Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] said: That voltage has to be read with DC power and the main battery removed to be meaningful. There is a trickle charging circuit in play if there is any other source of power. Good catch. Mine's been unplugged and without battery for a few hours. It's still reading 3.3 V. -- These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
I am in Brazil at the moment, without good access to email. But since this seems to be a firmware problem, Mitch Bradley is the right person to help you, at this stage at least. Please check the batteries as Mitch suggests (photos might be helpful for us to see what's going on) and let us know what you find. Mitch, is there anything else which might trigger the Invalid System Date message from OFW? --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
C. Scott Ananian wrote: I am in Brazil at the moment, without good access to email. But since this seems to be a firmware problem, Mitch Bradley is the right person to help you, at this stage at least. Please check the batteries as Mitch suggests (photos might be helpful for us to see what's going on) and let us know what you find. Mitch, is there anything else which might trigger the Invalid System Date message from OFW? --scott OFW depends on the date information that it reads from the Real Time Clock chip and has no other source of information. So an Invalid System Date in conjunction with at a very early date means that either the date was never set in the chip or that the chip lost its battery power and thus forgot the date. It is possible that the factory neglected to set the date on some units, but that is less likely than the lost power scenario, because we have already observed two lost power failure modes on multiple units - bad battery holders and defective coin-cell batteries. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
It is possible that the factory neglected to set the date on some units, Isn't if the same that we fixed in some units back in December? http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Fix_Clock ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
Ricardo Carrano wrote: It is possible that the factory neglected to set the date on some units, Isn't if the same that we fixed in some units back in December? http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Fix_Clock The problem report stated that they are able to activate the machines, but that the activation doesn't persist. Since they can activate, the instructions for using a serial port to recover are unnecessary. With the information that was given in the problem report, it is not possible to determine the root cause of the problem, beyond the fact that the clock does not have the correct time. I am pretty sure that it is not a firmware bug. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
I have been told that the Uruguay machines are supposed to have good battery holders, so my earlier suggestion about coin-cell batteries popping out of the holder might be incorrect. However, we have also seen a problem where some of the coin-cell batteries are defective, so it would be worthwhile to open the problem machines and inspect their batteries. The defective batteries might have visible corrosion. Emiliano Pastorino wrote: Scott, We're having serious problems here in Uruguay with firmware Q2D13. Some laptops, after flashing them, show an Invalid system date error at boot time. The laptop won't boot because after that it shows a Lease expired message and tries to activate. We could activate the laptop, but when you reboot it, the same error message appears. In the time between we activate the laptop and before we reboot it, we could check the date, it says mar nov 30 01:35:11 EST 1999. This started to happen after we upgrade the firmware from Q2D07 (which had an activation problem) to Q2D13. It seems that the I've attached three screenshots of the boot screen. We need someone to check this and solve the problem asap. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] said: I have been told that the Uruguay machines are supposed to have good battery holders, so my earlier suggestion about coin-cell batteries popping out of the holder might be incorrect. However, we have also seen a problem where some of the coin-cell batteries are defective, so it would be worthwhile to open the problem machines and inspect their batteries. The defective batteries might have visible corrosion. Even if it looks OK, as long as you have it open, you might as well put a meter on it. Mine reads 3.3V. -- These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
That voltage has to be read with DC power and the main battery removed to be meaningful. There is a trickle charging circuit in play if there is any other source of power. wad On Apr 17, 2008, at 1:02 AM, Hal Murray wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: I have been told that the Uruguay machines are supposed to have good battery holders, so my earlier suggestion about coin-cell batteries popping out of the holder might be incorrect. However, we have also seen a problem where some of the coin-cell batteries are defective, so it would be worthwhile to open the problem machines and inspect their batteries. The defective batteries might have visible corrosion. Even if it looks OK, as long as you have it open, you might as well put a meter on it. Mine reads 3.3V. -- These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: Severe new bug in firmware Q2D13?
Some of the machines from the first production run had bad battery holders. Not the main battery, but rather the small coin cell battery on the mainboard that powers the time-of-day/calendar clock chip. Those battery holders have a plastic retention lip that holds the coin cell in place. On the bad ones, the lip is too small, and the batteries can become loose or even fall out entirely. When this happens, the time-of-day/calendar clock chip loses its power, forgets what day it is, and resets to the earliest date. The long-term solution is to replace the battery holder, but I don't know what the logistics of this would be in your situation. It might involve swapping the main boards and sending the bad ones to a repair depot, or perhaps sending the entire laptop for repair, or perhaps getting a supply of the battery holders and replacing just them. As an interim solution, it might be possible to use glue to hold the coin cell battery in place. Open the laptop, insert the battery firmly in the holder, and put glue around the rim of the holder where the plastic contacts the battery, taking care not to put glue on the metal contacts. You might want to experiment with different kinds of glue that you have readily available to find on that sticks to the plastic battery holders. I am doing some experiments here. So far I have found that hot-melt glue does not work well (it doesn't stick). Solvent-based household cement seems to stick, but I haven't had time to let it harden fully. I am also trying white glue (polyvinyl acetate). I'm pretty sure that epoxy would work, because it sticks well to a lot of things, but it is slightly harder to work with than one-part glues. Super glue (cyanoacrylate) would probably work too, but I don't have any handy so I haven't tried it. After you have secured the battery in the holder, activate the laptop, then use the Linux date and hwclock commands to set the system date. (Or ntpdate and hwclock - see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Customizing_NAND_images#Time) If you have developer keys for those machines and a wireless access point that is connected to the Internet, you can set the date from the firmware: ok wifi MYSSID ok ntp-set-clock where MYSSID is the SSID of your access point. That assumes an open access point. If the access point uses WEP security (which isn't very good), you must first set the key with: ok wep 123456789a where the argument is a 10-character or 26-character hex number. If the access point uses WPA security, you must first set the preshared key with ok wpa where the argument is a 64-character hex number. WPA authentication can be complicated, so it might not work for you. Emiliano Pastorino wrote: Scott, We're having serious problems here in Uruguay with firmware Q2D13. Some laptops, after flashing them, show an Invalid system date error at boot time. The laptop won't boot because after that it shows a Lease expired message and tries to activate. We could activate the laptop, but when you reboot it, the same error message appears. In the time between we activate the laptop and before we reboot it, we could check the date, it says mar nov 30 01:35:11 EST 1999. This started to happen after we upgrade the firmware from Q2D07 (which had an activation problem) to Q2D13. It seems that the I've attached three screenshots of the boot screen. We need someone to check this and solve the problem asap. ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
