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Comment by winrid | Hacker News Reader

I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug.

No reset can fix it. They have to replace the motherboard. They had it four months before I finally got them to just replace the machine.

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> I got an X1 Extreme, went to switch the graphics from Hybrid to Discreet in the BIOS to install Linux, and immediately bricked it. It was a bug.

See, you should have picked the "Discrete" option instead. Happens to the best of us!

(Apparently there is a workaround where you can remove the hard disk from the machine to make it easier to enter BIOS, then trigger the "Reset to factory defaults" and "Save and exit" options by blindly pressing the right key sequence on the keyboard. It might or might not work for anyone experiencing this.)

Hahaha. What a typo.

I didn't know about the workaround. The repair facility didn't either, evidently.

It wouldn't even show anything on the screen, or light up the keyboard caps lock etc...

Same happened to me. They had to come twice, first time repare service came they had the wrong motherboard. Worst ever laptop ordering experience I had in my life, after more than 20 years of Thinkpad usage. Still sitting on the X1E Gen 1 - afraid to order a new one. I would absolutely like to go to another brand, does anyone have a suggestion? My requirements are:

1) Optimal Linux support (no Nvidia please)

2) Best possible US layout keyboard, centred, i.e. NO numpads

3) Trackpoint with physical buttons below, optimally 3, could live with 2

4) At least 15 inch screen, bright enough to work outside, and as good as possible to the eyes.

5) Option for 64 GB RAM or more

6) Option for 4 TB SSD or more

7) As much autonomy on battery as possible, as few noise and heat as possible.

8) Nice to have, but not crucial, would be repairability and extendability.

I don't care much about CPU power and prefer less power to heat and throttling. So if somebody has any suggestions, I would be very glad.

If a trackpoint is a hard requirement then you have very few options to choose from.

That's true, but I would like to know if there's a way to find laptops that have Trackpoints (or whatever they are named on different brands [1]). My experience is that there were different brands that had some models at some point in time (HP, Toshiba, Dell, Fujitsu), but don't even mention it on the website, and from one generation to the other they decide to remove or to add them. I would happily go with Dell or some other brand if I knew how to chase for all the requirements above.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick

Their entire graphics setup on the X1 and P1 laptops is atrocious, and I've definitely bitched about it here before. Basically, you can't turn off GPU without loosing the external HDMI, so you need to leave it on if you use an external monitor. But that eats battery. And you can't easily turn the GPU on/off whenever you "go mobile" - it requires an Xorg restart. There's some software crap you can do (Bumblebee? Primus?) that works on some distros but it's a total pain in the ass on others. There isn't a clear consensus on which to use either, and I haven't found a single sane set of instructions for it anyway. Avoid avoid avoid.

Isn't it the way Intel designed their reference motherboard?

No idea. All I know it's that the HDMI is hardwired to the NVIDIA on these Lenovo laptops. I don't think it has to be this way. Surely that Intel integrated graphics chip is capable of driving an external HDMI? Perhaps what they should have don't was make the hardware of the port switchable. Even a physical switch would have done.

It's so that you can drive more monitors than a single GPU supports. For example, my T430 with discrete graphics could drive 4 monitors simultaneously while the iGPU model was limited to 2 (3 unofficially).

It became so annoying at one point that I just replaced the motherboard with the iGPU version. Apparently now nvidia optimus support on Linux is improving somewhat, but having had to deal with this and other issues for years, I'm probably never getting an nvidia GPU again unless I absolutely have to.

If they broke the ability to easily connect 1x monitor in the attempt to support more than 3x monitors, I don't know what to say. The needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few.

Honestly, I bought my X1 Extreme Gen2 explicitly for the Nvidia GPU. Having had trouble to get multiple external monitors to work, along the integrated display, I run it basically since day one with the Intel GPU deactivated in Bios. My understanding is that, besides the fingerprint reader, dual GPUs are the main problem regarding Linux on that machine. If so, I don't care. Not that I had the time trying it out so yet.

Absolutely agree with you. Still suffering from it. Worst and most expensive experience since more than 20 years of ThinkPads. I was buying ThinkPads for the good linux support, the keyboard, the Trackpoint, the excellent repairability and extendability. Last year august ordered the P1 Gen 3 without Nvidia, after being delayed for more than 2 months and I had to go on travel, cancelled it. In hindsight it was good to cancel, the gen 3 apparently has the same heat problems. Maybe the gen 4 will be better, however already now is known that key travel has been shortened. If there would be another brand that fullfils my requirements, would switch in a heartbeat.

Hmm, about two years ago I bought an X1 5 gen, it had horrible Linux support.. as in it just didn't work properly. So I sent it back for refund, that was no problem.

I'll say this: I respect Lenovo customer service.

No 15% restocking fee? Lucky you. Every one of my Lenovo customer service interactions made me regret my purchase.

Restocking fee must be some US only concept. At least that won't fly in EU.

Any idea if the accidental damage protection in the EU covers has international coverage? Probably the most annoying thing about Lenovo is that all their insurance partners are different depending on which region you buy their devices from.

Nope, no idea. I would cover accidental damage through my house/travel insurance.

Linux support usually improves in ~6-12 months after release. It is just a reality with how Linux kernel development process works - it takes some time for drivers to be accepted upstream and then for kernel to be released and propagate to distros.

However, this is good thing in my book compared to usual vendor "lol idk lets just outsource development of crappy drivers to lowest bidder and preinstall them on Windows (and also put bunch of workarounds for broken bios/fw there because it is cheaper than actually fixing and updating any of the firmware blobs)". Case the point - my X1C g6 now works quite well with Linux but I had some troubles initially when i bought it.

Interesting. I nearly got an X1E, but really didnt want a 15" model.

I actually got a Razer blade stealth instead. Despite the massive complaints about batteries (and im still in the window of it not affecting me) I have been happy. It works fine with linux, and has all the graphics chips i could want. I can switch to windows to quickly play some kerbal and back to linux for daily work.

That said i did have to go with a new-ish version of Ubuntu and a couple of the other distros I was using on my x200s (including Elementary OS) just flat didnt work.

But i assume thats more the 11th gen intel and drivers, especially Iris more than anything.

Is there no way to reset the BIOS in a semi-dead mode? I seem to recall some Lenovo laptops had a mechanism where you detached both battery and AC, and then pressed the power button for like 20+ seconds or something like that, and it would reset some settings. Did you try anything like that?

Others have a «router-like» reset button which you shove a paperclip into. I’ve seen it on at least one X1 yoga.

Neither of these would work. Even Lenovo said you have to replace the board (probably just a chip on the board but they replace the whole thing).

Lenovo's BIOS setting is infamous for that. I once disabled built-in camera and it was bricked.

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