# Inspiron 8200

## coffie

Hey all,

    I am wondering what kernel options to set on my dell inspion 8200 setup, i am running RC4, here are my specs

P4-1.8

512 ddr

1600x1200

ac97 sound using alsa drivers

dell 1050 wireless

100mbit lan

40 gig hd, 6 gig linux partition

my specific problem is getting the apm and pcmcia to work

thanks,

montana

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## taskara

Hi.. I am struggling with a dell inspiron 8200 atm too!  :Very Happy: 

what kernel are you running atm?

I had to use kernel sources. Did you get it working with gentoo-sources per chance ?

I'd love to work together to sort it out.

I haven't tried to get apm working yet, as I'm stuck on getting 3D working for the ATI card   :Confused:   - I hope you got the nVidia version!

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## coffie

 *taskara wrote:*   

> Hi.. I am struggling with a dell inspiron 8200 atm too! 
> 
> what kernel are you running atm?
> 
> 

 

I am using the latest gentoo-source, what i have working ATM: Nvidia GLX and Kernel, ALSA Sound, Samba, Gnome, Gkrellm, Mozilla, wired network card

What i would like working: APM, I8kutils, PCMCIA, Mini-PCMCIA wireless lan card

any help would be appreciated, i'd love to work w/ ya to get it working, maybe we could write a site for gentoo i8200 installations

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## taskara

soudns good.. well I'm stuck on ati.. but AM able to get X working with no 3d accell - maybe I'll leave it as is, and try apm etc.

could you post me your gentoo-sources kernel config? It crashes for me on boot at the CPUID section  :Sad: 

that would be very handy.

there are HEAPS of sites out there with people installing linux on an 8200, but it seems none with gentoo  :Sad: 

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## Paper

Hi all!

Well, maybe I've been really lucky, but on my 1 month old 8200 I run Gentoo successfully without any particular problem.

Now I'm at work, so I cannot post detailed instructions/informations right.

My specs are:

p4-m 2.2

1024Mb ram

geforce4 440 go 32Mb

ac97

40Gb hd (5400)

1600x1200

ecc.

The sound card had some problem, with the alsa drivers (horribles glitches,...) so I tried the kernel oss drivers (for intel i810 if I remember, I'm not at the laptop right now) and everything went fine.

The GeForce runs just fine, following the nvidia-howto in the gentoo website docs section.

APM is a little bit broken ... in fact I didn't tried it because I'm almost always on AC (and I have 2 batteries, so I almost never run out of power...). Also, the GeForce X driver has some issue with apm, so after suspending I'm not sure the X screen would reappear ...  :Sad: 

I tried a PCMCIA wireless card (a Cisco card) and it worked just fine.

I only needed to emerge pcmcia-cs and compile the pcmcia support in the kernel.

I emerged i8kutils and compiled i8k Dell support in the kernel, and I've got the volume buttons working, using aumix to control the sound card. The other multimedia buttons can be used with acme (a gnome utility) or with an xmms plugin.

Currently I'm using pfeifer-sources, but gentoo-sources was just fine. I'm gonna post my kernel config later ... when I take a break from working.

If you have more questions ... feel free to ask!  :Smile: 

BTW, this laptop is great ... well, it's my first one, it has to be great  :Very Happy: 

The only problem I noticed is that the clock is always 'late', it loses many minutes every day ... need to run ntpdate everytime I'm online.

Byeeeeee,

Paper

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## Jimbow

I've got an i8200 running Gentoo on my desk too.

 *Quote:*   

> The only problem I noticed is that the clock is always 'late', it loses many minutes every day ... need to run ntpdate everytime I'm online. 

 

The late clock is a bit of a drag.  I am running ntpd to keep up to date.  Running apm makes the clock worse so I mostly have apm disabled.  I lose the battery monitor but I still can monitor the temperature and control the fans without it.

The i8kutils work fine.  There is some glitch with Tk (that has been addressed in a different thread) but I don't use the graphical interface.  I use the cli and for graphics I use i8krellm which also works great even though it is masked.

I've got the 1600x1200 screen which is super bright but I find that default fonts tend to be too small for me (gettin' old).  One of the reasons I use Konqueror instead of Moz et.al. is because it's been much easier for me to adjust the fonts in Konq.

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## xr31Daisy

My i8200 worked without to many problems.

APM : I never got s2d ( suspend to disk ) to work. but suspend to ram works fine, except that I had to hack the nvidia drivers ( see the FAQ : http://www.whacked.net/ldl/faq ).

PCMCIA : worked out of the box ...

Time drift : It's APM related, something to do with the clock not being updated during APM calls. I removed the battery-check applet, and that was enough to keep drift to a minimum.

Sound : my first experience with Alsa was horrible. but version 0.9-rc6 solved the glitches ( and with kernel sound some apps played everything at twice the speed.

Wireless : I've got the infamous TrueMobile 1180. 'nuff said.

coffie : What do you mean ' Mini-PCMCIA ' wlan ?

Is it an internal Mini-PCI card ? 

Kernel : I'm using gentoo 2.4.20

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## Paper

 *Quote:*   

> APM : I never got s2d ( suspend to disk ) to work. but suspend to ram works fine, except that I had to hack the nvidia drivers ( see the FAQ : http://www.whacked.net/ldl/faq ). 

 

To use this hack AGP must be disabled: did you notice a considerable performance loss?

Bye,

Paper

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## xr31Daisy

I didn't really worry about performance : I don't use my laptop for gfx-intensive applications ( I still have a windows box for gaming ... )

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## coffie

Hey guys, thanks for the input, it seems as tho many people have been able to get most of the features of the laptop working.

What I am really looking for is a kernel config, i am having a hard time deciding what to install into the kernel, what to have as a module, and what to turn just plain off. If someone could post their kernel config i would be much appreciative. Even if they just told what modules need to be installed

thanks

montana

Oh, and i do mean the internal dell 1050 wireless card

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## coffie

Hey guys, Have most of everything working now, but i am having sound problems ATM

I am using the ALSA drivers installed per the alsa install doc, working great, except i now have static in my sound, xmms, gmplayer, dosnt matter, i am getting static

any suggestions helpful

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## Jimbow

I installed Alsa a'la the install docs and my sound sounds fine, although paper above reports a problem with Alsa.

Could be some i8200's are more equal than others.  Or it could be an interaction with another module.

What I would like to know is: has anyone been able to get APM working on the i8200 without totally borking (slowing down) the clock?

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## Death Valley Pete

 *taskara wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I haven't tried to get apm working yet, as I'm stuck on getting 3D working for the ATI card    - I hope you got the nVidia version!

 

I've got an Inspiron 8200 with the Radeon 9000 Mobility and the UXGA monitor. It was a bit of a pain, and I hope you're comfortable with ~x86 packages, but I got it to work. First of all, I used XFree 4.3.0 (I'm at -r2 but -r1 worked fine too). I went ahead and built up a working KDE system from there and decided that I'd take care of the 3D later. Anyway, once I was satisfied with my system, I emerged media-video/ati-drivers-2.9.6. I basically just followed the instructions from there, so I won't relate the whole story. Just be sure to run /opt/ati/bin/fglrxconfig. 

For what it's worth, I built my kernel with apgart support as a module, board-specific AGP support, but without the Direct Rendering Manager.

Hope that helps.

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## Ice_Tiger

i just got my 8200

dell sent me a replacement after there onsite tech killed my 8000

now im slowly trying to make this system work, but i am havin lockup problems, time problems and does anyone know how to get the s/pdif working?

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## bbarrera

 *Jimbow wrote:*   

> What I would like to know is: has anyone been able to get APM working on the i8200 without totally borking (slowing down) the clock?

 Yes.

For workarounds and a script to prove that checking /proc/apm is the problem, checkout this link:

http://math.stanford.edu/~carlton/i8200/time.html

Run the script in that link or just "cat /proc/apm" 10 to 20 times and you'll prove to yourself that checking /proc/apm is the problem. This check is done by the battery monitor applet in KDE, Gnome, etc. I have very little clock drift with apm running and no battery monitor on my desktop. Rather than using adjtimex per the Stanford link above, my workaround is to set battery monitor to 60 second updates and run ntpdate every 5 minutes (gets time from my local ntp server). My problem with adtimex solution is that there is very little clock drift when not logged in (idle at kdm login screen), and a lot of clock drift when logged in and running battery applet in KDE. So unless you are always logged in and running battery applet the adjtimex solution doesn't work so well.

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## Jimbow

Thanks for the reply.  I've already checked out the link you mention and have sent email to the author confirming that apm is not the *only* cause of the clock drift.  I have a problem with clock drift even with apm turned off entirely.  But with apm turned off (and with the i8k poll rate reduced) the drift is small enough to allow ntpd to keep my clock locked.

I'm still searching for a solution to the clock drift problem.  Something is broken and (if possible) it should be fixed.  My guess is that the Dell bios does not play well with one of the speed/performance enhancements provided by Gentoo.  I tried turning off preemption in my kernel but was unable to successfully compile and had to remerge my Gentoo sources to get any compilation to work.

Even with apm totally disabled, my clock drifts and the drift is worse when my system is busy.   I believe the reason I still have drift is because I am using the i8k utils to monitor my cpu temperature and fans.  The drift was greatly reduced when I reduced the polling rate (in gkrellm) from once per second to once per 10 seconds.  The drift rate seems to be roughly related by:

drift rate = (system activity) x (# of bios calls)

This is what got me to think that it might have something to do with preemption since this is roughly the same rate that bios calls would be interrupted by preemption.

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## bbarrera

Have you tried the Vanilla sources kernel? All I've got for testing right now is a Latitude C600 and Inspiron 4100.

I get a small drift with i8k on my 4100, and it is tolerable on those occassions I don't have a network connection.

The real problem for me is the battery applet, I get half-hour drift during a working day. Last week I was consulting for a client and not connected to the net for ntp updates. By 5pm my Linux clock was saying 4:30pm!

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## Ice_Tiger

this is stupid.... i cant get anything to work right on this thing.

both the built in mice dont work anymore, nvidia drivers arnt working any more. compiles are failing at random, i get random slow downs and some times result in lockups, alsa drivers sound really really bad, and the display has a tarable water mark around al four edges(i sugest cheking yours for it too. i have herd it is comon. you can see it really well if you se your background to somin around #AAAAAA or R 170 G 170 B 170). im so frustrated with this system. im constently having to press fn,z i never had to do that with my old 8000. i miss my 8000.

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## Jimbow

Sounds like a heat problem.  I found that the default BIOS settings for the fans were inadaquate for Gentoo/Reiser.

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## Ice_Tiger

sep that when i turn off the fans it is at 39 deg

let me ask you this, do your guy's 8200's play the ut2003 demo cd?

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## patrickc

 *jimbow wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Sounds like a heat problem. I found that the default BIOS settings for the fans were inadaquate for Gentoo/Reiser.
> 
> 

 

i have an inspiron 2650 and have had no problems with gentoo. however, it does get up to around 68C sometimes while compiling.. where in the bios can i change the temps at which the fans cut on? i've noticed that when running i8kmon or manually changing fan speeds through i8kutils, it adds static into alsa. however, a restart of artsd fixes this problem until i *manually* change the fan speeds, or the i8kmon daemon does this (both using i8kctl fan <speed> <speed> to do so). any ideas what's causing this?

patrickc

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## Jimbow

 *patrickc wrote:*   

> i have an inspiron 2650 and have had no problems with gentoo. however, it does get up to around 68C sometimes while compiling.. where in the bios can i change the temps at which the fans cut on?

 

I don't know.  I have an 8200 and there is no place to change the temp. thresholds in the bios settings that I know of.  It must be in the firmware.  Maybe somebody has hacked this.  I have no idea if someone has or not.

 *Quote:*   

>  i've noticed that when running i8kmon or manually changing fan speeds through i8kutils, it adds static into alsa. however, a restart of artsd fixes this problem until i *manually* change the fan speeds, or the i8kmon daemon does this (both using i8kctl fan <speed> <speed> to do so). any ideas what's causing this?

 

I too am running alsa.  I had not noticed this myself.  I fired up xmms and then played with the fans and I could not detect any changes or flaws in the audio.

I don't know what is causing your problem.  The only guess I can come up with is kernel configuration.   I have Proc Type and Features -> Preemptible Kernel set to "Yes".   If you have this set to "no" then that may be the cause (but I doubt it).

One other idea: do you have the latest rev of the firmware from Dell?   Maybe they've fixed this problem.

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## bLanark

I'm just about done configuring my 8200. I was just surfing to see what everyone else was up to, and came across this thread.

Lots of people reporting noisy sound with alsa:

I too, got really dodgy dodgy sound with the alsa module. I built the kernel module i810_audio and stuck alias snd-card-0 i810_audio in /etc/modules.d/alsa. I still run alsa, but I use the kernel module

I get ~1700 fps for glxgears with the ati-drivers package. I'm impressed with the opengl xscreensavers.

However, I haven't got s2d working, and s2r used to work with a vanilla graphics setup, since I loaded the ati-drivers and tweaked a bit I've lost that - it resumes with a garbled screen then hangs.   :Sad: 

I too run ntpd because of the clock drift.

Can anyone recommend a decent mini-pci wireless card? I don't really want an 1150 (I got an 1180 shipped) or pcmcia card (OK, the 1150 is a pcmcia card in a mini-pci pci slot, my problem is I don't want any of that PCMCIA stuff hanging around). 

What else? 

Oh, I have intermittent dropouts with a firewire HDD, as I did on my 8000 too. I'm using gentoo-sources, I just upgraded from 2.4.20-r-2 to r5 today and all seems well (once I build everything that creates modules again  :Smile:  ) Does anyone else run a firewire HDD without problems, and would moving to a vanilla kernel help me? 

Does ACPI work on these muthas? I'm willing to waste an evening mucking around it there is hope .. I had s2d working on my old 8000 under red hat, but only got s2r working under gentoo (Heresey!!!!)

I got the modem working fine too.

Overall, it's a fantastic machine. I got a 8200 2,0GHz, 60G HDD, internal wireless (1180! - boo!), 1600x1200 display,  and the ATI 9000 mobility with 64 Megs. I paid about 20% extra (this was a dell outlet sale) for 3-year on site support, after my 8000 needed a new keyboard and hdd within 2 years, and now the 8000 has touchpad problems.

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## echo6

Where can I find the i8kutils ?

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## xr31Daisy

 *echo6 wrote:*   

> Where can I find the i8kutils ?

 

In Portage :

```
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge i8kutils
```

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## echo6

Excellent thanks  :Smile: 

Coudn't see it until I had set the option on in the make.conf file.

BTW what is the purpose of ~x86 ?  and why is it necessary for the i8kutils.

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## shiftzero

It's because that package is masked.

See https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=33534

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## xr31Daisy

echo6 : don't set the option in make.conf, or you'll be updating your laptop with all the unstable packages in portage.

IMO, it's a better idea to use it on the command line for specific packages like i8kutils ( unless you really like living on the bleeding edge )

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## bLanark

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=45249 has a useful alias for times like these. 

I also use this unmask script https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=42845 otherwise things like opera get bumped back down when there is a stable version in portage. For i8kutils, there is no stable package so you never get the one you are running with downgraded automatically.

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## echo6

xr31Daisy:  Thanks,  you just reminded me to comment it out   :Laughing: 

Thanks all some useful tips regarding masked e builds.

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## jmaltais

 *bLanark wrote:*   

> Does ACPI work on these muthas? I'm willing to waste an evening mucking around it there is hope .. I had s2d working on my old 8000 under red hat, but only got s2r working under gentoo (Heresey!!!!)

 

I appears that they do: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=4779906

I have yet to get it to work.  Using gentoo-sources, it simply kernel panics.  I'm not sure if you need to install new patches or what.   :Question:  [/url]

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## xr31Daisy

jmaltais, let us know when you get it working.

I'm using APM, and the clock drift while checking the battery is a PITA.

I'd also really love to have S2D.

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## shiftzero

I have a inspiron8100 - geForce2go.

When building battery and ac of acpi as modules, they segfault when doing modprobe, and when compiled in the kernel, well, ... kernel panic.  :Crying or Very sad: 

BTW, using gaming-sources-r3

if you get them working let us know.

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## jmaltais

 :Very Happy:  Well ladies and gentlemen, ACPI works!!

On my Dell i8000, I just compiled the kernel ac-sources and it worked right out of the box.  Cox uses the latest ACPI drivers so it works great.  Gentoo-sources and deviants on the other hand, have old drivers from 2002.  Enjoy!  :Rolling Eyes: 

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## dmind

ive "succesfully" gentoofied my brothers inspiron 8200   :Cool: 

i use linux-2.4.22_pre2-gss (gs-sources) and bios A10 was A00 but upgraded it (couldnt hurt)

apci works (battery checking), speedstep (emerge -s autospeedstep) sound, i8kutils and the i8kgkrellm-plugin works to.

regarding heat problems, there are none (i think). kernel handels it pretty well, temperature was at one time 65C but on a average around its 60C when it compiles. or do u thinks its to high?

what bios'es are you guys running?

havent tried apm yet. but does the time problem exist in bios v.A10 or is it fixed?

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## bLanark

 *Quote:*   

> ve "succesfully" gentoofied my brothers inspiron 8200 

 

Good on you! 

 *Quote:*   

> apci works (battery checking), speedstep (emerge -s autospeedstep) sound, i8kutils and the i8kgkrellm-plugin works to. 
> 
> regarding heat problems, there are none (i think). kernel handels it pretty well, temperature was at one time 65C but on a average around its 60C when it compiles. or do u thinks its to high? 

 

ACPI? Didn't think it worked well enough. jmaltis reported on the 8000, I imagined that for the 8200 everything would be different enough (I have both, and made several rash assumptions on the 8200 based on my 8000 experience). Did you download a new DSDT table as per http://acpi.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/FixedDsdts (and also see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linux-dell-laptops/message/19926 for how I got there), or did it just *work*. DAK which kernels would support ACPI; I favour gentoo-sources but would consider -ac or vanilla - I don't know what gs sources are yet, btw. 

Temp I've always found has been handled well - much better than my I8000. Generally, I think I'm about ~50 degrees with no fans, YMMV. Instead of fans coming in at max, as the 8000 did, they come on gradually, which is much better. I have had both fans going for it, once, on the 8200, but a much rarer occasion than the I8000. 

I'll have to look into autospeedstep, but I'm happy with the performance anyway, no need to play if I don't need to, eh   :Smile: 

 *Quote:*   

> what bios'es are you guys running? 
> 
> havent tried apm yet. but does the time problem exist in bios v.A10 or is it fixed?
> 
> 

 

I was shipped with A08 and upgraded to A10 to solve an alsa sound driver problem (the OSS one worked fine with Bios A08). I use apm. The battery problem still exists, AFAIK. I use kde all the time, and have to run ntpd - no big deal to me, really, I like an *accurate* clock anyway.

I'm not sure you can have both APM and ACPI at the same time  :Shocked: 

Oh, have you got suspend and resume working  :Razz:   I *really* want that.

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## dmind

 *Quote:*   

> Oh, have you got suspend and resume working  I *really* want that.

 

nope   :Crying or Very sad:   i havent got it to work... and me really want that to work to.

im compiling the ac kernel sources right now, so im gonna play around with it, especially apm and see what happends.

 *Quote:*   

>  Did you download a new DSDT table 

 

no i just compiled the gs sources and  things seems to work, regarding acpi and stuff.

what does DSDT table, fix in the 8200 bios?

i read on the page of DSDT table that it works with bios version A08, what about A10 that i got?

btw there one option [*] CPU Frequency scaling in the ac kernel.

im gonna check this and see if it can save some power.

have anyone tried [*] CPU Frequency scaling before

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## Jimbow

On my i8200 I've got suspend working now with APM using the gs-sources and the modified 3123 nvidia driver and the A10 BIOS.   I could not get suspend to work with with ACPI.

I've also found that my clock drift has drastically reduced.   It is about 10 seconds/day now (with ntpd turned off).   This is not great but acceptable.

I do have a couple of outstanding issues.  The last time I suspended, when it woke up the time was off by about 5 hours (perhaps 5 exactly).    Perhaps there was a local <-> utc conversion going on somewhere.

In addition, when I woke up the temperature reading from /proc/i8k was stuck on 85C even though the CPU was close to room temperature (the air coming out of the fans was cool).    

And finally, the computer was acting really sluggish.  I have a feeling that the CPU performance was completely throttled.

A reboot fixed the i8k problem and the CPU problem.   I didn't have i8k installed as a module.   If I run into this problem again, I'll recompile i8k as a module and then see if reloading it fixes the problem.

Is anyone else interested in working on a Gentoo I8K HOWTO page for the the Gentoo documentation?

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## Jimbow

I am almost always able to suspend and reanimate with no problems.   The time I did have problems was associated with closing the lid.   For some strange reason closing the lid has started doing funny things.   I think it goes into some weird suspend state that doesn't quite work. 

In the BIOS I have the "display close" set to "active active" and have power management turned off.

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