HP Compaq nx7010

[Guest rollercoaster\]

Hello.

I will buy a HP Compaq nx7010 laptop after a few days. Does anyone know

if I have a chance to install Mandrake 10 or another Linux distro on it ?

[Guest kjehed]

Hi,

 

At my company we are using HP Compaq nx7010 laptops with Mandrake 10.0 (Power Pack version)

 

Unfortunately we are having some problems with them. I believe that they are HW related (i.e. malfuncitioning, at least the keyboard problem ... see below) but the IT department thinks that it's 'fixable' with configuration and stuff....

 

Ok Here's the problems

---------------------------'

* Use of external monitor to the laptop. By editing manually the XF86Config-4 file I managed to get the picture up... but the picture looks horrible. I'm sure it's solvable but then you need to know a lot more about frequencies and stuff on monitors than I do :(

 

I tried downloading new drivers for the graphic card but following the configuration (a program that comes with the rpm package) screws up the picture even more (both with the external monitor and on the laptop itself). I.e. you really need to know your stuff to set up the picture right if you want an external monitor.

 

 

* PCMCIA cards: Every other time the computer is rebooted it will ignore recognizing or detecting any PCMCIA cards. I have tried re-installing the PCMCIA

necessary rpms but this bug is still there.

 

* The internal phone modem is not recognized by Mandrake. Maybe you can find drivers elsewhere. I have not been able to make it work. Instead I use PCMCIA modem

 

* The sound buttons on the keyboard (mute, higher, lower) does not work. I've read about fix for this though.

 

* The Wireless modem is not recognized by Mandrake. Intel is working on it but God knows when it will be out. There is an experimental version out, but it's buggy and you really need to know your stuff to fix it.

--- Linuxant has a driver for this also that you have to pay a little for. However, when I tried it it kept freezing the kernel. A lot.

 

* The worst with the darn nx7010 and really the reason why I DO NOT recommend it is that it freezes up the keyboard. I.e. after a random long time the keyboard freezes. It refuses to accept any key events, but the mouse still works. This has been observed at several at my companys laptops.

Edited June 24, 2004 by kjehed

[iphitus]

Hi,

 

At my company we are using HP Compaq nx7010 laptops with Mandrake 10.0 (Power Pack version)

 

Unfortunately we are having some problems with them. I believe that they are HW related (i.e. malfuncitioning, at least the keyboard problem ... see below) but the IT department thinks that it's 'fixable' with configuration and stuff....

Ok Here's the problems

---------------------------'

* Use of external monitor to the laptop. By editing manually the XF86Config-4 file I managed to get the picture up... but the picture looks horrible. I'm sure it's solvable but then you need to know a lot more about frequencies and stuff on monitors than I do :(

 

I tried downloading new drivers for the graphic card but following the configuration (a program that comes with the rpm package) screws up the picture even more (both with the external monitor and on the laptop itself). I.e. you really need to know your stuff to set up the picture right if you want an external monitor.

 

Try restarting X after connecting the projector. On my laptop it is garble until X is restarted.

 

* PCMCIA cards: Every other time the computer is rebooted it will ignore recognizing or detecting any PCMCIA cards. I have tried re-installing the PCMCIA

necessary rpms but this bug is still there.

 

Dont know, but something tells me its a config error not hardware

 

* The internal phone modem is not recognized by Mandrake. Maybe you can find drivers elsewhere. I have not been able to make it work. Instead I use PCMCIA modem

 

This winmodem works, it is a smartlink:

instructions here: http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/joakim/nx7010.html

 

* The sound buttons on the keyboard (mute, higher, lower) does not work. I've read about fix for this though.

 

Try binding them with xbindkeys and xbindkeys_config. They are in urpmi and on http://rpmfind.net

 

Or in Gnome, go to Main Menu->Preferences->Keyboard shortcuts.

* The Wireless modem is not recognized by Mandrake. Intel is working on it but God knows when it will be out. There is an experimental version out, but it's buggy and you really need to know your stuff to fix it.

--- Linuxant has a driver for this also that you have to pay a little for. However, when I tried it it kept freezing the kernel. A lot.

 

Linuxant stuff is sh*t.

 

http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net

 

Again more info on this page:

http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/joakim/nx7010.html

 

You could also try ndiswrapper, http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net

However the above site lists no sucess. ALthough it works on my laptop which is alas a very different computer

 

* The worst with the darn nx7010 and really the reason why I DO NOT recommend it is that it freezes up the keyboard. I.e. after a random long time the keyboard freezes. It refuses to accept any key events, but the mouse still works. This has been observed at several at my companys laptops.

 

Try pressing Ctrl, Alt or Shift on either side of the keyboard randomly. Sometimes they act like caps lock and toggle and sometimes they do this without you even pressing them. Happens to me.

 

Again, more information here:

http://personal.eunet.fi/pp/joakim/nx7010.html

 

And some forums here

http://www.x1000forums.com/index.php?showforum=8

 

And more info for a very similar model

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~akovach/nx7000

 

Many useful things

http://tuxmobil.org/hp_compaq.html

 

Google a little more next time.

 

Have fun

 

iphitus

Edited June 24, 2004 by iphitus

[Guest kjehed]

Thanks for the information iphitus :)

 

Actually,... I knew of most of the fixes you wrote about. But since rollercoaster wanted to know if it was possible to install Mandrake 10.0 I wanted to give my input of what additional work that is required outside of the normal installation.

 

I'm sure that your links helped a lot if rollercoaster decides to follow through with the purchase. And actually the wireless one

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net

was new to me, so thanks for that one :D I'll try it out.

 

---- The keyboard issue is a killer though,.. I'm sure it's solvable, and I'll post the reason & fix when I get it. But right now the ONLY thing that works is booting (hard) the laptop with the power button. Then it works for 1 minute to 2 days (it's random) until it freezes again. The same problem is persistant for 3 other nx7010 laptops with Mandrake 10.0 at my company so I definitely think that it is a problem with Mandrake vs the hardware on the nx7010!

 

At my company we have quite a lot of Linux experts and too bad, too sad (for me) none have been able to crack this one

 

--- as a side note I think it was interesting that the author of the:

And more info for a very similar model

http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~akovach/nx7000

recommended NOT to buy the nx7000 model...

Edited June 24, 2004 by kjehed

[iphitus]

bugger, yep. i reccomend you don't get the nx7100

 

It is too much trouble and that keyboard problem cant be good.

 

kjehed: could you try installing fedora on the laptop? that is what the guy used and it didnt seem to have the keyboard problem.

It's worth it, fedora is nice stuff!

 

iphitus

[Guest Kettu]

Personally I have not had any keyboard problems on the nx7010, but those that I have heard of were BIOS related. The latest BIOS version is F.42, so if you're not running that you might give it a try.

 

If you want to get in touch with other people that use Mandrake on nx7010 (I'm using Fedora) check out the Linux forum on X1000 forums.

[Guest kjehed]

Thanks Kettu for the suggestion.

 

I have been thinking in the way of BIOS updates and settings. As soon as I get my hands on my laptop again I'll try

 

1) the bios

 

and if that does not help

2) The drivers for the graphics card. It seems that it could be related to the ATI graphics driver. In this entry the exact same problem was reported:

http://www.x1000forums.com/index.php?showtopic=5613

 

kjehed: could you try installing fedora on the laptop? that is what the guy used and it didnt seem to have the keyboard problem.

Unfortunately it's not my decision. I need the same developing environment as the standard PCs at my company, i.e. Mandrake otherwise I would love to try Fedora.

 

In a week I expect the IT people to have given up on my computer and then I can try these things (of course I'll forward these things to them as well but ....)

 

Thank you all for the help

Edited June 25, 2004 by kjehed

[ranger]

kjehed: could you try installing fedora on the laptop? that is what the guy used and it didnt seem to have the keyboard problem.

The problem with the keyboards on these machines is not affected by the distribution, it is a hardware/BIOS issue.

 

Our company has about 20 of these machines, those with the earlier models had problems on every distribution they tried (Fedora, RHEL, Gentoo, Mandrake). BIOS updates help.

 

I am happy with my NX7010 running Mandrake, getting the wireless working on 10.0 was not difficult (I had it running in May IIRC), but it is much easier on 10.1 (beta1), you just need to put the firmware file in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware (you have to create the directory still at present).

[Guest jonbonejovi]

I'd say it's pretty linux-friendly, take a look here.

 

Edited August 22, 2005 by jonbonejovi