Slashdot Mirror
BIOS-Approved PCI Cards For Laptops
derek_farn writes "First there were printers that would would only work with vendor annointed ink cartridges; now we have laptops that will only boot with vendor annointed PCI cards. Keeping a list of approved PCI cards in the bios is one way of ensuring that customers renew their maintenance contracts. How else are they going to be able to plug in a PCI card released after the last BIOS update?" My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?
My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?
How should we know? It's your laptop.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
"My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this"
I'd need the serial number to confirm the age.. but we'll take your word for it.
You have now confirmed that your laptop is 7 years old.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
My older Thinkpad T40p has a whitelist, too. Luckily the Cisco 350 mini-PCI card I needed to connect to the corporate wireless LAN is on the whitelist. IBM actually sells the Cisco card with an IBM part number.
But forget trying to buy a random 802.11 a/b/g card and plug it in.
Is this just Compaq/HP? If so, just don't buy from them?
Please work to undermine the Great Strength of the PC market, the open architecture.
Brilliant move.
They should find everyoen who supported this decision and make sure they never work in any decision-making capacity anywhere again.
We can keep our own list of venders who do this... ..and don't buy from them.
IBM has been doing this in Thinkpads for a while (starting with the T40, I think) - mini-PCI wireless cards are whitelisted, and the PC will refuse to work with anything other than pure, 100% IBM parts.
If you don't like it, don't buy it...
This is nothing new. Linux-lovin' IBM is known to do this as well,
# You need an uncompressed copy of the BIOS. The easiest way to obtain this is probably to use phlash16 under DOS with the /BU option. This will write out an uncompressed copy as BIOS.BAK. /CS option to phlash16 in order to check the checksum.
# Find out the PCI vendor, device and subsystem IDs of your card. In Linux, doing lspci -v will tell you this.
# Open the BIOS file in a hex editor. Find the BCPUSB header (there's an index near the start of the file that contains references to lots of BCP stuff. Ignore the one that appears here). Shortly after this is a set of PCI IDs, split up with 0s. The file is in little endian format, so the first byte in the file is the second byte of the ID. For instance, an IBM Pro/Wireless 2100 is 8086:1043 with a subsystem id of 8086:2551. This will appear as 8680431086805125. Make the modifications to suit your card.
# Find the string EXTD. The 4 bytes after that are an additive checksum. When all the 4 byte blocks in the file are added up, they must equal 0. Change the checksum as appropriate. At some point I'll probably get round to writing a tool to do this.
# Reflash your BIOS. Make sure that you use the
# If it's worked, your card should now work. If it hasn't, your laptop is probably dead.
I can at least confirm that changing the WLAN card in my Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop (because Dell's TrueMobile stuff definitely sucks a donkey's primary sexual organ) wasn't any problem at all. But Dells are known to be pretty user-maintainable anyway ;)
http://www.openbios.info/
they need support
I have an old NetServer LPr that I use as a Debian server. It's built like a tank, and has been fairly reliable, save for one issue:
Since I got it (used), it always printed a warning that non-HP DIMMs were detected, and HP's on-site warranty didn't cover problems caused by non-HP memory.
Then two of the DIMMs failed, so I popped the lid.
You guessed it. HP memory.
At least the motherboard was kind enough to turn on a flashing light next to the bad DIMMS. (Seriously)
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Many people who run corp laptops have found out that aleast since the T30, IBM laptops will not boot with a non IBM card, Well, if you have the utility you can put any mini-PCI card in there.... They make alot of money with there cards, so you can understand why they would do this.. What I don't hear about is apple and there slots not taking anything but "AIRPORT" cards? why is nobody bitching about that?
I came across his site a while back, and holy crap if he isn't hacking his BIOS to get around these limitations. (His page is linked to if you follow a link from TFA, but I figured he deserves more prominence here.)
Interestingly, this is the same IBM (and HP, for that matter) that we have come to know and love for their help with Linux. I realize they're a big company, full of lawyers and patents and left hands unaware of what the right hand's doing, but I'm still really surprised I haven't heard about this before.
Anyone know of a blacklist of this sort of shenanigans? I'm the sysadmin where I work, and it'd be great to know what to stay away from -- and to explain to these companies why they've lost our business.
Carousel is a lie!
Mine is located up in my brain, and contains a blacklist instead of a whitelist. It's pretty straightforward in design: if a laptop must use "manufacturer-approved" devices, it is not used.
It seems to be missing some reference links or something useful to verify what the author is stating.
I'd like to see the whitelist for a particular model and maybe some sort of comment from HP about why before I say anything about such a list.
Sure, HP has had trouble with compatibility before, and if this whitelist is really that restrictive, then it's a really bad thing. But I find nothing in this article that proves such.
Anybody have some additional reference?
Sweet, i knew i could upgrade my latitude's video card someway or another.
I don't think this is not gonna stick. Unlike printer market where only few established leaders have a cartel, PC/Laptop industry has a number of smaller players. Heck, even Walmart has its own brand! And there are so many smaller peripheral manufacturers around.
I think it would go the way of Circuit City & Divx.
But still, these companies think of doing such stupid things. When are they gonna learn that pissing off customers isn't good for their health?
It's too bad TFA doesn't say what kind of mini-PCI card. He probably bought some generic made-in-god-knows-where card from JustDeals or somewhere like that. Now, I'm an opponent of the direction "Trusted Computing" is going, but in this case there's something to be said for a manufacturer locking out shitty peripherals so they don't kill your system. It saves them one more support headache. Apple does the same thing. Sure, lot's of us Mac-heads bitch about it (myself included sometimes), but at the end of the day we can always brag about how plug-and-play Macs are. It looks as though PC manufacturers are following in footsteps of Apple again.
Per Square Mile, a blog about density
Capitalism provides a simple solution to this problem.
Track down the person that made such an non-upgradable notebook and kill them in their sleep.
Actually, maybe that's not the capitalistic way of solving it but it's likely more satisfying.
I'm a big tall mofo.
I have a P4 2.2 Gateway and plugged in a Dell minipci card, no problem. I'd almost rather have one of those ibm's though...that Gateway's falling apart! (No, I didn't buy it...I inherited it.)
Laptops have a lifespan of 2-3 years typically -- by the time this is an issue, the next generation laptops will obviate the older.
I personally would vote with my feet. Companies who try to tie you to proprietary solutions are not on my short list of where I spend my money.
And yes, that would include Apple.
Which is what the blogger is referring to. Those cards, if I am not mistaken, are the kind of "built-in" cards that you can install, typically under the keyboard, but that you don't remove and re-install all the time. I think you are thinking of PCMCIA cards that you take in and out all the time. And in response to what the blogger is posting, he could remove the MiniPCI card and it would boot fine, and then revert his BIOS back to his old version (unless for some reason it had some VERY critical fix) and then put his card back in and simply not do the BIOS updates unless he really, really has to. But so basically, you don't have to worry at all, me thinks :)
Good reason not to purchase ANY HP/Compaq product from the Carly era, isn't it. Tough break there, but when you purchase something that's supposedly 'commodity', and then realize that it has a very, very short list of 'accepted' expansion options, you've done this to yourself.
Personally, I'm a big IBM Thinkpad fan, plug in all type's of card's into them, and as long as I have driver support, I have no issues, be it XP, Linux, or any of the BSD's (of course, this changes with what hdd I plug in the laptop at the time).
Sometimes people just have to learn and adapt to change, it is one of the requirements of being a living thing.
There is a list of hardware that is not very Linux friendly here: http://www.leenooks.com/ - perhaps this stuff would make a good addition to the list.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
Wasn't there a project a while back to produce a GPLed BIOS for booting Linux? Not sure how much success you'd have with a laptop, but might be worth a go? I'm sure another /.er will put me right.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
Matthew Garrett
man, it's big brother all over the place today. When I buy non-epson cartridges my printer knows and tells me I shouldn't use them (a full set of epson catridges = ~£66, non brand version are ~£16), now this is going on? the world scares me
There are 2 types of people in the world, those who find that stupid binary joke funny, and those who don't.
I have a Dell Inspiron 8500. I bought a prism54 based 802.11g card. This card has native linux support and is one of the few 802.11g devices that has drivers included in the kernel sources now. Works great. Sometime recently, I decided to get a bluetooth phone, and decided it'd be time to upgrade the laptop with the internal bluetooth module. Ordered it from Dell, and installed it, the bluetooth module (Dell TrueMobile 300) no workie. If I remove the mini-pci card, it works fine. But otherwise, the bluetooth just won't work. The only thing I can imagine that would cause this is that the mini-pci card is "Unknown" according to the BIOS and both the mini-pci wireless and bluetooth cards are supposed to be controlled by the Fn-F2 key combination. Without being able to "known" what the mini-PCI card is, it just disables the bluetooth. I decided to order a $29 intel B/G card. I'm not happy that I have to do it, but at the same time, I don't mind buying an Intel card since they have native linux drivers as well.
You have the ability to purchase what you want. However, if you do decide against a HP for this reason, you really should notify HP and tell them why you decided against buying their hardware, making them realize that just like Apple's one button mouse, not all ideas are good ones.
Linux BIOS
It has a ways to go before it is "plug and play" unfortunately. It would be good if some Linux hardware vendors would pick this up and get this out into the real world. I would much rather buy hardware with Linux installed in the BIOS.
Linksys does "mac address cloning" for ISP's that don't allow routers.
Can anyone make the connection?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This will only cause a proliferation of web-based collections of hacked BIOS'es, just like rpc1.org is now for DVD player firmwares. All the nasties hacked out for your convenience.
For all of you about to say: "Well, that's against the DMCA...", true, but that hasn't stopped the widespread distribution of region-free hacked DVD firmware has it?
Flash - gotta love it!
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
(note: this is not Apple fanboyism -- I don't complain about the proprietary slot on the lid of of my Compaq laptop either.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Whats to stop you from plugging in the device after boot??
After all windows and linux, tend to ignore what the bios says and do there own thing anyways.
I'd want to make sure that customers weren't trashing laptops by putting in things that destroy them then quietly removing the offending card and returning them for repair.
Bastards!
What does this button do...
Your post is hilarious because IBM has been known to be doing this for some time now. You ahve been fortunate to only use IBM whitelisted products so far.
In fact your post reminds me of an incident I experienced a few years ago. I was approached and reprimanded by a WWII veteran for driving a "Jap car". At the time I was driving an Isuzu. After the man was finished reprimanding me, he jumped into his Chevrolet and drove away. I burst out laughing because the particular model of Chevrolet that he was driving was actually a re-branded Isuzu.
erm, this article was a bit low on technicalities...
any references? more details?
i haven't actually tested any of those tcpa enabled new-ish laptops with a non vendor mini-pci card, but i've used IBM T3x's, and as far as I can remember, the "security chip" can be disabled in the BIOS.
In A.D. 2005 ....
War was beginning.
Captain: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What !
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's you !!
Compaq: How are you gentlemen !!
Compaq: All your PCI DEVICES are belong to us.
Compaq: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say !!
Compaq: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Compaq: Ha Ha Ha Ha
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
Apple calls their slot an "Airport Express slot" and they call their wirless card an "Airport Express card". They've never promised that it could do anything else.
Like the CD-ROM protection schemes that made the discs nonstandard, are these laptops far enough from the device standard that they could be forbidden from using the mini-PCI brand/logo/classification?
If Carly were still in office, she'd probably find a way to convince you that your printer is out of ink and you need to buy refills!
Aside from that, if this under-handed marketting strategy is going to keep us from running servers/workstations, what's next - BMWs whose engines suddenly stop working because there's a Fram oil filter installed? What if I decide to use a generic dollar-store bulb in my socket instead of the "approved" Philips bulb? Based on this theory, can you imagine what would happen if I were to eat a bag of knock-off raisin bran?
It sounds to me that this is just a marketting gimick to screw customers over and force them to buy what the manufacturer wants you to buy. God forbid I should find a better alternative to what the manufacturer wants me to buy.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
From a compatibility standpoint, this isn't a terrible idea. After all, we're talking about laptops, NOT desktop systems. Most laptop users aren't trying to stick all kinds of PCI cards in their laptops. In my experience, many laptops are only compatible with a small number of cards made by few manufacturers anyway.
Restricting add-on cards in a laptop to approved cards will ease support issues, by assuring that a laptop will work with that card (as opposed to a support technician requiring you to remove your add-on cards before you get support). In the end, customers get a more reliable laptop with some expandability choices.
> I'd want to make sure that customers weren't trashing laptops by putting in things that destroy them then quietly removing the offending card and returning them for repair.
Oh, come now! How is this going to stop people pouring hot grits into the laptop?
Bull, I say. Putting a WLAN PCI card in your desktop PC doesn't change its FCC certification!
They say the mind is the first thing to
Hey! I tease! I own a dual G4 and a 15" Powerbook! Calm down!
IBM has been doing the same thing. The vendors claim that this "white-listing" of mini-pci wi-fi cards is due to certification of the card with the built-in antenna within the laptop in accordance with FCC requirements. I'm not sure that thinking is valid any longer due to regulatory changes.
TECMATIC - Intelligent Technology News
The electronics industry likes to talk about interoperability, but they seem to hate it in practice.
Yes, I can confirm this. Your laptop is several years old.
The story summary should have said "Mini-PCI" instead of just "PCI". Yeah sure, you and I know what he meant, but it would have been clearer, and not invoked a mental image of someone trying in vain to cram a regular PCI card into a laptop.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
that is a dumb way to do it. if IBM wanted to make this work properly (and continue working with newer hardware) they should get hardware vendors to include a public key signature. that way, the bios only needs to know IBM's private key, instead of trying to keep a list of all hardware.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Look, guys, Mini-PCI is not meant to be a route for user extensibility; it was meant to be a mechanism for the vendor to add individual cards to a standard motherboard. If you want to configure a high-speed a/b/g device, go through your USB ports.
There are one or two other companies that make cards that fit in those slots.
:)
You can also buy G4 motherboards and any part that goes into a Mac from a non-Apple vendor, you just don't hear about a lot of people doing it.
You just can't call it a Mac
Bob's Quick Guide to the Apostrophe
I tried removing the broadcom wireless card in my ZD 7168cl laptop because I didn't want to use ndiswrapper and have to deal with additional troubles. So, I wanted to install a more linux friendly card like the Intel Pro 2200. I installed the card and the system got to the initial BIOS splash screen and then came to a screeching halt. It complained that an unapproved Mini-PCI card was installed and that I must remove it and reboot.
Naive me, I called HP to see if they had a special BIOS package to get around this.
<sarcasm>I don't know, I guess I thought HP might want to accommodate their customers' needs... Silly me. </sarcasm>
I talked to a know-nothing tech support guy for about five minutes before I realized that he was not going to be any help. So, I simply asked him to pass on a message to his superiors that a customer was very irritated by the lack of support for linux or even simple modification of one's own computer. In response, this guy tried to explain that since the system was packaged with Windoze XP Home, that it is only supposed to run XP home because HP signed a contract with Microsoft to package this system with Windoze. I patiently explained that I understood that this system was designed for Microsoft and that they came as a package and that although that was a mistake to begin with, I simply wanted HP to stop crippling my computer by blocking 3rd party devices in the BIOS. I again asked him to simply pass on that a customer is very unhappy with the 2 grand that he paid for a hardware-blocking computer. How would you feel if you bought a car and if you didn't fill it up at a Shell gas station, it wouldn't start. Oh well, hopefully by the time I buy a new computer, linux support will be more widespread. Go IBM go!
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
Similar to this, though not "as bad", my g/f's HP laptop will not let you install drivers even from the video card manufacturer (ATI). I was confused as hell, as I am used to updating my video card drivers, that when I tried to update hers due to random crashing in a game she was playing (Sims 2) that the installer would fail every time I ran it to update the drivers, even the omega drivers failed.
So I got to reading some forums as usual when I run into a problem of this sort and found out that the HP would only let you install the drivers that you downloaded from their site (horseshit drivers of course, even worse than ATI's)
I found this rather inconvenient at the least, and I am sure there is a way to 'trick' the PC into letting me install new drivers (ps, if anyone knows how to install them w/o reformatting let me know, or even if a reformat and fresh install would correct it)
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
I bought a Compaq Presario R3140US laptop several months ago. It has an AMD64 processor. I would like to fully take advantage of these 32 extra bits so I installed Linux (SUSE to be precise). The only problem is that it comes with a builtin Broadcom wireless chip.
Broadcom doesn't have any linux drivers, much less 64bit linux drivers. And they also keep their card specs secret. For the longest time I was completely out of luck if I wanted to use my wireless card in 64 bit mode. (I had heard ndiswrapper would work in 32 mode with the 32bit windows drivers, but I only tried that briefly and didn't have any luck).
Let's say you said fine, I'll just open it up and pop in another mini-pci wireless chip in there that does have support in linux. Well you're out of luck because the BIOS has a whitelist of allowed wireless cards that you can use. Any thing else and you're out of luck.
The issue has more to due with FCC regulations than anything else though. Anything dealing with radio waves needs to be approved by the FCC. Because the wireless chip is separate from the antenna, only FCC approved combinations of chips and antennas can be used together. The reason you can use any PCMCIA card in any laptop is because the antenna and chip are together and are approved together. Although I'm sure that if HP/Compaq wanted to they could test other combinations and get them approved, I guess they just don't want to.
Eventually Broadcom released 64bit windows drivers, and eventually the wonderful people working on ndiswrapper were able to add support for 64bit windows drivers in linux (those guys are amazing), and I got wireless working on my laptop a few weeks ago... still pissed at HP though.
We always knew Comcast was corrupt, here's the proof: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1909890&cid=34545432
Does this violate the PCI specification? Do they still get to call it a "PCI" slot if some PCI-compliant cards with valid drivers are non-operational in it by design?
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Apple has been doing this with video and SCSI cards for YEARS. how is this new? All it means is that OEM's from the x86 world are becoming more proprietary. There is nothing you can do about it. Nobody complains about this on the mac so why is it a complaint on windows?
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
Well, then why don't we just go back to the days of non-standard proprietary interfaces? Because this is essentially what this accomplishes.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
It sucks badly, but the current FCC rules are as much ti blame as the manufacturers are.
Does anyone know how I can modify mine (Dell Latitude CPt/CPx) so that I will be able to see my 80GB drive? I mean the HDD itself works 100% but as soon as I go in the BIOS the stupid thing just freezes there trying to get the HDD parameters... No BIOS upgrade for that one from Dell. Used to work with my old 20GB one that died recently and also heard that 60GB ones are supported but apparently 80's ain't...
i am a PCI card
is one way of ensuring that customers renew their maintenance contracts
I'd say it's one way of ensuring I don't buy their crap^H^H^H^Hstuff. Customer organisations should stand up against this kind of stuff^H^H^H^H^Hcrap!
I wonder if she has anything to do with business practice's like this?
Before I'm flamed a troll, something like blocking 3rd party drivers isn't something just any old EVC would want to stake his career on the line for, this kind of decision would probably go all the way up the chain.
If that is the case, it is just the exact bullshit that made her the worst CEO in the first part of this century! oh well.
This is also a known problem with a lot of Compaq Presario R3000 Series laptops. The have the same issue, with the non-OSS friendly Broadcom 802.11g mini-PCI cards pre-installed. Apparently, the BIOS is built to only allow that card becasue the FCC-ID for the wireless device is for the card and the internal antenna *together*. When you change the card, the system is no longer legal, according to the FCC, so they put in BIOS protection to keep you from breaking FCC rules.
int cents = 0;
cents += 2;
My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?
Yeah, Timothy. I was there with you when you bought your laptop. It was around the same time that I got my iPod. It was a first generation, so, yeah, your laptop is definitely a few years old.
You're welcome. =)
Your laptop is downloading pr0n and warez from the internet, and is unresponsive when you try to get it to do something useful. I'd put it's age at about 14.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
the tone here would be much different. Everyone would be saying what a genius Jobs is for controlling the hardware list to a set of known working parts.
Troll? How is this a Troll?
The Airport slot in an Apple Laptop uses only Apple Airport cards, and these won't work in a PC-Card slot.
But, other vendors' PC-Card products work fine in Mac laptops; there is no white list at boot time, as discussed in the original article.
In particular, I use non-apple 802.11 cards of a couple of different types/vendors. I use IOXPERTS driver with an SMC removable antenna card and Apple's own drivers for a different WiFi card.
-- Sally
It happened to me when I upgraded from an intel 2100 wireless card to an intel 2200 wireless pci card in an eight month old Compaq X1000 laptop. Rolling back to an older bios "fixed" the problem.
More info here: http://www.x1000forums.com/index.php?showtopic=573 9
Today's lesson: Don't buy Compaq.
My IBM TPX31 has a BIOS lock at least for 802.11 a/b/g cards (mini-PCI). I picked up a Dell 2200 card which when installed would cause the laptop to be unable to boot. A freshly updated BIOS and chipset firmware did not help this situation. I then obtained the same model card (2200 a/b/g) but IBM-branded and it worked like a charm.
The installation in an IBM laptop of a non-whitelist card is supposed to cause it to throw some error to the screen, but mine would just hang. There are some BIOS patches in the wild which is supposed to bypass this problem, but because I didn't get the error code I was hesitant to install the hack.
Apparently there is a pin on the mini-PCI card which the IBM onboard firmware pushes high and allows the Thinkpad's BIOS to illuminate the little "wireless signal" light on the screen base. Installing the hack mentioned above will disable this feature.
From what I understand from reading, the reason that certain cards are whitelisted is so that RF emmissions from the laptops meet FCC regulations. If that's not the reason, it's the justification I've read.
Luckily, my girlfriend's R30 did not have the BIOS lock-out, so the Dell a/b/g card worked just fine in her machine.
Now if I can just find a reasonably-priced BMDC card...
Example of this is Pontiac Sufire = Asuna= Chev Cavalier All three are the same car, but with different trim and styling. They all cost, last time I bought one 1998, about the same. I went for the Cav because that dealer had a model with ETS and a four speed automatic. Sometimes they market the same car with different names, the 1960's GTO was a Beaumont in Canada. It's the Chrysler Intrepid not Dodge.
I had a toshiba laptop, and now i have a dell 9100 laptop and have never had any problems plugging in any pci cards. I have gone from older cards (cisco, linksys, intel, netgear, and more) all the way to the latest and greatest...
W/o RTFA, it would be nice to have a whitelist in the bios (easily accesed) to show what brands/models work...and I am sure by "worked" it means without any problems (hopefully).
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
No - that's not why every generic card wouldn't work in a Mac. It's because the firmware was typically processor-specific on a (PCI, AGP, etc.) card back in the day. 68k/PPC chips use a different endian mode than x86 does, and so if you didn't put appropriate firmware on the card, it wouldn't work. There are cards out there nowadays that work on both platforms just fine (for instance, a lot of ATA controllers work just fine cross-platform - same with networking cards and plenty of other stuff).
;-)
In some cases, the card would work fine if there were an OS-specific driver for it. The vendor's decision not to write one isn't Apple's fault.
I'm not striving for unrestrained Apple fanboydom here, but let's get real. The fact that Apple doesn't build generic x86 computers that are interchangeable doesn't make them proprietary - they've just made different architectural choices that impact what will work with their products. NuBus wasn't proprietary, for instance - it was industry standard. It just wasn't used by x86 vendors. But it was technically superior to 8/16 bit ISA, so Apple used it until it made more sense to move to PCI. They also used SCSI to gain an technical advantage over older-generation PC drive technology - there were clear speed advantages to SCSI for a long time until newer ATA implementations caught up. At which point Apple switched and lowered their costs in doing so.
They also helped drive the move to USB, popularized Firewire, added standard Ethernet on everything before any x86 vendors, and added a dedicated slot and antenna for wireless before anyone.
There's plenty of useful stuff to rip on Apple about without the misinformed "proprietary hardware" red herring.
There. I feel much better now
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Does anyone make a mini PCI RAM Disk? I'm looking for a module with battery backup so it won't wear out like flash.
Your doubt is your ignorance. Off the top of my head the following vehicles were all made by Isuzu and rebadged as Chevrolet:
Chevy LUV (Pickup)
Chevy Spectrum
Geo Storm
The Silverado had a Duramax diesel option, circa 2000 that was made by Isuzu.
There are probably many more but, I can't be bothered to look them up.
The author writes:
"Oh, the horror. I bought a Compaq/HP nx9110 a year ago, and recently upgraded my Mini-PCI Wireless card from non-OSS friendly Broadcom 11b to an 11g card."
But Broadcom have clearly GPL'd their drivers:
http://www.broadcom.com/drivers/driver-sla.php?
The bios-level white list is an issue but that seems an undeserved cheap-shot against Broadcom.
Don't Run Their BIOS. :)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
(Interestingly, the Mac market's about the only place where a shareware developer can make a living from it.)
Then who pays Bram Cohen's salary for BitTorrent, a Free shareware program?
Folks,
I switch out the (incredibly not likable) Intel 2100 Mini-PCI cards for Dell 1350s all the time, and there is absolutely no problem with it.
I think this is a vendor-specific decision, so absolutely avoid vendors that do this.
Of course, Dell laptops are also not made as well as IBM's, so you may have a "lesser of two evils" decision to make.
JP
Stiny! Get me a danish!
My R40 used to reject the Mini-PCI wlan card that I've shamelessly stolen from my sister's laptop ;)
A bit googling lead me to a page with a little c program that disabled that lock by simply flipping a bit in the cmos...
I've written a letter to IBM, asked for refund or at least a patch and told them that they should inform their clients of that matter _before_ they go and buy the hardware.
I also pointed out that the cards available in the whitelist have bad or no linux support.
This is now 3 Months ago and I still have no answer from them...
I find this behaviour of hardware vendors quite annoying and all of you _owning_ such hardware should write a letter to let them know...
I didn't even know they made laptops with PCI slots.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
My parents own a Compaq system (They bought it without consulting me first) and I decided they didn't need the ATI Radeon 9200 card as much as I did. So I tossed my old AIW in their machine and took the TV turner that came with it. I d/led the drivers from Compaq only to find out it runs some little util to detect if your machine is in fact a compaq and if not doesn't allow the drivers to install. I've been unable to locate an alternate source of drivers at this time. While I'm sure eventually I'll find a way around the issue it's just a pain in the butt.
Eric
If any manufacturer is billing their system as "PCI compatible", and yet they are not supporting ALL PCI cards, then this is false advertising, plain and simple.
Unless I've missed where in the PCI spec it allows for a compatible BIOS check to happen.
This is false advertising, plain and simple. And it sounds like a gold mine for the right lawyer who wants to take up a class action lawsuit.
I'm also surprised that that PCI consortium allows their trademark to be used in such a fashion. It's like saying "Yeah, you can plug PCI cards in, but they won't work". Something I don't believe that was the intention of the PCI spec.
...Bios updates are free from HP's site. You don't need to have a service contract to get them. Go to support.hp.com and type in your model number.
or else!
This isn't unique to PC's. Some of the network manufacturers (particulary Cisco) are starting to do this with GBICs. The gear looks for Cisco-S/N'ed GBICs and won't bring up interfaces that aren't the proper hardware.
To whom it may concern:
I was considering an IBM until I found out that IBM laptops incorporate pci "whitelists" in the bios that limit the pci hardware that can be used and prevent bootup of the laptop when non-approved cards are inserted. IBM makes very nice laptops and it is unfortunate that they come with this restriction.
Thanks to http://slashdot.org for this information.
Although there are two non-IBM supported workarounds, I will now be looking elsewhere for unrestricted pci capability.
In addition, I am considering compiling a publicly accessible list of manufacturers that do this with various details and alleged reasons.
Please forward this to the appropriate department.
Thanks.
Acer use very poor materials, in a coulpe of years their plastic components develop cracks. Dell laptops are slightly better, but not much better.
IBM and Fujitsu use great plastics, their laptops never crack.
Your Mini-PCI slot was never intended to be user upgradeable. Frankly, I always assumed they wouldn't be compatible between laptop vendors, models, or nescessarily even between two laptops of the same model that came off the assembly line on different days.
If you want to upgrade to a better wireless connection, use a PMCIA card.
Here we have the reason that many people think that Firefox is on the rise, when in reality it is doomed - that battle, and others, are already over - we only need to wait out the end game.
:)
:) )
Note: I have more tin foil hats than you
I believe that we are approaching hardware lockout to free software. I believe that you will see more and more of this kind of thing, for seemingly acceptable reasons... but it will be Microsoft driving the whole thing.
In 5 years, the PC you'll be able to buy will have hardware/BIOS that integrate with Longhorn (or whatever OS MS manages to ship). And you won't be able to get the information you need to run on those hardwares.
Or maybe you'll be able to run, but you won't have access to the hardware DRM - the stuff that MS is going to use to sell the thing as if there's nothing else. Which there actually won't be, because remember, you'll be locked out.
So where does that leave big bad Firefox? Waaay out in the cold, where IE has all that hardware integration, hardware aided security, and more.
Good luck guys. The guy with the billions wins.
(Gosh it's fun letting your conspiracy theories out in the light of day anonymously
English as a third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth language depending on where you attend. Not everybody here is an American.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
supported white-lists? Isn't that reverse-racisim?
It was already around, really. There weren't many cards for it, and I don't think that any of them ever worked on Mac, but it was a pre-existing technology nonetheless.
Well lets separate out cause and effect. The source of the problem here are the bastards who write spyware. The effect is that there is a trust deficit for shareware vendors. There are spyware bastards out there who are selling 'anti-spyware' that is in fact spyware. That is why Microsoft had to go and buy Giant and give away the code.
have already been opening salvos of FUD fired at the Open Source movement for not having a "certified" credential system for contributing programmers and writers.
Its not FUD, it is an issue that has to be taken very seriously. There is a real danger of attack and it is not possible to detect the attack using automated code inspection designed to detect bugs.
The only architectural solution here is to take 'least privillege' seriously. UNIX and derrivatives are vulnerable here. The privillege system is binary, all or nothing. Microsoft is somewhat better off but is a long way from having the pieces joined up. Every binary (and some data files) needs to be signed and the privilleges required to run it specified as attributes.
Microsoft has every incentive to keep the shareware for Windows market open and working, same for open source. Its all about developers, remember.
There is a real and serious risk that a spyware ring will attempt to infiltrate a FOSS project with the aim of injecting hostile code. At the moment they seem to be content to redistribute contaminated code.
Programmers do not like doing code reviews. It is hard enough to get them to review their own code, let alone somebody else's. Looking for a programming mistake is much easier than looking for actual malice.
FOSS projects need to carefully monitor who is in their group, who is allowed to make code updates, who can be trusted.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Unlike a regular PCI add-in card, the miniPCI WiFi card(s) in question doesn't contain a PCI option ROM. Like VGA, SCSI or RAID cards, this option ROM configures the device before the OS loads.
Since the option ROM isn't on the device, the ROM is stored in the system BIOS. When PCI option ROMs are stored in the BIOS, they are associated with the device's PCI "vendor ID" and "device ID". The "hack" described in an earlier post tells the BIOS to look for a different vendor/device ID (which hopefully is compatible with the embedded option ROM).
Some network adapters require the option ROM for the OS drivers to work, and network booting requires the option ROM so the BIOS can use UNDI/PXE.
This is a support problem from the notebook manufacturer. They only tested a few adapters, and only have room in the BIOS for one network option ROM. This has nothing to do with "trusted computing" or weird conspiracy theories. If the integrated card can't be upgraded, then USB or PCMCIA devices should be an option.
... so when I screw in a new "super-antannae" to my Linksys wireless gateway, than that would make Linksys liable????
... huh???
I guess we should expect to see proprietary patented antannae interfaces then
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
WWII was a real killer, and was a war to stop a truely wicked leader. Now, we fight wars such as Vietnam and Iraq, were US leaders are simply after resources.
There have already been opening salvos of FUD fired at the Open Source movement for not having a "certified" credential system for contributing programmers and writers.
I can give anyone a certificate right now. Just give me some scrap paper and a green crayon, and I'll certify you for anything. Heck, I'll even ask you a few lame questions first to make sure you're qualified.
And that's about how I'll feel about certificates for as long as there are VeriSign certificates for spyware companies, MCSEs, and the like.
. . . comes in the domestic/import columns for CAFE regulations (fuel economy).
My '89 Crown Victoria managed to get itself classified as an import, though it was made in Detroit & Canada. As the domestic Fords were nipping at the mpg ceiling, with tons of room in the import column, it was too tempting for them to pass up.
"Imports" were cars with some minimum percentage (30% ?) of foreign content. The CV was close enough that it didn't take much more than a different brand of windshield wipers to get it there . . .
...
.net and Java come in. They have built in security that can shield your machine from malicious software.
I think this is where
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
to take it out of an existing Macintosh. The first Macintosh laptops I saw were clones, from before Apple sanctioned clones. You send them a (possibly broken) desktop mac. Then sent you a mac laptop, after having moved the ROM.
Brilliant. : )
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
Yeah, more of those sneaky fools with regulated products.
:)
Do you know that I can't just stick a datsun air conditioner in my ford van? Or a bmw engine?
And if I somehow manage to do it, they claim that it voids my warranty?
hawk
I'm writing this on a G4 PowerMac into which I have retrofitted a PC version of an ATI Radeon 7000 PCI card. (I just had it lying around. Really.)
OS X recognised it as a VGA card. It wouldn't do anything useful with it, however, as OpenFirmware didn't know what to do with VGA. (It's understandable: if you aren't tied down to ancient PC standards, why would you want to be?) I stuck the card into a PC and flashed it with the Mac ROM image, obtained from a website, and it worked perfectly.
I also have a generic USB 2.0 PCI card in there that didn't need special treatment.
Like the immediate parent says, it's not a lockout, but certain architectural differences require things like the graphics cards to interact differently with the host system at boot time.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Bitches hate that.
....if you car detected something trivial like a non OEM starter and refused to crank. The car comapnies lost that one bigtime in court, at least you have the option now of an aftermarket starter or alternator, etc that will still function in your car. They are trying to rebooger it back up with the "magical computer" noise, but there's some bills in congress now to get them to stop doing that as well, to open up all the code and specs to independent mechanics, the owner and to the after market manufacturers.
Lest we forget:
FCC Allows Mix-and-Match Wi-Fi Antennas
FOAD!!!
Your very existence may be attributable to that man. You should be thanking him instead of insulting him. For all you know he may have been a Pearl Harbor survivor. If so, he would be very justified for his feelings, what you call "xenophobic".
I know that you are just trolling and all but; If I ever meet you, I will kick your ass!!!!!
Under 15 USC 50 2304 (Magnussen Moss Act), HP has violated the terms of your warranty by disallowing you from using compatible hardware. When you purchased the laptop, one of the stated features was a PCMCIA slot - theimplied warranty is that it was interoperable with aftermarket componants which conformed to the PCMCIA standard.
In short, you have the makings of a class action lawsuit on your hands. Get the to a slimy lawyer. They'll be in the phone book under "D" for democrat.
It WAS the Dodge Intrepid, for a while, at least, if it isn't still. I'm not sure, though.
For a while, you could buy Honda Odysseys rebadged as Isuzus, and Isuzu Rodeos rebadged as Hondas. A friend of mine has a Chevy Aveo hatchback, which is really a Daewoo.
I'd still like to know what was with that guy, though. I'd probably have yelled right back at him for having a crappy domestic car (bad family experience with domestics) and asked him how the heck he felt he could justify being able to tell me what to drive.
Have all the morals you want, asshole, but if you flap your lips at me for having different ones, yes I will call you an idiot.
And Japanese cars don't have stellar reputations for nothing, either. Has he lived in a box all these years?
(I drive a VW, I'm sure some idiot out there will scream at me for having a German car...)
i am a soviet space shuttle
These laptops often still have USB ports and cardbus slots. This doesn't seem to cause any problems with support.
Any user who goes to the trouble to replace a miniPCI card knows they are taking out SUPPORTED HARDWARE and replacing it with UNSUPPORTED HARDWARE. A user would not expect support from HP regarding the operation of an Apple iPod nor should he expect support for hardware that didn't come with the computer.
Compaq may have done that many years ago but they do not do this today. I've replaced my Compaq's harddrive without losing the BIOS information and I certianly would be able to tell if the BIOS was mucking about with my partitions.
This isn't talking about PCMCIA cards, it's talking about mini-PCI. Learn to read before replying next time.
I think alot of the confusion on this thread is stemming from the difference between mini-PCI and PCI and Cardbus (PC Card).
To be very technical about it, PCI is the protocol, electical and logical that runs between on-board chips and plug-in cards. Mini-PCI, Cardbus and the most common flavor of edge connector PC plug-in card (called the "PCI expansion card" by the specification) all use PCI to communicate.
In pupose and form factor, the three are very different.
The PC plug-in card is used to provided user-accessible expansion capabilites to off-the-shelf PCs.
Somewhat similiarly, Cardbus was intended as a laptop expansion slot for after-market upgrades. Again, user servicable.
Mini-PCI was intended to allow laptop vendors to create an easy way to avoid the regulatory headache associated with getting UL (safety) testing done on every laptop with a modem. Modems are high-voltage devices.
It turned out that mini-PCI was also useful for making other services (NICs and Wireless) easy to add to a base laptop design at build time rather than being designed directly onto the PCB. But this connection, was never meant to be user-servicable.
In addition to the fact that there are no fewer than three specified and incompatible flavors of Mini-PCI, sometimes vendors even run non-standard signals through the mini-PCI connector, making them even more incompatible with each other (potentially hazardously so). All of this because they were never intended as user-servicable parts. If you want to expand your laptop, that's what PC Card is for.
Honestly, the things we get worked up over...
How else are they going to be able to plug in a PCI card released after the last BIOS update?" My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?
By downloading the latest firmware? The last time I checked, you can download just about anyone's firmware without a "maintenance contract".
This is what happens when you let college kids moderate an IT site.
Didn't try it myself, no need. But The new thinkpads from IBM contains TCPA chips that means that theoretically it could become impossible to do those kind of hacks. This is the only goal of TCPA I don't like, the crypto stuff would IS wonderfull to have, no one can read my cryptokeys save me and those with my password.
Is that the new thing the kids holler while swingin' their forearm above their head in circles??
No sig for you!!
What OS?
You can 'trick' the PC with this.
The Airport Extreme Card is in a mini PCI slot in all Apple laptops. The laptops will not accept any other mini PCI card.
So - I would imagine this is ALREADY more of a driver issue than a real BIOS issue + isn't there a ROM on the Mini PCI cards telling them to look for specific pieces of hardware to interact with???
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Oh, well that changes everything entirely now, doesn't it... you fucking moron.
Oh yeah. If, for instance, you take the Dell/Intel branded mini-PCI card out of a 600m and replace it with one not made by the same folks it disables all wireless stuff in the bios. Granted, the "unauthorized" card still works....but due to the BIOS' involvement in the usb style bluetooth chip, bluetooth is disabled altogether. No word from dell on a fix or work around or bios flash.
Sure get an apple laptop even a 2 year old one will kick ass.
> I remember back in high school, [...]
> [...] an HP Presario.
God DAMN, and you have a 6-digit UID?
Jesus Christ.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Silly PC users, powerbooks don't even have mini-pci slots!
Personally, I love giving vendors that make these stupid, idiotic choices a nice big one finger salute.
I think it'd be great if everyone called the CEO's office and left a message for the imbeciles to leave their hardware free of restrictions. Otherwise, they'll ROT IN FUCKING HELL.
I quit buying Dell because they think that we only need Intel. Bullshit. If IBM or someone wants to tell me that I can't use some PCI cards, they can go to hell.
windows xp home, though if reformatted would be upgraded to pro
/. er) but this computer is for her, and she does not want linux nor would that do her any good.
;)
and btw, i know an obvious fix is linux (im not stupid, and flame windows as much as the next
i have a linux/windows machine and am happy with it, but when it comes to playing games theres not much choice other than reboot -> windows
the video card is an integrated ATI x300, the laptop is as mention an HP, i dont remember the model number, but its about 1 year old, purchased at Best Buy, and for the reference i warned her against purchasing an HP but who am I to listen to? You know the routine
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
My boss submits the purchase requests for new IT-related equipment for our workplace, and he forgot to order wireless as an option on a couple of HP nc4010 laptops. HP sells the "HP W500" mini-PCI card (older version was W400), but I picked up a couple of Intel 802.11g mini-PCI cards. The laptops would not boot with the Intel cards installed. Boot up was stopped with a message indicating that a non-supported mini-PCI card was installed (please remove, etc....).
I can see it now:
"1802: Unauthorized audio device detected"
And if you fiddle the BIOS, well that's DMCA.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Wednsday May 19, 2004 I tried to post the progenetor of this to slashdot and got rejected. In particular I bought a top-of-the-line wide-screen HP (7130 ?) laptop with Media Center et al. It kept blue-screening so after two complete re-installs of windows I went to the HP site and got the BIOS update.
After installing the new bios the box complained that my the build-in wireless board was not kosher ("authorized" is, I beleive, the correct word) and that I would have to remove the wireless board if I wanted the laptop to boot.
I elected not to play...
I returned it to Frye's for a complete refund.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Get the to a slimy lawyer. They'll be in the phone book under "D" for democrat.
Yep, it sucks but sometimes you just have to choose the lesser of two evils. Snicker.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
American is a native English speaker either.
If a system will not work with a known-good piece of equipment, then that system is defective and should be returned. I hope it is still under warranty.
Its curious how shipping broken hardware seems to be a standard practice for many vendors now. As others have already said elsewhere in this thread, essentially all PC DVD drives ship broken, and need a firmware update to repair them and restore their full functionality.
Anyone know of other PC server/laptop/desktop hardware that is commonly sold in a broken state? Excluding obvious anomalies like Xboxes that is ; brokenness is mandatory for all Microsoft products.
Oh, so now you'll have to start "chipping" laptops the same way people rechip X-Boxes an PS2's. I can't wait until I have to subscribe to a service to be able to upgrade my desktop PC.
I bet a certain software and OS vendor are connected to this in some way.
Cars owners are like PC /Mac users. They all bought the best right.
Love you're SIG. LOL The best yet.
Heh. I'm a Mac user and a VW driver and I love them both -- and am very happy with both, and yes, I tend to rip them apart and happily play with their innards, then cram it all back in and go on my merry way -- but if something different is right for you (linux, or a Honda, or whatnot) I'll recommend that for you instead of that Mac and that Golf.
:)
It's when somebody starts telling me what I shouldn't be using/driving that I get annoyed. I'm not you; you're not me. Ask me for advice but don't imperiously tell me I made the wrong choice; how do you know what I need? That's why I couldn't believe the gall of that old guy... I happen to LIKE German/Japanese cars. They've earned my respect by being good vehicles. Unlike American cars, which have earned my disdain by being pieces of crap every time my family owned one (we won't ever buy one again). And this guy thinks I should buy something that my own family has had horrible experiences with in the past just because of the badge on it? OK, fine; gonna pay for the repeated maintenance it's going to need? (don't get me started on that Oldsmobile!)
Oh, and he probably never pays attention to the fact that a lot of "foreign" cars are built right here in the USA, by US workers, if he plans to rant about job losses. I think that's a great idea, and I hope it keeps up.
Thanks for the sig compliment.
i am a soviet space shuttle