How To: ubuntu natty (11.04) on asus a53s (k53sv family)

[Ench]

Hey cucisan,

Thanks for this thread, it helped me a lot. I have Asus K53SV and I was getting very annoyed by all the things that were not working (explained in this thread) that I was considering going to windows just to relax a little.

I still didn't apply the bumblebee because first I want to try it on a new installation to see how it will act on my machine. Also, the HDD needs to be reformatted so that the sectors are correctly aligned etc. But all at it's time

I was getting the freeze/stuck screen a lot lately, that was my main concern and major drive force for windows. I applied what was explained earlier for the /etc/rc.local file and so far after 24 hours and it works ok.

Thank you and all who are contributing in this thread!

ench

[cucisan]

first of all, the kernel with intel upstream patch from 3.0 seems to work fine.. i also get better speed from the intel card. no freezes for hours while on AC power.

but there is a new problem i noticed with the hardware for me:

when running on battery, the system soon (but not always) will start to lag like hell: typing something gets stuck every now and then, watching a movie from harddisk gets stuck etc... i can hear the harddrive clicking which actually means it tries to park its head but somehow is confused and after some time of heavy lag, the system froze instantly... so maybe this is another cause/only cause of the freezing problem I am currently having..

little bit of explanation and workaround found here

also the WD FAQ mentions disabling power management for some harddrives in certain conditions to let it work "normally"... oh oh... sounds like a complete f*ckup to me.

i came across some reports of clicking/apm issues with this type of hard drive (WD5000BPVT) (mostly windows7).

find out harddrive type without opening the laptop:

sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | grep Model

these are just thoughts based on recent observations.. so as long as nobody can confirm it don't take them to serious i invite you to observe for yourself and maybe we will find a cure

[qmater001]

nice.... looking forward to it.

[qmater001]

Mine is WDC WD6400BPVT-80HXZT1.
did you try disabling "Spin down harddisk when possible" from power management?
since i`m still begginer with linux, could you please provide the commands for upgrading to "the kernel with intel upstream patch from 3." thx

[cucisan]

just download the files from http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~sarvatt/lp761065/natty/.

use the amd64 files on an 64bit install and the i386 files on 32bit install

e.g. 64bit you need these files:
linux-headers-2.6.38-10-generic_2.6.38-10.44+lp761065_amd64.deb
linux-headers-2.6.38-10_2.6.38-10.44+lp761065_all.deb
linux-image-2.6.38-10-generic_2.6.38-10.44+lp761065_amd64.deb

and then install them by double clicking via GUI or open a terminal, change to the directory where the files are and type

sudo dpkg -i linux*.deb

it should rebuild all dkms modules... so the only thing you need to do after reboot is doing the ath9k wlan module thingie again (first post)

as for the harddisk stuff.. didn't have time but will try it soon, you could do these tests too and observe..



P.S. when using the patched kernel, there should be no need for "echo 1 > /sys/module/i915/parameters/semaphores" any longer.

so you can just comment that one out in /etc/rc.local

with natty kernel and semaphore=1 i get ~400fps with

optirun glxgears

, with kernel from the link above and semaphore=0 i get ~800fps and no gfx issues any longer (at least no errors in dmesg ).

but to get the best out of the sandybridge intel card we would need mesa7.11 (natty uses 7.10)... but thats a different and not so easy story

[qmater001]

thx, i`ll try it out.
do u get your coursor jittery if you keep one finger on the touchpad?
if so, i may have a fix for that. at least it worked for me:
http://pkgs.org/download/debian-whee...amd64.deb.html
download and install
but i may say that afterwards i face the touchpad disabling after login, and then i have to go to terminal and
sudo rmmod psmouse && sudo modprobe psmouse

[qmater001]

by the way, isn`t there a patched 2.6.39 ? i noticed some improvements with 2.6.39 compared with 2.6.38.

[qmater001]

well, i did the update... and as a test i did opened firefox, chrome, pidgin, skype, libreoffice at the sime time, and it`s getting laggy, not frozen, but really not going anywhere, hanging and lagging. i still have the original windows on the hdd, but i dont think that`s the issue.
also, any ideea how do i set grup to load default 2.6.38.10 insted of 2.6.39 ?

[cucisan]

todays update should also bring some more stability... although since using the patched kernel i have not a single issue with gfx..

xserver-xorg-video-intel (2:2.14.0-4ubuntu7.1) natty-proposed; urgency=low

  * Add 119_disable_relaxed_fencing.patch: The relaxed fencing
    optimization is suspected as the cause for various i915/945 gpu lockup
    issues.  This disables the optimization by default but adds an
    xorg.conf parameter to let people experiment with it turned on.
    (LP: #727594, #761143, #761632, #755693)

enforcing hdparm -B 254 /dev/sda on battery seems to help.. not a single lockup yesterday... from 9a.m to 24p.m (also no clicking..)

but this produces more heat on the harddrive and also shortens battery life as the harddrive will not go to sleep too often..

qmater: the issue for the small but constant lags is not windows or the windows partition itself, but the partition table which is not aligned to the physical sector boundries of the harddrive! (google: 4k advanced format - this can and will impact performance)
also starting many applications at once will be slow on a notebook harddrive or any harddrive (hello SSD ), but starting to copy something while trying to use firefox (search a huge history on my machine) will get firefox completely stuck for 2-5seconds, which is NOT normal... even on a single core atom netbook (which is so much slower) this never happend to me.

proof: since i repartitioned my whole harddrive.. those constant lags are completely gone! firefox never ever got stuck again, i tested that one very well and this issue is fixed for me - if you believe me or not . the only lags that remained for me was when running on battery (with harddrive clicking, which is due a ****** harddisk firmware -> WD_IntelliPark, wdidle3.exe not working on this harddrive to change the parameters of this) and after some time of heavy lag the system freezed. (when those heavy lags occur.. there is no way out.. the clicking wont stop no matter what you do with hdparm) my guess that those 2 things are related.

yesterday the notebook did not freeze or lag in any way, using the hdparm cmd(see above) when on battery...

will test more the next days.. if the problems are gone for me, i will exchange my harddrive as i want maximum battery performance

[qmater001]

thx for the reply cucisan, but. i dont get any constant lags. On 10.10, i used to boot, and once i was logged in, i just clicked on my "usual apps" (firefox, skype, pidgin, chrome, and libre office), well if i do the same on 11.04, thinks are getting stuck/laggy, to the point where there`s nothing but lag lag lag and the apps will not load (or crash), for minutes, and then i have to restart. if i just open the appes one by one, giving them some time to load until i start the other, then everything works smooth.
i have another hdd so i`ll try to use that one to see if it makes any difference.
and in regars to grub? any ideea how can i set 2.6.38.10 as default to be loaded instead of 2.6.39 ?