XO 1.75 11089 Fix
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Version Q4B05 of Open Firmware for the XO 1.75 B1 laptop had a bug (<trac>11089</trac>) which causes the laptops to boot up with a white screen if it has been ten days since their manufacture, or if the RTC battery is removed. The symptom is a white screen (nothing on it) on boot.
The Fix
Fortunately, the fix to this is simple (yet tedious):
- Disassemble the laptop to access the motherboard (the heat spreader does not have to be removed).
- Plug in a serial cable (see below), and a USB key with Q4B06 or later.
- Attach the serial cable/adapter to another computer, and configure a terminal emulation program on this other computer to access the serial adapter at 115200 baud, 8 bits, No parity, 1 stop bit.
- Boot the laptop. It should print out a boot sequence over the serial port, ending in Unrecognized SPI Flash ID. It should then provide an ok prompt. If at this point, it stops somewhere else or doesn't provide a prompt (like after Releasing) you have another problem. Please contact wad.
- Type "dir u:" in the terminal program to initialize the USB stack.
- Type "flash u:\q4b06.rom". When the laptop finishes reflashing and returns an ok, either reboot (type "bye") or poweroff the laptop.
- Reassemble
Finding the Serial Port
You will need an XO serial adapter designed for use with XO 1.5's or higher (which also work with XO-1's). The serial port to use is UART3 (CN8). There is a chart showing the location, and this photo:
