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Maintained by Francis F. Steen, Communication Studies, University of California Los Angeles |
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| Sigillo
Components
Resources
Other Linux laptop installations
Overview On 7 December 2002, I purchased a vpr
matrix 2005A from BestBuy on Pico and Sawtelle. See service history below. Once you get this figured out, you should write a web page with the basic story, as the laptop is really panning out quite well. You should also post all the information in a digest to a couple of mailing lists, including comp.sys.laptops and debian-laptops. The vpr matrix was reviewed in
designtecnica in April 2003. The laptop is working as a presentation tool in class, and is reasonably quiet, so it's
serving its purpose. I've started running most applications remotely from the amd64 machines. The longer I own this machine the more I like it. I'm slowly
figuring out more and more things it can do, and do well -- run cool
and quietly, connect with wireless, suspend to disk, and what not. Service history 3-year Performance Service Plan #1943552957, exp. 7 December 2005. The first time I called customer service at 1-800-332-4800, a
key had fallen out. I suggested they send me the missing key, but they
insisted on my shipping it to them and sent me a box. I suspect they replaced the keyboard. When
I called again on 27 November 2004, they
said the laptop should be brought to the store. They refused to fix the loose laptop hinge and
illegible keys, but they swapped out the CDRW so it now works. In April 2005 I suddenly couldn't start x-windows or large
programs like OpenOffice, then I got a stuck keyboard. I took it in for
service and the Geek Squad guy snapped out the keyboard, cleaned a lot
of hairs and dirt, and found a loose screw the last team had left behind! After that it's worked
perfectly again. In August 2005 I noticed that the lid sensor is too short and
not working; ask to have this fixed. Note also that there's a buzzing
sound that goes away when this sensor is pressed. Also see about
replacing the C and V keys, not to mention several others. Some time during the academic year 2005-6 I replaced the adapter and the keyboard, using parts ordered from third parties. In July 2006 I loosened all the screws around the LCD, opened
the frame, and found four loose screws underneath that I tightened.
Everything continued to work fine during the summer. Device driver
summary 802.11b Wireless
Networking The CD/DVD player
will play music CDs when the machine is
turned off -- nice for plane rides for instance, as the battery likely
lasts a while. Use the switch on the left side that toggles between CD
player and wireless. CD burning works fine with k3b, and movies play
with
Okle or rip with DVDrip. Model Matshushita CW-8121-B, replaced in November 2004 (but the model is from 2002). See X11.
I installed nVidia's proprietary driver to be able to run a projector,
and got it wll working on 5 Jan 03. I got spanning mode working in the
spring of 2003, and set up TV-out in April 2004 (S-video only). Installed hotkeys, found out which scancodes the extra vpr key
- also works produces, and assigned the swsuspend script to it; this now works in both x-windows and console. You have an ALPS GlidePad, successfully configured in the X-configuration and in kcontrol. The touch pad and the external USB mouse are working great. In fact, USB is so good that the external keyboard works with no mention in the X-configuration, and so does a third USB laser pointer mouse! The SmartLink modem is working under 2.6.12, using kppp in X11 or pon and wvdial in the virtual terminal. As of July 2004, Fax is
also working. A bit loose, and needs a 4-wire cable. The
ethernet card is a National Semiconductor DP8381x 10/100 chipset, which is supported by the natsemi kernel driver. Your
setup with fixed ip at the office and dhcp in class is working fine. The PCMCIA slot is a Texas Instruments PCI-1410 CardBus Controller (according to WinXP). The 14.4 modem is a "standard PCMCIA modem". The PCMCIA
NIC is a 3CCM556 56K Data Fax Cell PC Card (all according to
WinXP). I conclude the slot supports both CardBus and PC Cards (cf. iPaq). Power Management -- see also kernel In late April 2003 I installed the 2.5.69 kernel on Sigillo and it
handles battery detection perfectly. In July 2004 I set up cpu frequency scaling. In June 2005 I purchased a brand new battery for
some
$230; it works great for my Europe trip. In July 2005 I finally figured
out how to use suspend to disk -- you just have to unload the nvidia
module first. Note there's a soft reset feature beneath the unit; use a straightened paper clip. Run sensors-detect to find them and ksensors or gkrellm to
display the results. I need the i2c_ali15x3 (temperature sensor?)
and eeprom (not sure what the latter does). The ali15x3 asks for a BIOS upgrade. BIOS (Basic Input / Output System) Sigillo
has a Phoenix BIOS BM1 Q0F0A1 (press F2 to enter the CMOS menu). vpr
matrix doesn't give a support e-mail option, but you can call
1-800-332-4800 24/7 (have extended warranty handy). Bios upgrade Intel upgrade The sound card is a M5451. The
2.6 kernel has built-in ALSA support. In July 2004 we finally figured
out how to make the headphone jack work, and I get great speaker sound. USB 1.1 and 2.0 Tested and works with an iPod -- I may have used it for a camcorder too. At some point during the coming months you should hook two computers together with firewire and see if you can mount drives that way (this is also low priority and no hurry -- you'll use a network switch in the meantime). Harddrive It's apparently an IBM Deskstar, 40GB, IC25N040ATCS04-0 -- works flawlessly. Still, I'd like to know how to replace it with a larger drive. It won't be easy -- it's possible that the removable bits of plastic on both sides of the palmrest area are key to actually getting the unit open. Just removing the screws on the bottom doesn't do it.Since this is high-risk, there's no point in doing it before you have to; it's not as if you desperately need a larger drive, especially now that you can run a second harddrive directly off the laptop, even without an external power source. If anything, that solution might have advantages over a new drive.
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Maintained by Francis F. Steen, Communication Studies, University of California Los Angeles |
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