Lenovo L13 yoga 'Maybe the usb cable is bad' error when trying to register

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 I was just reviewing some internal documentation on this dongle and it looks like we’ve gone down this road once before. I have notes about a custom kernel for this adapter where the realtek driver was modified to work with the microsoft usb-c ethernet adapter. Time to search through some old posts.

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer Sorry I was having fun playing with the flash compiler at work.

Here is the updated bzImage5618RT3 with the firmware it was missing from the previous image [rtl_nic/rtl8153a-3.fw] : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vSu5L-DAZYK7VYiJtFfCYrrqJb963cMg/view?usp=sharing

Here is the 5.9.3 version with the updated firmware bzImage593RT3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O-4tvx4DywWef75qfSxLRK9M6CoDS9pd/view?usp=sharing

For your case the 5.9.3 version has no advantage over 5.6.18. The 5.9.3 does have a few new network adapters and some in the 10Gb and 40Gb range. Also realtek 8125 2Gb nic.

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 I found the last time we did this
https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/13905/issue-with-netcard-of-dock-gen2-of-lenovo-l390/22?_=1608147371899

I am actually imaging one of the l390’s at the moment (the l13 is the successor to the L390). But I’m pretty sure the problem is related to just the usb-c adapter. I’ll try the 2 you just made, starting with 5.9.3

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer The other thread referenced new hardware IDs. I did not change that on the updated kernels. Hopefully those numbers will be in there. I think so because the picture said it was working just couldn’t load the firmware.

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 So it didn’t get the the firmware load error, is says that was fine but still no ip address.

What’s also odd is it seemed to change the laptop’s keyboard behavior, I could no longer use Shift+PgUp/down to scroll through the output. It acted as if pgup was just up.

This one did load into FOS without any errors at least, just didn’t actually connect to the network. I haven’t tried messing with the mac address pass through yet.
Gonna give the 5618RT3 a try
Then I’ll try the one from a year ago if needed

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer It looks like it should be working I now see the carrier detect that was missing previously without the firmware installed. Did an ip a s show an ip address?

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 It did not. I gave the bzImage5618RT3 a go and that one is working. The keyboard is also working as expected. So there’s something else in 5.9.3 that is causing an issue with this machine.
Did you change anything else other than this driver and firmware for this kernel? Would it be safe to try using this one as default for all hosts? Or is there something else in there that might cause pause?

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer said in Lenovo L13 yoga 'Maybe the usb cable is bad' error when trying to register:

Did you change anything else other than this driver and firmware for this kernel? Would it be safe to try using this one as default for all hosts? Or is there something else in there that might cause pause?

No that is the base image with the updated firmware for the realtek nics plus the updated realtek driver. Its possible that the 5.9.3 doesn’t have the patched realtek driver. I was working with 5.9.3 specifically for the realtek 8125 nic.

Yes it is safe to use bzImage5618RT3 kernel for everyday imaging.

[Sebastian Roth]

@george1421 @JJ-Fullmer Great work!!!

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer I just updated the 5.9.3 with the updated realtek driver. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O-4tvx4DywWef75qfSxLRK9M6CoDS9pd/view?usp=sharing

For documentation purposes, for 5.9.3 the 8152/8153 driver version in the mainstream kernel is 1.11.11 and the updated (patched) driver I’ve been installing from realtek is 2.13.0 dated April 2020

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 I need to get this machine into production so I can’t test this right now. But I can image one of the other’s we have tomorrow and see if this kernel does the trick.

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 Things got crazy last week, but I have 2 of these I intend to image by Wednesday, so I should have some tests results for this before I’m away for the holiday.

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer No worries on testing 5.9.3 since you have a working path forward. With 5.9.3 that is just a stop gap kernel until 5.10.x LTS branch is released and tested.

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 Well I’m doing it anyway, especially after it was so weird with the keyboard the first time, I figure it’s worth testing. I’m doing a debug test on one of these models with that usb-c adapter now

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 The weird keyboard issue still occurs in the debug session where I can’t do shift+page up/down scrolling. But the adapter is working to be imaged otherwise. So it does work for imaging, just may be getting the wrong keyboard layout on this lenovo l390 yoga keyboard. Not sure it’s worth diggging into.

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 I was also now able to use this lenovo usb-c adapter to pxe boot other non-lenovo devices I previously wasn’t able to.
So bonus points for that.
This is on the 5.6 rt3 kernel

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer Great I’ll take bonus points whenever I can get them.

The keyboard thing has me a bit confused because that is native to the linux kernel. I made no adjustments in that area between 5.6.18 and 5.9.3 so it must be a “feature” of the linux kernel.

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer As long as you have that bzImage5618RT3 kernel queued up could you test what we are talking about in this thread: https://forums.fogproject.org/post/140103 I may have inadvertently fixed the requreiment to switch the computers from Raid-on mode to ahci to image with FOG. I know this might be a Dell specific setting, but its related to the Intel RST disk controller in raid mode. I think the lenovo systems should also have a similar setting because its an INTEL thing not a computer manufacturer thing.

Edit: Ignore this request, the 5510 I have has a sata disk in it. I just tested the kernel with a 7280 with an NVMe disk and the linux kernel does not work with this disk structure. So we are still no where in regards to a solution to this.

[JJ Fullmer]

@george1421 @Tom-Elliott
Just as an fyi related to this post. I just updated to the latest kernel from Tom (5.10.12 64bit) and it does not load up on a surface. Trying to get it just to go to the full inventory screen from the pxe menu it gets to 1% after about 15 minutes and just sits there. The kernel has been fine for all other machines just the surfaces have an issue (thus far in my testing anyway). Perhaps we can add whatever George did to the default kernel build to make sure surface’s stay supported?

[george1421]

@jj-fullmer said in Lenovo L13 yoga 'Maybe the usb cable is bad' error when trying to register:

it does not load up on a surface

Would you mind, when you have time create a video of how far its gets. I do have an older surface pro at home (circa 2015) that I could test on too. But I’d like to see at what point it freezes. Also if you change your fog configuration fog settings log level to 7 it will give us a bit more details on the FOS linux kernel startup.