Weblog for Thomas S. Iversen

Recently I got my hands on an IBM Thinkpad T43 without disk drive and cdrom (perfectly OK machine thrown out, apparently for no reason). I decided to update the firmware to the newest version before considering buying replacement parts for it.

So how do you update the firmware on an IBM Thinkpad without floppy or cdrom? You netboot it ofcourse. Needless to say these instructions might also work for other models. And finally: If you break your Thinkpad following these instructions I have no liability and you get to thank yourself and keep both parts!

With the standard disclaimer out of the way, lets start.

First I went to the excelent site thinkwiki.org where I located the latest bios. I then downloaded bios version 1.29 from Lenovo (Notice that two versions of the T43 exists and they are incompatible!)

I turned my attention to my linux server (ubuntu) and configured the dhcpd, tftpd and inetd to allow me to netboot using pxe. First off I installed the four needed utilities.

sudo apt-get install openbsd-inetd tftpd-hpa  dhcp3-server cabextract

When PXE booting a computer, it broadcasts for a lease from a DHCP server on the net. I configured my dhcpd server with the following besides the normal dhcpd options.

sudo vi /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf
...
...
       host t43 {
                hardware ethernet 00:11:25:d6:ef:4b;
                fixed-address 192.168.1.35;
                filename "pxelinux.0";
      }
...
...

You ofcourse have to change the hardware ethernet to the mac address of your Thinkpads ethernetcard. I saved the file and restarted dhcpd with

/etc/init.d/dhcp3-server restart

Next I configured inetd:

vi /etc/inetd.conf
tftp  dgram  udp  wait  root  /usr/sbin/in.tftpd -v -v -v -s /usr/lib/syslinux

Saved and restarted inetd

sudo /etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd

I then configured pxe with a config file that pxelinux.0 expects (your mac address will vary ofcourse) .

mkdir -p /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.cfg
vi /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.cfg/01-00-11-25-d6-ef-4b
DEFAULT t43firmware
LABEL t43firmware
        kernel memdisk
        append vga=normal initrd=flash/t43/70UJ29US.IMG --
PROMPT 1
TIMEOUT 0

Almost there. Next up, get the flash image ready

mkdir -p /usr/lib/syslinux/flash/t43
cd /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.cfg
wget http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc/pccbbs/mobiles/70uj29us.exe

That got you an windows cabinetfile. Extract the firmware from that

cabextract -F 70UJ29US.IMG 70uj29us.exe
Extracting cabinet: 70uj29us.exe
  extracting 70UJ29US.IMG
All done, no errors.

I then powered up the T43. It booted over PXE

I pressed return and the flash program started:

I accepted the (many) warnings and disclaimers….. and

…. nothing happened! It just hung. I thought I had fried my newly aquired Thinkpad. I powered it off and on again just to see that it still worked, and that I was on the same BIOS level. Hmm, now what? It nearly worked, but still no cigar. I decided to take it one level further, doing it all by hand:

Mount the image file by hand using the loop driver:

sudo mkdir /floppy
sudo mkdir /floppy1
sudo mount -o loop /usr/lib/syslinux/flash/t43/70UJ29US.IMG /floppy

Get a standalone freedos boot image (called balder) from the nice guys at freedos.org:

cd /usr/lib/syslinux/flash/t43/
wget http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/\\
     unofficial/balder/balder10.img
sudo mount -o loop /usr/lib/syslinux/flash/t43/balder10.img /floppy1

Remove a lot of files from balder10.img and copy files over from the IBM flash disk.

sudo rm /floppy1/{display.exe,edit.exe,dosfsck.exe,zip.exe,unzip.exe,\\
                  defrag.exe,fdisk.exe,chkdsk.exe,cwsdpmi.exe,keyboard.sys,\\
                  format.exe,subst.exe,edit.hlp,country.sys,keybrd2.sys,\\
                  diskcopy.exe,edlin.exe,replace.exe,fdiskpt.ini,debug.com,\\
                  mode.com,shrdrv86.exe,xcopy.exe,move.exe,keyb.exe,tree.com,\\
                  fdisk.ini,diskcomp.com,ctmouse.exe,more.exe,shsucdx.com}
sudo cp /floppy/{\$0199000.fl1,06d*,chkbmp.exe,flash2.exe,lcreflsh.bat,logo.bat,\\
                 logo.scr,phlash16.exe,prepare.exe,prod.da*,qkflash.exe,\\
                 readme.txt,tpchks.exe,updtflsh.exe,updtmn.exe,userint.exe,\\
                 utilinfo.exe} /floppy1

# rename the flash file
sudo mv \$0199000.fl1 flash.img

# unmount floppy
sudo umount /floppy1/

Edit the pxe config file (your mac address will vary ofcourse) to use the balder/freedos image file instead of the Lenovo flash disk.

vi /usr/lib/syslinux/pxelinux.cfg/01-00-11-25-d6-ef-4b
DEFAULT t43firmware
LABEL t43firmware
        kernel memdisk
        append vga=normal initrd=flash/t43/balder10.img --
PROMPT 1
TIMEOUT 0

Reboot the T43 machine. Boot over PXE, single step (F8) the freedos start. Make sure you do NOT use EMS or HIMEM. After a brief period of time you should find yourself in an dos prompt, where you run

A:\phlash16.exe flash.img

The system should flash nicely and you should be all done within a minute:

Not for the faint of hearted, but I never promised that

Well. More time used on my server. More downtime. More annoyance towards my wife (who have come to be dependent on the mailsetup).

My previous server simply consumed too much power. I basically just plugged it in and it ran. It is a nice little board for around 500dkk:

edison% cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 28
model name    : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU  330   @ 1.60GHz
stepping    : 2
cpu MHz        : 1595.997
cache size    : 512 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 4
core id        : 0
cpu cores    : 2
apicid        : 0
initial apicid    : 0
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : no
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 10
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips    : 3191.99
clflush size    : 64
power management:

processor    : 1
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 28
model name    : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU  330   @ 1.60GHz
stepping    : 2
cpu MHz        : 1595.997
cache size    : 512 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 4
core id        : 1
cpu cores    : 2
apicid        : 2
initial apicid    : 2
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : no
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 10
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips    : 3191.98
clflush size    : 64
power management:

processor    : 2
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 28
model name    : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU  330   @ 1.60GHz
stepping    : 2
cpu MHz        : 1595.997
cache size    : 512 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 4
core id        : 0
cpu cores    : 2
apicid        : 1
initial apicid    : 1
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : no
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 10
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips    : 3127.96
clflush size    : 64
power management:

processor    : 3
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 6
model        : 28
model name    : Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU  330   @ 1.60GHz
stepping    : 2
cpu MHz        : 1595.997
cache size    : 512 KB
physical id    : 0
siblings    : 4
core id        : 1
cpu cores    : 2
apicid        : 3
initial apicid    : 3
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : no
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 10
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni monitor ds_cpl tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr lahf_lm
bogomips    : 3191.95
clflush size    : 64
power management

Once in a while luck strikes. I was really lucky buying an wrt54g when they first appeared. I got a revision 2.2 which meant that they had ironed out the bugs from the first revisions, but not yet decided to cripple the unit as they did in revision 5 and 6. Furthermore I was lucky enough to get a revision 2.2XH on which linksys, for unknown reasons, has put 32MB of memory (normally 16MB for other revisions). Linksys has disabled half of the 32MB to make the unit look like every other wrt54g. Here is how to enable it.

Firstly, no cheating:

~ # uname -a
Linux dd-wrt 2.4.34-pre2 #174 Fri Sep 15 20:38:23 CEST 2006 mips unknown

How much memory to begin with:

~ # cat /proc/meminfo | head
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 14516224 13836288 679936 0 462848 5664768
Swap: 0 0 0
MemTotal: 14176 kB

Perform some magic:

~ # nvram set sdram_init=0×008
~ # nvram set sdram_ncdl=0×000
~ # nvram commit
nvram_commit(): end
~ # reboot

How much do we have now?

~ # cat /proc/meminfo | head
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 31113216 18386944 12726272 0 1835008 8638464
Swap: 0 0 0
MemTotal: 30384 kB

Ofcourse I use a custom firmware on the unit, but more on that in another post.

After having sold my graphic card due to a descission of not playing battlefield anymore I had little use for my athlon 64 board with an AGP socket. Actually the board was useless as I didn’t even have an old AGP card laying around. Instead of buying an already obsolete AGP graphics card I invested some money in a socket 939 PCI Express Board.

The obvious choice would have been to buy an Nvidia Nforce4 based board. That would however, have required me to buy either an expensive graphic card (tempting but would have been a personal failure as I would end up playing BF2 again).

Instead I choose the Asus A8N CSM board. Based around an Nvidia 6150 northbridge and a Nvidia 430 southbridge this board is worth every penny. Onboard everything and decent performance for $60!! The review that convinced me.

So after installing the board and playing around a bit with it I consider it my best mainboard purchase in quite a while. I was really interessted in the picture and sound quality and I have to say that I’m impressed. It is a wonder that the Analog Devices chips are not used more than they are. I have a hard time telling the difference between my Audigy 2ZS and the onboard AD1986A. Reviews has stated that this was to be expected but I thought they overhyped the chip, but this isn’t the case.

I will give it 8 out of 10. Deducting 1 point for Asus not shipping the tv-out bracket with the board and 1 point for not enabling over/underclocking and voltage in the bios.