blog/data/2013-07-05-new-laptop.txt

   1 Title: The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230?
   2 Tags: english, debian
   3 Date: 2013-07-05 08:30
   4
   5 <p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a
   6 <a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Thank_you_Thinkpad_X41__for_your_long_and_trustworthy_service.html">replacement
   7 for my trusty old Thinkpad X41</a>.  Unfortunately I did not have much
   8 time to spend on it, and it took a while to find a model I believe
   9 will do the job, but two days ago the replacement finally arrived.  I
  10 ended up picking a
  11 <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad X230</a>
  12 with SSD disk (NZDAJMN).  I first test installed Debian Edu Wheezy as
  13 a roaming workstation, and it seemed to work flawlessly.  But my
  14 second installation with encrypted disk was not as successful.  More
  15 on that below.</p>
  16
  17 <p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
  18 important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
  19 listed in the feature list.  But I did get good help from the search
  20 feature at <a href="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
  21 allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
  22 requirements.  A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks according
  23 to that search interface, so I had to drop specifying the number of
  24 disks from my search parameters.  I also asked around among friends to
  25 get their impression on keyboards and robustness.</p>
  26
  27 <p>So the new laptop arrived, and it is quite a lot wider than the
  28 X41.  I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is
  29 significantly wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my
  30 hand a lot more to reach the edges.  But the key response is fairly
  31 good and the individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope
  32 I will get used to it.  My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really
  33 needed a new laptop now. :)</p>
  34
  35 <p>Turning off the touch pad was simple.  All it took was a quick
  36 visit to the BIOS during boot it disable it.</p>
  37
  38 <p>But there is a fatal problem with the laptop.  The 180 GB SSD disk
  39 lock up during load.  And this happen when installing Debian Wheezy
  40 with encrypted disk, while the disk is being filled with random data.
  41 I also tested to install Ubuntu Raring, and it happen there too if I
  42 reenable the code to fill the disk with random data (it is disabled by
  43 default in Ubuntu).  And the bug with is already known.  It was
  44 reported to Debian as <a href="http://bugs.debian.org/691427">BTS
  45 report #691427 2012-10-25</a> (journal commit I/O error on brand-new
  46 Thinkpad T430s ext4 on lvm on SSD).  It is also reported to the Linux
  47 kernel developers as
  48 <a href="https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=51861">Kernel bugzilla
  49 report #51861 2012-12-20</a> (Intel SSD 520 stops working under load
  50 (SSDSC2BW180A3L in Lenovo ThinkPad T430s)). It is also reported on the
  51 Lenovo forums, both for
  52 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/T430s-Intel-SSD-520-180GB-issue/m-p/1070549">T430
  53 2012-11-10</a> and for
  54 <a href="http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/x230-SATA-errors-with-180GB-Intel-520-SSD-under-heavy-write-load/m-p/1068147">X230
  55 03-20-2013</a>.  The problem do not only affect installation.  The
  56 reports state that the disk lock up during use if many writes are done
  57 on the disk, so it is much no use to work around the installation
  58 problem and end up with a computer that can lock up at any moment.
  59 There is even a
  60 <a href="https://git.efficios.com/?p=test-ssd.git">small C program
  61 available</a> that will lock up the hard drive after running a few
  62 minutes by writing to a file.</p>
  63
  64 <p>I've contacted my supplier and asked how to handle this, and after
  65 contacting PCHELP Norway (request 01D1FDP) which handle support
  66 requests for Lenovo, his first suggestion was to upgrade the disk
  67 firmware.  Unfortunately there is no newer firmware available from
  68 Lenovo, as my disk already have the most recent one (version LF1i).  I
  69 hope to hear more from him today and hope the problem can be
  70 fixed. :)</p>