Problem with lm-sensors
Information about the problem of lm_sensors corrupting the eeprom of Thinkpads.
Problem description
lm_sensors prior to 2.6.5 caused the corruption of the Thinkpad's AT24RF08 EEPROM, leading to the Thinkpad not being bootable anymore. The common error on the affected models was:
POST ERROR 188 - EEPROM CRC ERROR
or for the Thinkpad 240:
0188: Invalid RFID Serialization Area
Also affected is glms (GNOME LM-Sensors).
Affected Models
Affected Operating Systems
- Linux, all flavours
Status
It is known that the corruption was caused during the execution of sensors-detect and it is also known that it is the specific Atmel 24RF08 eeprom that is affected.
Hence the developers of lm_sensors included a Thinkpad detection routine into the software starting from 2.6.5 and published this readme. If you try to run sensors-detect on a Thinkpad it just quits with an error message, protecting your Thinkpads eeprom.
However, even though even the inner workings that cause the eeprom to get corrupted seem to be known, it seems impossible to avoid it and make lm_sensors work at the same time.
Currently it is unclear if newer Thinkpad models are affected or not.
Solutions
Use ibm-acpi to gather information about processor temperature and the like. All the interesting Thinkpad I2C buses are not accessible to the host CPU, anyway. The embedded controller takes care of them.
