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eCS on a Lenovo X200T

Started by Sigurd, 2010.02.14, 12:26:53

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Sigurd

Hi,
my Lenovo X200T Laptop allways lacked the WLAN and LAN support for eCS because of having no drivers for the Hardware (Intel 5300). But I did not want to give up  ;)

All my efforts to get the Intel via GENMAC Unsupported mode to run ended unfortunately without a usable result. So I decided to change the WLAN Adapter itself. But Lenovo blocks using other WLAN cards (even if those are IBM branded) with a BIOS option that one can not change. So the Thinkpad starts but freezes with an error message (wrong WLAN Hardware) and does not go on.

To overcome this one had to use a modified BIOS, a special BIOS, I got information about this from a german Forum. But there is allways a risk once you use it, warranty is affected as well. But there have been some succesfull reports with the same model I have got, so I decided to try it. All went good.

I watched an official Lenovo support video how to dissamble the X200T. In fact it was not as diffcult as for the most Netbooks I have. Once I changed the hardware I was able to start eCS and install the GENMAC Driver for the IBM Intel 3945 I replaced.

But - a new problem came up: before I was able to use the SNAP driver in VESA mode for the Intel 4500 chipset. After replacing the WLAN card I was only able to use the GRADD driver, SNAP and Panrama crashed with an exeption. But I was lucky again: The Bugreport 2652 at ecomstation.com described the same problem (with an Lenovo T500 there) and fortunately there in this Bug Report a patched GRADD.SYS is provided!!! Thanks for this!!! So I installed the Panorama Driver and overrides the gradd.sys with the new one from the bug report BEFORE a reboot. And now it works  ::) - see picture.

So for me eComStation is quite usefull again with my "modern" Lenovo. I have got to test some other things now, i.e. using SMP switch seems to block the WLAN adapter, even with the ACPI 3.18.

Cheers

melf

Luck is a good companion  :) ! Crazy thing to restrict the use of wlan cards. I wonder if that is common in other brands?
/Mikael

cytan

Hi Sigurd,
   Can you post links to all the info which you found?

Thanks!

cytan

rwklein

This was also one of the bugs in eCS 2.0 I mentioned in my presentation at Warpstock to fix. That version of Gradd.sys is now in the build environment! So thats will make it into the GA, just like fixes to JFS that are being worked on real hard.

Roderick Klein
Mensys


Sigurd

Hi cytan:

here it comes:

BIOS - Thinkpad Forum - (unfortunately in German, I am not allowed to DIRECTLY show the place where to Download the BIOS!!) - so this hint is not very usefull
http://www.thinkpad-forum.de/

GRADD.SYS - patched Panorama - here it is, one has to log in at ecomstation.com (not sure if one can do this without having Software Subscription, may be wortht a try)
http://bugs.ecomstation.nl/view.php?id=2652

Service Video - Lenovo Support - for other modells as well, choose in the left part of the interface
http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/
and here for the X200T
http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/X200T/index.html

Cheers


Sigurd

Quote from: rwklein on 2010.02.14, 18:22:06
This was also one of the bugs in eCS 2.0 I mentioned in my presentation at Warpstock to fix. That version of Gradd.sys is now in the build environment! So thats will make it into the GA, just like fixes to JFS that are being worked on real hard.

Roderick Klein
Mensys


Hi Roderick,

hope you do not mind me giving this information here.

warpcafe

Sigurd,

out of curiosity... is that the famous "1801" error the Lenovo gave when booting with the "unsupported" WLAN/WiFi card?

Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy

Sigurd

Quote from: warpcafe on 2010.02.15, 17:54:03
Sigurd,

out of curiosity... is that the famous "1801" error the Lenovo gave when booting with the "unsupported" WLAN/WiFi card?

Thomas

Ja, Volltreffer - es ist der 1802!!!

warpcafe

Ah, yes... 1802 not 1801... I remember I had created a bootable CD to patch the BIOS. But that was for the T4x series... I was surprised to see that Lenovo has kept this blocker in the BIOS for the latest version as well. On my T42, the patch allowed to run other WiFi adapters, but still the Fn-F5 hotkey and the LED don't work - only if the adapter is truely one of the supported types.

Cheers,
Thomas
"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy