Lenovo ThinkPad X201

The X201 is a 4-core subnotebook produced by Lenovo. See Thinkwiki for specifications.

Device Working
Intel graphics Yes
Network Yes
Wireless Yes
ALSA Yes
Touchpad Yes
Bluetooth Yes
Webcam Yes
Card reader Yes
Power management Limited

Configuration

Prevent LID switch from waking up

/etc/tmpfiles.d/disable-lid-wakeup.conf
w /proc/acpi/wakeup - - - - LID

Fbsplash

To make fbsplash work, i915 has to be added to the modules array in mkinitcpio.conf:

/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
MODULES="i915"

Power saving

Warning: These options may cause system instabilities. Remove them if experiencing problems.

Add the i915_enable_rc6=1 and i915_enable_fbc=1 kernel parameters to make use of power saving mechanismens turned off by default because of reported instabilities.

Troubleshooting

Overheating

There are some discussions concerning overheating-related shutdowns when running under full load (video encoding, etc) ([1] [2]).

Thinkpad Fan Control contains instructions to install tpfand as a custom replacement for hardware (bios-) fan control.

Warning: Wrong settings may damage your machine! Use with caution!

Start tpfan-admin and adjust the settings (by clicking on the sensor's graph). You should split the graph (via context menu) and set the fan to full-speed when the sensor reaches, say, 65 °C. You may also edit the config file directly.

Alternatively, use the following thinkfanAUR configuration [3]:

/etc/thinkfan.conf
#X201 user specific
#lvl    low     up      RPM
(0,    0,      47)     # 0
(1,    42,     57)     # 2000
(2,    44,     59)     # 3300
(3,    50,     65)     # 3500
(4,    54,     70)     # 3500
(5,    60,     73)     # 3800
(6,    62,     83)     # 3800
(7,    65,     88)     # 4300
(127,  70,     32767)  # 5300

One can use cpupower to control frequency scaling; see Cpufrequtils for more information.

Undervolting is not possible with the intel core iX cpu.

No speaker output

Try pressing the mute button (beside the Escape key). See this article for details.

Known issues

ACPI

After suspension, an EC IRQ may hang in the queue causing all functions keys to stop working until cold boot. [4] Other issues include the yellow USB port not being powered.