberman wrote:
> > > > > > When installing a 2nd battery (i.e in the UltraBay after removing
> > > > > > the CD drive) in a ThinkPad, I think there's some magic you must
> > > > > > invoke to get the system to notice the additional power resource.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Any ideas?
> > > > >
> > > > > The code to allow ACPI to add batteries has yet to be written (or
> > > > > committed, at least). If the system is booted with 2 two batteries,
> > > > > both will be seen. Even it one is removed and then returned, it will
> > > > > be seen. But if a system is booted with a single battery, ACPI will
> > > > > not ever see the second battery.
> > > > >
> > > > > Please note that the second battery WILL be seen by the hardware and
> > > > > both charged and used.
> > > >
> > > > I rebooted.  It froze after probing ad0.  I powered off.  I removed
> > > > the spare battery. I rebooted.  Froze again, same place.  I put in
> > > > the CD drive, it booted fine.  I swapped out the CD drive and put the
> > > > battery back in.  This time I did a verbose boot.
> > > >
> > > > In short:
> > > > both batteries are seen in the probing.
> > > > ad0 is probed
> > > > pcm0 is measured
> > > > fdc0: output ready timeout
> > > > [repeat above line 7 times]
> > > > GEOM: new disk ad0
> > > >
> > > > Screen shot here:
> > > >
> > > >   http://www.langille.org/tmp/100_2831.jpg
> > > >
> > > > Ideas? Suggestions?
> > >
> > > This is sounding just a bit familiar. Do you actually have a floppy
> > > drive? If so, try putting a disk into it. If not, try building a kernel
> > > without the floppy and see if that behaves.
> >
> > There is no floppy in this laptop (IBM ThinkPad T41); I have one, but
> > it is external, connected via USD, and has not been attached during
> > these tests.
> >
> > I created a kernel without fd, based on GENERIC:
> >
> > $ diff GENERIC LAPTOPGENNOFD1
> > 25c25
> > < ident         GENERIC
> > ---
> >
> > > ident         LAPTOPGEN
> >
> > 159c159
> > < #device               apm
> > ---
> >
> > > device                apm
> >
> > In short, I changed the ident, and added apm.
> >
> > This kernel boots if the CDRW is installed.  Without it, the systems
> > boots and then freezes at the login prompt.  I have no idea why.  The
> > freeze occurs with or without the second battery.  With the CDRW
> > installed, all is well.
> >
> > > There have been several similar reports. You might want to look at the
> > > archives.
> >
> > I didn't find anything that gave me a lead to follow.
> 
> Try booting in windows and using the "ps2" command-line configuration utility 
> to disable the secondary IDE channel in BIOS.  This recently saved my 
> ThinkPad X32 from becoming a wrack after I went completely nuts with exactly 
> the same symptoms as you observed: the machine would lock hard if booted with 
> APM and without the CDRW installed.  I observed this issue only in 6.1;  4.11 
> works flawlessly out of the box with APM / without CDROM.
> 
> Hope this helps,

SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!

Yes.  That allowed me to boot with the 2nd battery installed.

I'll try adding fd back into the kernel and try going back to my 
original kernel, but we have definite progress.

Thank you.

-- 
Dan Langille : Software Developer looking for work
my resume: http://www.freebsddiary.org/dan_langille.php