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?

Comments

Confirm?

[sczimme]

My HP laptop is several years old; can anyone confirm this?

How should we know? It's your laptop.

:-)

Re:Confirm?

[JavaPunk]

How do we know its his laptop?

Confirmation

[fred911]

"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.

IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[explorer]

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.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've read this is because the FCC approval for the wireless is the combination of the card and the antenna (which is built into the screen). Obviously it's not really in IBM's (or any other manufacturer) interest to test every possible wireless card with their kit. They probably lock them to keep the FCC happy.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[VargrX]

Hate to argue this, but, no. I've got a T40p, and an R40, and have plugged in all sort's of card/mini-pci based device's into them, and have not had any issue's beyond finding proper driver's for the OS that I'm using at the moment

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Moofie]

Seems to me that if they don't want their computer to be compatible with PCI cards, they shouldn't advertise it as being compatible with PCI cards.

But maybe I'm crazy.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Tim C]

Your misuse of apostrophes is making my eyes bleed... Not one of them was needed :-)

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[h2odragon]

There's an easy enough workaround for that.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem the parent post is describing is about plugging in miniPCI wireless cards, not the Cardbus/PCMCIA-type cards that you are describing. As another reply mentioned, IBM is doing this out of concern for the FCC certification of their laptops. The miniPCI cards use the built in antenna behind the screen, whereas the CardBus devices have independant antennas (those devices have been run through FCC certification as well). The FCC is pretty touchy about radio products, and IBM is simply trying to assure that any wireless radio + antenna combination has been tested.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: it should be "Your misuse of apostrophe's is making my eye's bleed"

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Zone-MR]

Yes - this has pissed me off. I bought a 802.11b/g combo card to replace the 802.11b card in my Thinkpad T41. Little did I know that the laptop BIOS is deliberatly crippled, and refuses to boot with minipci network cards which aren't approved by IBM (often exactly the same cards, made by exactly the same manufacturers, but have a different hardware ID - a privelage you are supposed to pay 2x the price for).

After a bit of research I managed to patch my BIOS to get around the problem - at least till I apply a BIOS update in the future.

If I had know of this beforehand, I would have seriously considered a different laptop. The problem is there are no warnings, and the specs claim the laptop has a miniPCI slot - which would make one assume it is compatible with any card which follows the miniPCI standard.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Fluffy the Cat]

The FCC regulations don't actually require what IBM does - the closest is a requirement that you not be able to use unauthorised antennae with an authorised card, which is the direct opposite of IBM's solution. The amount of the planet over which the FCC have jurisdiction is also fairly small compared to the size of IBM's market...

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[dingfelder]

Must be going by the old rule

Actually, the old rule is:

If you don't have anything interesting or insightful to say about the parent post, waste everyone's time by blasting the mofo for stupid grammar rule violations :D

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Fluffy the Cat]

I've disassembled the Thinkpad BIOS and read the code myself. It scans every PCI device and flags any that have a class id starting with "02" (which signifies communication devices). Each communication device is then compared against a whitelist of PCI vendors, device IDs and subvendor information. If it's not on that list, the system will print an "1802: Unauthorized network device detected" error and stop booting. At that point, all you can do is switch off the machine. It's easy enough to fix in the BIOS - thankfully, it's even easier to fix by setting a CMOS bit that disables the check.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Moofie]

Er, if it's on the spec sheet, it's advertising. If it doesn't work, it's fraud.

Now, since I don't know which particular models are in question, I can't check. But it seems pretty cut and dried to me: If you sell me something, and it's designed to not work as advertised, you've defrauded me.

Re:IBM Thinkpads are the same way

[Fluffy the Cat]

Here

Yes, by all means

[HarryCaul]

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.

Re:Yes, by all means

[spac3manspiff]

Well according to the article, all you have to do is:

1. Hack the Bios
2. ???
3. Profit!!!

Re:Yes, by all means

[DLWormwood]

Almost makes you want to buy a Mac doesn't it?

I wonder if you'll get a +5, Troll for that...

Seriously, Apple's always been blamed for being elitist for having a semi-closed architecture and many PC partisans took them to task for it. Now some PC manufacturers are starting to do the same.

This is probably a sign of things to come. As computing becomes more and more dependant on the Internet to even provide basic functionality, security concerns are going to crowd out flexibility and "freedom." It's really a shame; this will only increase the barrier to entry to computing even higher than it is now. Already, classical shareware and freeware have nearly been killed by fears of viruses and spyware. (Interestingly, the Mac market's about the only place where a shareware developer can make a living from it.) 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. (Even non-coding projects like Wikipedia is starting to get brickbats from "established" editors and writers for not being "professional" enough.)

The age of the garage developer is nearly, if not already, over.

Re:Yes, by all means

[goMac2500]

Parent is confused. He means Mac OS would not boot on a motherboard unless the motherboard had a Mac BIOS on it. This kept cloners from making their own motherboards (this is no longer true, a Mac ROM is no longer needed to boot Mac OS X). NuBus, which came before PCI, was created by Texas Instruments. The reason cards required a Mac ROM was because you were using the card with a Mac. There was no BIOS, and a card had to communicate with the Mac differently. It had nothing to do with lockup, just differences between the PC and Mac architectures. Current PCI cards are still in the same position. Some PCI cards that don't rely on communicating with the PC's BIOS will work fine interchangeably, like TV cards. Other cards, like graphics cards, must have a special Mac ROM on them because of architecture differences between PC and Mac motherboards (like, again, no BIOS on Mac). In short, there was no Apple lockout on expansion cards, just architecture differences. The only time I can remember Apple being anti-expansion card was when Steve Jobs was in charge the first time. He handled expansion cards by just not including the slots. Developers had to sneak them in to final machines as "debug ports".

There's a simple solution.

[Anonymous Coward]

We can keep our own list of venders who do this... ..and don't buy from them.

IBM too

[ignavusincognitus]

This is nothing new. Linux-lovin' IBM is known to do this as well,

Workaround

[Anonymous Coward]

# 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.
# 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 /CS option to phlash16 in order to check the checksum.
# If it's worked, your card should now work. If it hasn't, your laptop is probably dead.

Re:Workaround

[Fluffy the Cat]

There's an easier way. See this page for a utility that disables the check without requiring BIOS modification.

HP is (in)famous for this sort of thing

[n6mod]

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)

IBM has been doing it for years!

[radiojock]

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?

Re:IBM has been doing it for years!

[Anonymous Coward]

...because apple does not market it as a miniPCI slot, but rather an AirPort card slot. It doesn't claim to be something that it's not - a place to plug in whatever you feel like plugging in. It's there just for the AirPort card, and nothing more.

Re:IBM has been doing it for years!

[Politburo]

What I don't hear about is apple and there slots not taking anything but "AIRPORT" cards? why is nobody bitching about that?

I think this is simply because we don't expect openness with Apple. Their hardware is generally proprietary, while PC hardware is not.

This guy is amazing:

[Saint Aardvark]

http://www.paul.sladen.org/thinkpad-r31/wifi-card- pci-ids.html

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.

Page out of Apple's book?

[TimmyDee]

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.

Re:Page out of Apple's book?

[magarity]

He probably bought some generic made-in-god-knows-where card

Look, *all* the PC cards are made in the same giant sized factory called "Taiwan". I ran into a problem with an HP Netserver that HP blamed on my Crucial branded memory by saying only HP branded memory was good enough. Of course the solution ended up not involving the memory. Heck, HP doesn't own a memory fab; they just slap their sticker on whatever they get the best bulk rates on. In the article about the mini-PCI card, HP has no legitimate way to claim only thier PCI cards have to be used or the dang thing won't even boot. It's one thing to say 'we don't support it because you installed a third party peice' and it's completely different to actively prevent even trying.

Simple Solution

[bigtallmofo]

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.

Re:Simple Solution

[t_allardyce]

The capitalist way would be to just sell your services re-fitting/flashing BIOS's with this turned off, of course since the DMCA came into effect capitalism now comes second to campaign financing.

I think you aren't using a MiniPCI card

[whereizben]

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 :)

Incompatibility List?

[DavidNWelton]

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.

The credit goes to:

[the_mighty_$]

Matthew Garrett

Mini PCI was never intended for end users

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel Technology Journal:

The PCI Express Mini Card specifically targets addressing system manufacturers' needs for build-to-order (BTO) and configure-to-order (CTO) applications rather than providing a general end-user-replaceable module. This form factor has characteristics more typical of an "embedded" application including the platform integration of the media interfaces such as communications connectors or wireless antennas.

Cisco MPI350 FAQ:

The Cisco MPI350 cannot be sold as an aftermarket adapter because ... Regulatory certification is based on the MPI350 being coupled with a particular antenna. Although modular regulatory approvals are available, they only apply to the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), who is responsible for embedding similar antennas in different devices. Modular regulatory approval does not eliminate the restriction on aftermarket sales since the end user might embed the adapter in devices with unapproved antennas.

Basically, these companies are using FCC regulations as an excuse for limiting Mini-PCI cards (not just on these particular laptop models, but all Mini-PCI cards in general) to OEM installation only.

The key word is: STANDARD

[mrchaotica]

What I don't hear about is apple and there slots not taking anything but "AIRPORT" cards? why is nobody bitching about that?

Because Airport is completely proprietary. I don't expect to be able to put a 3rd-party card in my iBook's airport slot because there are no 3rd-party cards that would fit. On the other hand, if IBM or anyone else advertises that their laptop has a [standard] mini-PCI slot, then it damn well better actually be a mini-PCI slot! And it should work with any [standard] mini-PCI card.

(note: this is not Apple fanboyism -- I don't complain about the proprietary slot on the lid of of my Compaq laptop either.)

This has been going on for years.

[Exluddite]

I remember finding out after I bought my viewmaster that my stereoscope cards weren't compatible.

Bastards!

Funny.

[FreeLinux]

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.

Can they call it mini-PCI?

[SupremeChalupa]

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?

Thank you for purchasing...

[http101]

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.

Its all about FCC certification

[avidday]

FCC certification is issued for the transmitter + antenna as a single unit. In the case of a Cardbus or conventional PCI wireless card, this is not a problem because the antenna is on the card. In a laptop with an internal mini PCI card the antenna is not on the card so the FCC certification is issued only for the manufacturers recommended wireless cards installed in the laptop with a chassis antenna. They include the white list in the BIOS to ensure that their FCC certification is not invalided by connecting an untested card to their chassis antenna.

It sucks badly, but the current FCC rules are as much ti blame as the manufacturers are.

confirmation of laptop age

[hymie3]

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. =)

The correct answer is....

[TiggertheMad]

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.

Re:The correct answer is....

[TiggertheMad]

Wow, judging from the fact that you disregarded a funny joke to nitpick a typo, I'd put your relationship status as 'single'.

x1000

[exnuke]

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.

This is probably the real issue ...

[SalesEngineer]

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.

Re:Yes, by all means(OT)

[Bastian]

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.

Mini-PCI is not the same as PCI or PC Card

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Sucks, but what to you really expect?

[Alsee]

Personally, I'm a big IBM Thinkpad fan

Bastard. Are you aware that all Thinkpads have Trusted Computing lockdown chips inside???

Sure it's not causing any problems yet, but every Trusted Compliant system someone buys gives them that much more market share towards the point where they will be able to start utilizing that Trusted chip lockdown system. Sure the "unapproved expansion card" problem in the story can currently be overcome by reflashing your BIOS, but if any "security" software does make use of the Trust chip then you'll find yourself locked out of your own files if you attempt this fix. The Trust chip is designed to authenticate that the BIOS (and everything else) has not been "tampered with". As the Trusted-compliant market share increases you'll start seeing software start to use this chip. The software won't run at all on a computer without this chip, and it will only run on a computer with this chip when it's in "lockdown mode".

If anyone wants to avoid buying Trusted compliant computers here's a very incomplete list of such systems:
ANYTHING made by Samsung. They have announced all new computers they make will be Trusted compliant.
Motherboards: Infineon D865GRH D865GRHLK Infineon D915GUX Infineon D915GEV Infineon D925XCV
IBM - ThinkCenter, ThinkVantage and Netvista desktops, Thinkpad laptops
HP - dc7100 and D530 Desktops
HP/Compaq - nc6000,nc8000,nw8000, nc4010 notebooks (all models)
HP - iPAQ hx2750 Pocket PC
Acer - Veriton 3600GT/7600GT ?5600GT?
Toshiba - Tecra M2 Series
Fujitsu - Lifebook S7010 and LifeBook E8000 series
Fujitsu - T4000 Tablet PCs
Fujitsu - FMV-DeskPower C90GW/C desktop PC and FMV-Biblo MG70G/ST notebook
Bestbyte Computers - EXPERT PC 2 System
Link Computers - Ultra P4T-2800
Neatware - Digital Media Platform
Link Computers - Ultra P4T/PCX PC

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