Continued From: https://startrek.website/post/13283869 https://startrek.website/post/14075369

I managed to fix the one biggest gripe about my Thinkpad E16: the RTL8852BE Wi-Fi controller randomly dropping out. I actually found this a few days ago, but I had forgotten where I put the file I had edited. You put a file in modprobe.d called 70-rtw89.conf. Both /etc/modprobe.d/ and /usr/lib/modprobe.d work - I used the latter, but for the sake of conventions, you should probably use the former.

You then put in these options for the rtw89 module: options rtw89_pci disable_clkreq=y disable_aspm_l1=y disable_aspm_l1ss=y

Now, my Thinkpad is a fully functional Linux laptop. I will be docking it to an 8 from my initial score of 8.5, but I’m back to liking it for now. If you apply the fix, be sure to update the firmware as well - some older distros have an old version that works but returns a lot of journalctl error on this card.

Update: What do you know! The updated firmware-realtek just went into backports!

Thanks, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-oem-6.1/+bug/2017277

    • noddy@beehaw.org
      4·
      3 months ago

      A lot of the modern thinkpads have the wifi module soldered to the motherboard nowadays unfortunately. Sad that they would use these crappy realtek cards in the first place as well.

      • data1701d (He/Him)@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        According to the repair manual, my Wi-Fi card is actually replaceable, at least physically. I don’t know if Lenovo still does BIOS whitelists of cards like they used to (I think they did remove it a few years back.), but their OEM parts website has a diverse selection if this fix were ever to break.

        I’d say other than the bottom being a bother to remove (and the keyboard not being designed to be replaced, though after some research, it seems possible), this is a surprisingly repairable laptop for how recent it it.

        • noddy@beehaw.org
          1·
          3 months ago

          Oh that’s good then. I think they stopped using whitelists a while ago, so if it is slotted you can probably replace it with anything. Maybe they reversed course on soldered modules then, or perhaps it only applied to some models. I looked into specs of the T16 at some point, and that one had soldered wifi module.