Tagged: dm3-1130us

Wifi Disabled on HP Pavilion dm3 – Debian 9 (Stretch)

This happened before with Arch Linux, but when I installed Debian 9 (Stretch) on my HP Pavilion dm3-113us, its wifi device was disabled - there is a wifi button on the side and its LED indicator was orange instead of green.

The system seems to recognize the device:$ lspci ... 08:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01) # dmesg | grep -i ath ... [ 0.092000] smpboot: CPU0: AMD Athlon(tm) Neo X2 Dual Core Processor L335 (family: 0xf, model: 0x6b, stepping: 0x2) [ 11.533147] powernow_k8: Found 1 AMD Athlon(tm) Neo X2 Dual Core Processor L335 (2 cpu cores) (version 2.20.00) [ 11.672233] ath: phy0: Enable LNA combining [ 11.674887] ath: phy0: ASPM enabled: 0x42 [ 11.674890] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x69 [ 11.674891] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map [ 11.674894] ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00 [ 11.674895] ath: Regpair used: 0x69 [ 11.727078] ieee80211 phy0: Atheros AR9285 Rev:2 mem=0xffffb12042140000, irq=17 [ 13.125760] ath9k 0000:08:00.0 wlo1: renamed from wlan0 ...

It looks like necessary kernel modules were loaded as well:# lsmod ... ath 32768 3 ath9k_hw,ath9k,ath9k_common ath9k 94208 0 ath9k_common 32768 1 ath9k ath9k_hw 446464 2 ath9k,ath9k_common ...

I tried resetting BIOS or following weird steps like taking a battery out and booting it up, etc... but none worked.

I was almost giving up getting the wifi device to work, then I found this website that eventually led me to solve the problem. This site shows how to identify a wifi device (internal or usb), search its firmware driver, and install it.

Hmm... firmware, huh? I have not tried this option so I gave it a shot.

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

First, let's search any firmware for my atheros:# apt-cache search atheros collectd-core - statistics collection and monitoring daemon (core system) firmware-linux-free - Binary firmware for various drivers in the Linux kernel firmware-atheros - Binary firmware for Atheros wireless cards firmware-zd1211 - binary firmware for the zd1211rw wireless driver

Yes, there are some hits. Based on their description, I installed firmware-atheros first: # apt-get install firmware-atheros ... Unpacking firmware-atheros ... Setting up firmware-atheros ...

I rebooted the system just in case.

My default Desktop Environment is LXDE (though I'll change it to i3 later) and it comes with wicd application. From wicd, I clicked on the Switch On Wi-Fi option. Nope, it did not enable the wifi device. So, I went back to the firmware list and decided to install another one.

firmware-zd1211 doesn't seem to be for my wifi device. Let's try with firmware-linux-free:# apt-get install firmware-linux-free ... Setting up firmware-linux-free (3.4) ... Update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated) Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.130) ... Update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-3-amd64

A moment of truth... I clicked on the Switch On Wi-Fi option again. Yes, a little LED light for Wifi on the side of my laptop changed from orange to blue, which indicates the wifi device is now enabled!

Now the wifi device is enabled after rebooting.

NOTE: The order and combinations to install these firmware seem to matter. I tried below scenarios:

1. Installed firmware-atheros
2. Installed firmware-linux-free
AND
1. Installed firmware-linux-free
2. Installed firmware-atheros
AND
1. Installed firmware-atheros ONLY
AND
1. Installed firmware-linux-free ONLY

The wifi device was successfully enabled in the 1st scenario but it didn't work for everything else. So, just be careful!

At the very beginning of this post, I mentioned same wifi device didn't work with Arch Linux. Maybe, I needed a firmware for it to work just like this one. When I get a chance, I'll try that option. But for now, I'm very satisfied with the outcome.

That's all!
-gibb

*ERROR* radeon kernel modesetting for R600 or later requires firmware-amd-graphics.

I have just finished a fresh install of Debian 9 (Stretch) on my HP Pavilion dm3-1130us and I noticed an error message during boot up. ... [ 18.670958] [drm:radeon_pci_probe [radeon]] *ERROR* radeon kernel modesetting for R600 or later requires firmware-amd-graphics. ...

Ok, that's no problem. All I need to do seems to install firmware-amd-graphics package. Let's see if that package exists: # apt-cache search firmware-amd-graphics firmware-amd-graphics - Binary firmware for AMD/ATI graphics chips

The package exists. Now time to install it:# apt-get install firmware-amd-graphics ... Setting up firmware-amd-graphics (20161130-3) ...

After rebooting, no more ERROR message shows up.

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

That's all!
-gibb

FreeBSD: Disabling System Bell/Beep (Hardware Bell)

One of annoying things with notebook is the beep when you hit a wrong key. This is a way to disable system beep/bell.

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

This is a recommended way to disable it but it did not work for me.# sysctl hw.syscons.bell=0 hw.syscons.bell: 1 -> 0 # sysctl -a | grep bell hw.syscons.bell: 0

Here is another way that worked for my HP Pavilion dm3-1130us notebook. Try this on a console and see if it disables a beep:# kbdcontrol -b quiet.off

If this works, make it permanent by editing /etc/rc.conf: # vim /etc/rc.conf ---------------------------------- allscreens_kbdflags="-b quiet.off"

That's all!
-gibb

FreeBSD: Displaying Installed video Driver

A few days ago, I was finally able to install FreeBSD 11-RELEASE on my HP Pavilion dm3-1130us notebook (see FreeBSD: gptzfsboot: No ZFS pools located, can't boot on FreeBSD 11-RELEASE) and started configuring it. Then, time to time, I needed to find the installed video driver for my system. So, here is the command: $ pciconf -lv | grep -B3 display vgapci@pci0:1:5:0 class=0x030000 card=0x3656103c chip=0x96121002 rev=0x00 hdr=0x00 vendor = 'Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI]' device = 'RS780M [Mobility Radeon HD 3200]' class = display

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

That's all!
-gibb

FreeBSD: gptzfsboot: No ZFS pools located, can’t boot on FreeBSD 11-RELEASE

Last time (a few years back) when I tried to install FreeBSD with zfs on my HP Pavilion dm3-1130us notebook, I got the following error message during the boot: gptzfsboot: error 66 lba 48 error 72 gptzfsboot: error 66 lba 0 gptzfsboot: error 66 lba 1 gptzfsboot: No ZFS pools located, can't boot.

I searched around for a solution but couldn't find any so I gave up on FreeBSD.

Years after, meaning recently, I gave FreeBSD 11-RELEASE a new shot, hoping that zfs boot up problem was resolved by now. *BAM* I got the same error after installing it with zfs. For desperation, I searched again and again. Tried building partition table manually, updating bootcode after the installation, etc... But nothing worked... I even tried TrueOS (FreeBSD with zfs and more) but got the same problem after the installation. Sob...

But finally, I found a solution (sort of)!!!

Here is what I tried. I don't think the installation medium makes difference but I used a USB boot image.

Disclaimer:
The information in this site is the result of my researches in the Internet and of my experiences. This information below is solely used for my purpose and may not be suitable for others.

Step 1) Download the FreeBSD memstick image. Find the latest release version (as of this writing, it's 11.0) from the freebsd.org ftp site.

Step 2) dd the memstick image to a USB memory stick. The USB device name could be different depending on which OS you are using, but for FreeBSD, I read somewhere that said you need to use FreeBSD to make a bootable USB memory stick. So, I installed FreeBSD 11-RELEASE with UFS and ran the command: # dd if=FreeBSD-11.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.img of=/dev/da0 bs=1M conv=sync

Step 3)Reboot with the USB memory stick inserted. Leave the USB memory stick attached to the notebook, rebooted the system. FreeBSD will boot and it'll present with three options; Install, Shell or Live CD. I chose Install.

Step 4) Install the system but at the partitioning, choose Auto ZFS:

Here is the zfs configuration:

Step 5) Go through the rest of the installation until it asks you for the last manual configuration. Select Yes to update gptzfsboot and bootdcode:

Step 6) Get the updated gptzfsboot_hp from the FreeBSD Bugzilla. The url is listed in Allan Jude at Comment 29. If you are not configured its networking, enable dhcp client: # dhclient re0

Then download gptzfsboot_hp by fetching from the location # fetch --no-verify-peer http://trooper.hml3.scaleengine.net/gptzfsboot_hp

Step 7) Rename gptzfsboot_hp to gptzfsboot and move it to /boot.

Step 8) Update the bootcode. Make sure you are using /boot/pmbr for the GPT partition type: # gpart bootcode -b /boot/pmbr -p /boot/gptzfsboot -i 1 ada0

Step 9) Make sure the partition scheme and it's for the ada0 disk. Occasionally, its disk ID is changed to something like diskid/DISK-.... If this happens, use that disk name/id instead of ada0 at the Step 8.

Step 10) Reboot the system.

After the reboot, you would see the prompt for GELI Passphrase. However, this solution solved the boot up problem with ZFS. I still see the error 66 with lba: gptzfsboot: error 66 lba 48 error 72 gptzfsboot: error 66 lba 0 gptzfsboot: error 66 lba 1 GELI Passphrase for disk0p3:

After entering GELI passphrase correctly, voilĂ , you'll see the login prompt!

That's all!
-gibb