[GTALUG] Repair & Replace
Peter King
peter.king at utoronto.ca
Thu Sep 14 20:54:52 EDT 2023
I will try using the iGPU when I get in to my office next, likely over
the weekend. The fan failure message comes from the BIOS after a
complete shutdown (to a cold boot). It looks to me like the fans are
spinning. If I tell it to ignore the fan message, everything runs ...
fine. Except for the date/time, which I have to reset. Otherwise it
works great until the next reboot. Maybe it just is the CMOS after all.
I have two Lenovo thinkpads which are complete workhorses, both run Arch
linux, they are as solid as concrete. One is at least eleven years old
(still with the classic keyboard!), and once I upgraded the internal RAM
and hard drive to an SSD it just runs like a top. I've been a moderate
fan of their products over the years, at least until I tried this one.
Next time I'll keep a small Windows partition as a hedge against
problems. I have one on my X1 Carbon, and it works just fine, leaving
Arch Linux alone.
I think I'll try switching the CMOS battery to see what happens. Then
if necessary try fwupdate. Then if necessary try booting some version
of Windows to update the firmware. Then if necessary calling Lenovo to
see what's what. After all that I may try to salvage it by swapping out
the MB, in which case hardware repair recommendations are still welcome!
And if /everything/ fails, I'll ask Lennart what he recommends for new
hardware. (I did that for one of my computers years ago, did what he
suggested, and it still runs beautifully!)
On 9/14/23 11:00, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> | From: Peter King via talk<talk at gtalug.org>
> |
> | It's a Lenovo Legion T5-26AMRS, about a year and a half old; the CPU is an AMD
> | Ryzen 7 5700G (8 cores) running around 3GHz, with 32GB of RAM. The graphics
> | card is an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 with 12GB onboard RAM.
>
> Quick partial response:
>
> Does you machine expose ports for the iGPU of the 5700G? If so, you could
> use the iGPU and remove the NVidia card.
>
> Why?
>
> - the iGPU is decent and should work for the things you do
>
> - the AMD iGPU is supported by open-source drivers
> (The nouveau drivers are not very good for modern NVidia cards.
> For one thing, they cannot control the power levels (this may have
> changed.))
>
> This will reduce the complexity of your system. There is a slight chance
> that it will fix your problem. Bonus: power usage will go down
>
> | I bought a
> | three-year warranty when I got it, so it's still eligible for repair.
> | Ignoring the CPU Fan Failure message so far hasn't caused any hiccups, which
> | makes me distrust the message. The fact that the CMOS started acting up
> | exactly when the fans failed make me suspect an electrical problem on the
> | motherboard.
>
> Lenovo phone support *might* be useful. It sure is easier than shipping
> your box to them.
>
> Where is the Fan Failure message coming from? Firmware or Linux?
> If it is coming from the firmware, they don't have to know you have Linux.
>
> Where is the CMOS message coming from? Firmware or Linux?
> If it is coming from the firmware, they don't have to know you have Linux.
>
> There area also official lenovo fora. Mostly for users but some Lenovo
> support people lurk there and sometimes post. On balance, not wonderful
> but sometimes helpful.
>
> | I run Arch Linux; I wiped Windows off the machine as soon as I got it.
>
> Now you know: lack of Windows makes support more difficult. In your case,
> we think that it is a hardware/firmware problem so it should not matter.
> But support folks may be hard to convince.
>
> If you actually return a box to Lenovo, they sometimes allow you to keep
> the disk drive (for security/privacy reasons). They may charge a fee for
> this.
>
> That's why I sometimes buy boxes with the smallest drive, and then swap it
> out to sit on a shelf as my insurance policy. That's why William puts
> Linux on an added disk.
>
> | There seems to be a CLI tool called something like fwupdate that works at
> | least on some ThinkPads. It might work on the Legion tower, too, but then
> | again it might not.
>
> fwupdmgr will know if it understands your computer. It should be safe to
> run it but I think that it is unlikely to work. It depends on the
> manufacturer supplying fwupd.org with suitable binaries. Lenovo probably
> doesn't do that for model that don't support Linux (my guess).
>
> This appears to be the update. The readme confuses me. It doesn't seem
> to say what the improvements are. It does say that there are some
> challenges updating from a version older than O4MKT1CA. What firmware are
> you running ("sudo dmidecode | grep 'BIOS Rev'" might tell you).
>
> Note: there may be other kinds of firmware distributed by Lenovo via
> Windows Update or Lenovo Vantage (running only on Windows). For example,
> disk drive firmware. Such updates might improve behaviour under Linux.
>
> | I bought this machine hoping for a long-lasting workhorse
> | and it has given me far more trouble than my off-the-shelf computers where I
> | matched the components by myself. Such is life.
>
> Normally, this Lenovo box is called "off the shelf". Boxes were you
> select the parts had have them assembled are called custom builds, but the
> components themselves are "off the shelf".
>
> I'm not sure that buying a gaming computer is the best route to stability.
> It should be OK.
>
> | But having had it once not-really-fixed by Lenovo, at some effort, I don't
> | know that I want to go down that road again rather than cutting out (what
> | might be) the problem at its roots...
>
> The more you touch of the problem, the more you own of it.
>
> My suggestion is to get Lenovo to fix it, or write it off. Anything else
> is a rabbit hole of unknown depth.
>
> First step down the rabbit hole (I would do this, but I don't really
> recommend it because of the work involved): install Windows (probably on a
> different disk). See if the problem goes away. Do the firmware update.
> See if the problem goes away. At this point, you are in a position
> where Lenovo support will not be distracted by Linux and use it as an
> excuse.
>
> ---
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--
Peter King peter.king at utoronto.ca
Department of Philosophy
170 St. George Street #521
The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc
Toronto, ON M5R 2M8
CANADA
http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/
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