Lenovo ThinkPad X200 - ArchWiki

# Lenovo ThinkPad X200

The Lenovo ThinkPad X200 is a high-quality laptop featuring a 12.1" widescreen WXGA display, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (2.26 - 2.66GHz), an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD and up to 8GB of RAM whilst still maintaining impressive battery life.

## Configuration

### Wireless

The ThinkPad X200 has a Intel PRO/Wireless 5100/5300 AGN wireless adapter, supported by linux-firmware.

If you experience connectivity problems such as a slow connection or aborts, especially when connected to a WPA2 Enterprise network, then try to load the iwlwifi module with the options `11n_disable=1`, `11n_disable=2`, `swcrypto=1`, `bt_coex_active=0`. There is no clear recommendation which of these options to be used as for some users `11n_disable=1` already solves the problem sufficiently, for others `bt_coex_active=0`. See Wireless_network_configuration#iwlwifi for more detailed instructions.

### TrackPoint

See TrackPoint.

### Fingerprint Reader

The fingerprint reader that is found in the X200/X200T is not supported.

See fprint for more information.

### Disable bluetooth at boot

See Power saving#Bluetooth.

### Hard Disk shock protection

The ThinkPad X200 comes with an integrated 2-axis accelerometer providing the possibility of parking the hard drive's disk heads preventing from data loss due to heavy shocks. See HDAPS for details. It may be necessary to set correct invert parameter.

### Mute button

If the mute button on your keyboard is not working, then be sure to add acpi_osi="Linux" to your boot parameter in /etc/default/grub.

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet acpi_osi=Linux"

### Screen calibration

If you experience your stylus to be working very imprecisely, then you might need to calibrate it first. Install xinput_calibrator and run the following command:

    # xinput_calibrator --device "Serial Wacom Tablet WACf004 stylus"

After calibration you need to create the file called `/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-calibration.conf` with the settings provided by xinput_calibrator.

### Loading the correct ICC colour profile

Download x200.icc and move it to `~/.color/icc`. Load the profile with xcalib as follows:

    $ /usr/bin/xcalib -d :0 ~/.color/icc/x200.icc

### Screen rotation

Note: Commands like xmodmap, xev, showkey, dmesg, setkeycodes can help you. See Extra keyboard keys for details.

The screen rotation hardware button does not work by default. To enable it, the button must first be assigned to a freekey code. To find a free keycode for use, try using the command `xmodmap -pke | less`.

Keycodes can be mapped to hardware buttons during the boot process via a systemd config file such as the one shown below.

    /etc/systemd/system/setkeycodes.service

    [Unit]
    Description=Assign each hardware button to a free keycode on boot

    [Service]
    Type=oneshot
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/setkeycodes 0x67 184 0x6c 185 0x68 186 0x66 187

    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target

After successfully mapping a keycode to a hardware button, it can then be utilized with a script similar to the one below.

    /usr/local/bin/screen_rotation.sh

    #!/bin/sh

    # Find the line in "xrandr -q --verbose" output that contains current screen orientation and "strip" out current orientation.
    rotation="$(xrandr -q --verbose | grep 'connected' | egrep -o  '\) (normal|left|inverted|right) \(' | egrep -o '(normal|left|inverted|right)')"

    # Using current screen orientation proceed to rotate screen and input tools.
    case "$rotation" in
        normal)
        # rotate to the left
        xrandr -o left
        xsetwacom set "Serial Wacom Tablet WACf004 stylus" rotate ccw
        xsetwacom set "Serial Wacom Tablet WACf004 eraser" rotate ccw
        ;;
        left)
        # rotate to normal
        xrandr -o normal
        xsetwacom set "Serial Wacom Tablet WACf004 stylus" rotate none
        xsetwacom set "Serial Wacom Tablet WACf004 eraser" rotate none
        ;;
    esac

The assignment of the keycode to the script depends on the currently installed desktop environment. For Gnome, the assignment can be easily done in the custom shortcuts section of the Keyboard preferences.

If you are using another desktop environment (such as XFCE, LXDE, Fluxbox, etc) you can always use the program xbindkeys.

### Screen auto-rotation

The auto-rotation of the screen does not work by default. First you have to install the HDAPS package so as to get the values worked out by the integrated 2-axis accelerometer of the Thinkpad X200. Then the following script will enable you to use the accelerometer's data to automatically rotate your screen :

    #!/bin/bash

    # (To have the exact names of these devices you should type the command : xsetwacom --list devices )
    stylus="Serial Wacom Tablet stylus"
    eraser="Serial Wacom Tablet eraser"

    function rotate {
        if [ $# -lt 1 ]; then  # error ...
    	exit 1
        fi

        case "$1" in
            up)
                nextRotate="none"
                nextOrient="normal" ;;
            down)
                nextRotate="half"
                nextOrient="inverted" ;;
    	right)
                nextRotate="ccw"
                nextOrient="left" ;;
    	left)
                nextRotate="cw"
                nextOrient="right";;
        esac

        # Rotate the screen
        xrandr -o $nextOrient

        # Rotate the tablet
        xsetwacom set "$stylus" Rotate $nextRotate
        xsetwacom set "$eraser" Rotate $nextRotate
    }

    while true; do
        # 1) We extract data about the actual position
        position=$(cat /sys/devices/platform/hdaps/position)
        x=$(echo $position | sed -n "s/(\([-0-9]*\),\([-0-9]*\).*)/\1/p") # most of time contained in [350,650]
        y=$(echo $position | sed -n "s/(\([-0-9]*\),\([-0-9]*\).*)/\2/p") # most of time contained in [-650,-350]

        # 2) We work out the x value (= left and right inclination) (always between
        if [ $x -lt 400 ]; then
    	rotate left
        elif [ $x -gt 600 ]; then
    	rotate right
        fi

        # 3) We work out the y value (= front and back inclination)
        if [ $y -gt -400 ]; then
    	rotate down
        elif [ $y -lt -600 ]; then
    	rotate up
        fi

        # 4) wait before checking the value again
        sleep 0.5
    done

Then you can run this script at the startup in order to make your screen automatically rotate when you need it. For instance, you can use the file ~/.fluxbox/startup on fluxbox, or the command : gnome-session-properties if you are using Gnome 3).

### Power consumption and fan control

Note: There is a useful blog post describing possible measures to reduce power consumption of a X200T to almost 7 Watt.

To set up an efficient power saving environment, install the tlp package. A detailed guide how to implement a simplistic power saving environment based upon TLP can be found here.

Fan-control software can be used to further reduce power consumption. The tpfanco-svn package from AUR provides a simplistic GTK GUI for setting up fan activation thresholds based upon the X200's multiple hardware sensors.

To measure your systems power consumption, see Powertop and the powerstat-git package from AUR.

See Power saving for additional tips.

### Suspend to RAM / hibernate

Suspend to ram and hibernation is fully supported. See Suspend and hibernate for more information.

### BIOS WiFi-Whitelist Removal

Warning: Modifying your system's firmware can be rewarding but it is also very dangerous. Please do not modify your system's firmware unless you know what you are doing.

Like most ThinkPads, the X200(s) / X200T has an FCC enforced whitelist for wireless cards. This means if a third party wireless card is installed via Mini PCIe or PCMCIA slot, the system will not boot. However, there are many individuals who modify and distribute whitelist-free BIOS updates online.

The whitelist-free BIOS for the X200(s) can be found here and the whitelist-free BIOS for the X200T can be found here.

Make sure the BIOS version the system is running matches the cracked version being distributed.

For more information about BIOS flashing and system firmware, please see Flashing_BIOS_from_Linux.

### Coreboot / Libreboot

Warning: Modifying your system's firmware can be rewarding but it is also very dangerous. Please do not modify your system's firmware unless you know what you are doing.
Note: The following information is only valid for the ThinkPad X200, NOT the X200T or X200s.

Coreboot is a fast and flexible open source firmware solution to replace the system BIOS. The ThinkPad X200 is fully supported by Coreboot and good documentation can be found at the Libreboot project's official website.

For more information on the Libreboot project, see Gluglug's official website.

## Troubleshooting

### failed to execute '/usr/sbin/inputattach'

If you see the above error in your logs, copy `/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/70-wacom.rules` to `/etc/udev/rules.d/70-wacom.rules` and comment out SUBSYSTEM of inputattach.

### System feels unresponsive

If your system feels unresponsive and lagging, you can try creating a file called `/etc/modprobe.d/drm_kms.conf`:

    options drm_kms_helper poll=N

### Backlight fails to activate after system resume

On rare occasions the backlight may not activate after resuming. See Problem with display remaining black after resume for possible workarounds.

### PM device: Resume from hibernation error: Failed to restore -19

This is likely to be related to the tpm_tis and tpm modules not being properly unloaded before hibernation. These modules are required by the device listed in the error as 00:0a:

    # dmesg | grep 00:0a
    [    0.377877] pnp 00:0a: Plug and Play ACPI device, IDs PNP0c31 (active)
    [   10.746742] tpm_tis 00:0a: 1.2 TPM (device-id 0x1020, rev-id 6)
    [   10.746751] tpm_tis 00:0a: Intel iTPM workaround enabled
    [   10.866734] tpm_tis 00:0a: TPM is disabled/deactivated (0x6)

To unload the module create the following executable file called `/usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/tpm.sh`, assuming the use of the systemd hibernation procedure:

    #!/bin/sh
    case $1/$2 in
      pre/*)
        echo "Going to $2..."
        modprobe -r tpm
        modprobe -r tpm_tis
        ;;
      post/*)
        echo "Waking up from $2..."
        modprobe tpm
        modprobe tpm_tis
        ;;
    esac

### mei_me 0000:00:03.0: suspend

If you are seeing this error, a workaround is to blacklist the `mei` and `mei_me` modules. More information can be found here.

### pciehp 0000:00:1c.1:pcie04: Cannot add device at 0000:03:00

See #mei_me 0000:00:03.0: suspend.

### Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 30.

The Thinkpad X200 is known to report the following error on resume from hibernation or suspension:

    Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 30.
    Dazed and confused, but trying to continue
    Do you have a strange power saving mode enabled?

In this case you can disable the high precision event timer (HPET) by adding "nohpet" to your GRUB kernel parameter line.

### High pitched noises

The X200(s) is prone to high pitched, low volume noises originating from the CPU, usually in low power scenarios. One proved solution to this is to disable CPU power control in the BIOS.

High pitched noises may also be emitted from the display's inverter board on CCFL models. This is normal behavior and may or may not be present depending on how much energy your display draws.

For more information see [1].

## See also

- Thinkwiki: X200 Overview
- ThinkWiki: How to reduce power consumption
- Example installation procedure for X200s

Category:

- Lenovo