Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a +replacement +for my trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much +time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe +will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived. I +ended up picking a +Thinkpad X230 +with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as +a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly. But my +second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful. More +on that below.
+ +I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most +important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never +listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search +feature at Prisjakt, which +allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other +requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according +to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of +disks from my search parameters. I also asked around among friends to +get their impression on keyboards and robustness.
+ +So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the +X41. I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is +significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my +hand a lot more to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly +good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope +I will get used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really +needed a new laptop now. :)
+ +Turning off the touch pad was simple. All it took was a quick +visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.
+ +But there is a fatal problem with the laptop. The 180 GB SSD disk +lock up during load. And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy +with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data. +I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I +reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by +default in Ubuntu). And the bug with is already known. It was +reported to Debian as BTS +report #691427 2012-10-25 (journal commit I/O error on brand-new +Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD). It is also reported to the Linux +kernel developers as +Kernel bugzilla +report #51861 2012-12-20 (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load +(SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the +Lenovo forums, both for +T430 +2012-11-10 and for +X230 +03-20-2013. The problem do not only affect installation. The +reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done +on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation +problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment. +There is even a +small C program +available that will lock up the hard drive after running a few +minutes by writing to a file.
+ +I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after +contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support +requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk +firmware. Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from +Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i). I +hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be +fixed. :)
+ +