Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 12:34:19 -0700 From: David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org> To: mobile@freebsd.org Subject: Help with Dell Precision M4800 (laptop)? Message-ID: <20150318193419.GA1215@albert.catwhisker.org>
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--x0Bbm7aQwrWvLJ2v Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I have had quite good experiences running FreeBSD on a Dell Precision M4400 -- enough so I bought a refurbished one when my original one was going to be going in for (warranty) repair for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, the M4400 is no long a very recent model, and wht with rebuilding FreeBSD a couple of times per day (stable/10 & head), as well as updating all installed ports daily, as well as more "normal" (ab)use, the M4400s are wearing out, and I had extended the Dell warranty as far as it could go -- and that expired a couple of years ago (after 5 years of warranty). I had hoped that the Precision M4800 would be a somewhat-updated model that would be similar to the M4400. Once I opened the box and found that I needed to get the hardware documentation in order to swap the disk drive (as I had no intention of running MS Windows, ever, and I had just purchased a larger, faster disk drive that already had FreeBSD on it), I realized that things might be a bit difficult. Here's the current status: + FreeBSD (both stable/10 & head) boots (desite an occasional "invalid partition table!" BIOS message at boot). + The wired NIC is still an em(4), so that works OK. - Although I have empirical evidence that BIOS A13 is available, the machine arrived with A11 in place. - The wireless NIC appears to be a Broadcom device, and I haven't been able to persuade it to be recognized by a driver yet. - I tried swapping in an Atheros NIC; that would occasionally associate, but never lit the "WiFi" status light, and it was intermittent at best. - Despite updating to the recent x11/nvidia-driver port, I have been unable (so far) to get X running. (It whines about an inability to find any screens.) - Attempts to suspend (to RAM) have uniformly failed so far. I have thus not attempted to resume. - The keyboard is rather larger than that of the M4400 -- it has a numeric keypad; unfortunately, the tactile feedback is very different from that of the M4400. Worse, the touchpad is way over to the left side of the palmrest (which I find pretty annoying). - The screen is only 1080 pixels tall (vs. the 1200 I'm used to). Yeah, I understand why; that doesn't mean I need to either like it or pretend that it's a Good Thing. I've placed a handful of files under <http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/FreeBSD/m4800/>: Xorg.0.log Xorg.1.log A couple of attempts to start X. m4800.dmi Output of "dmidecode" m4800.pci Output of "pciconf -lv xorg.conf One of the X.org config files I tried using I'll try grabbing a dmesg.boot and adding that in when I get a chance (probably tonight). I welcome suggestions for getting the machine to work as well as the M4400s did in their prime. :-} Peace, david --=20 David H. Wolfskill david@catwhisker.org Those who murder in the name of God or prophet are blasphemous cowards. See http://www.catwhisker.org/~david/publickey.gpg for my public key. --x0Bbm7aQwrWvLJ2v Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2 iQJ8BAEBCgBmBQJVCdM7XxSAAAAAAC4AKGlzc3Vlci1mcHJAbm90YXRpb25zLm9w ZW5wZ3AuZmlmdGhob3JzZW1hbi5uZXQ4RThEMDY4QTIxMjc1MDZFRDIzODYzRTc4 QTY3RjlDOERFRjQxOTNCAAoJEIpn+cje9Bk7FaQQAIHFnsTK8VtzklteWl+NUumO TEHF4HxGvO9EtOs5sa4oyCwSQXgJSEca4ejM66ZGG/erFcYvrYDNtgVaDl3qMvBc TbkZRVASe7oqO0P4HeyGiX5taNHHpKjf+G4lGvkiG6/QunaMVa648bCCFUO6xEyx 5Eu1ZpMwRTO9LC5XoJ3ibkZ+zzL7q9sUQ3MRa4Mzwok9u2NxWCDGs0yBFAg9R26b DHWulWCdu/izuo5FXVXqpx6QQGwa/tR7fRg0I+OpXMG5sGsW0rDtIDy4OHcWDW2c L/sVl+jBjDNnF/tdQEd1OlwvvCKRIH6ou3eyQOghuCENM64SzOYM9A2J23vfo/38 SdxHCbSSDwZXXAySxyto0KebvAkiiDeQYODBXv4bFbIOtfqLTzZk7XgdXOhrRJO+ v4xX726NZg8kw4ypaxaRncnFlhwsRaW6Wo+OoxVjijyeq0KzyRKi336C2WMT66bl 3dsB9djmtcUQHDUFeKNzn55PgGAO80MmaC0PiWjeEU14/noJymLYG6Q8AQw/CHX3 wxy2cGERAnW7zfV51e12nnn+tSEJA3PnV6jOdRVGGWR8SWHTntJ5j4UM7J6wpe4R DEMy1epkpTpxoYbOpPvdsuPQJPV/O8j9Ta0+eN4MF09oMnJmiap0x8C0yvuA49OT FWGui+JdAfwxWko1FvY5 =WgkI -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --x0Bbm7aQwrWvLJ2v--
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