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Adding a USB port to the ThinkPad X1 Nano (the hard way)

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Re: Adding a USB port to the ThinkPad X1 Nano (the hard way)

#61

Post by xarope »

dTal wrote: post #44
Rinzler89 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I reflashed the BIOS to kill the whitelist Still boggles my mind that people praise ThinkPads as an option for those looking for repairability and upgradability while casually talking about the built-in BIOS whitelist designed to block all that. To me that means an instant black ball. It's cool hackers are patching this out, but this anti-consumer feature should not be present in the first place in something people…

Everything's relative. Sure, the BIOS whitelist is a serious mark in the "bad" column. In the "good" column, my daily driver is a Frankenpad made from a T480 with the 7-row keyboard from a T25, the 500 nit screen and glass touchpad from an X1 Carbon gen 6, a 2TB SSD upgrade, a 32GB RAM upgrade (two slots! I could even have had 64) and a magnesium lid for kicks. There is no other laptop brand with this many options fo…

>>> my daily driver is a Frankenpad made from a T480 with the 7-row keyboard from a T25

you can't just say this without giving us more details... MOAR!

Re: Adding a USB port to the ThinkPad X1 Nano (the hard way)

#62

Post by Rinzler89 »

Wuzado wrote: post #53
utensil4778 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you feel about the Intel management engine, which is a permanent backdoor with total hardware access which is fundamentally impossible to remove? Or AMD's equivalent, or NVIDIA's proprietary driver blobs, or the closed and un-auditable firmware on every computer ever? Nobody is selling computers that are fully open. Even Framework uses a closed firmware. In our modern capitalist hellscape, you sometimes have t…

While YMMV, some smaller companies and manufacturers offer boards based on ARM or RISC-V cores. Consider checking out the MNT Reform - likely one of the closest computers that while a bit impractical, fills the openness criteria.

Modern ARM designs destined for computing are alo coming with management engine like features, just like Intel and AMD, plus other obscure silicone features and proprietary FW blobs, even more so than Intel and AMD, like DSPs, ISPs, etc.

If you want non-obscure HW you'll have to go back to pre-microcode days of processors roll out your own.

Re: Adding a USB port to the ThinkPad X1 Nano (the hard way)

#63

Post by nemosaltat »

derefr wrote: post #46
nemosaltat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that sounds silly, while working in commercial construction in Los Angeles, we encountered pushback for placing UL-listed devices in a UL-listed enclosure. The city determined that to be a “new assembly” and required UL listing for the entire unit. UL has a category for this situation; the enclosure is “UL recognized” because all of the devices and the enclosure are UL-listed. Their proposed solution, which UL was…

I assume you know this, but depending on what the enclosure was made of, what frequencies the devices inside were broadcasting at, and where you placed them inside, you could very well have accidentally produced a resonating chamber, parabolic antenna emitter, or other type of structural frequency-specific gain-boosting mechanism. They likely wanted to just make sure that you hadn't done that. (And to do that, they h…

In this particular case, it was a guest room control solution consisting of DIN rail mounted TRIAC dimmers 0-10V dimmers and other line-voltage & dry contact relays. Backbone was an RS485, 4-conductor bus. Yes, those components can produce various harmonica and frequencies, however they were tested extensively in a lab in various configurations. Each configuration varies slightly based on room layouts and number of zones, and obtaining UL-listing for every possible permutation becomes ridiculous (IMO).

Re: Adding a USB port to the ThinkPad X1 Nano (the hard way)

#64

Post by nemosaltat »

gamblor956 wrote: post #27
nemosaltat wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that sounds silly, while working in commercial construction in Los Angeles, we encountered pushback for placing UL-listed devices in a UL-listed enclosure. The city determined that to be a “new assembly” and required UL listing for the entire unit. UL has a category for this situation; the enclosure is “UL recognized” because all of the devices and the enclosure are UL-listed. Their proposed solution, which UL was…

TBH that doesn't sound ridiculous at all. "UL recognized" is not the same thing as "UL listed." The former means that the assembly is assumed to meet UL specifications; the second means that it has been inspected by UL and confirmed that the assembly actually does meet specifications. Making sure that things meet specifications is the entire point of the building department's inspections.

I acknowledged that in my comment. Part of my point here is that UL is not exactly a disinterested 3rd-party when it comes to endorsing additional layers of certification.

Re: Adding a USB port to the ThinkPad X1 Nano (the hard way)

#68

Post by timonoko »

prmoustache wrote: post #65

I am a simple guy, I would have just attached a usb-hub with velcro on my laptop.

Also now that we are modifying hardware and 3d-printing, one could make USB-4 hub which is practically invisible. And because we want to use some particular RF-mouse, we can also strip that dongle and insert it inside this selfmade hub, making it even smaller.

Re: Adding a USB port to the ThinkPad X1 Nano (the hard way)

#69

Post by prmoustache »

timonoko wrote: post #68
prmoustache wrote: post #65

I am a simple guy, I would have just attached a usb-hub with velcro on my laptop.

Also now that we are modifying hardware and 3d-printing, one could make USB-4 hub which is practically invisible. And because we want to use some particular RF-mouse, we can also strip that dongle and insert it inside this selfmade hub, making it even smaller.

There was a video by Jon Bringus integrating a usb hub on his prison's laptop:

https://youtu.be/5KjDIlxc59s

Re: Adding a USB port to the ThinkPad X1 Nano (the hard way)

#70

Post by numpad0 »

gsich wrote: post #52
numpad0 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all of it. It's a feature in BIOS, and commercial BIOS is sourced from Phoenix, AMI, Insyde, etc. It's like asking which car brand use Brembo disc brakes. It's up to designers and model dependent.

That wasn't the question. I only know of Lenovo Thinkpads doing this heinous act. They only do it there, on the cheap-ass notebooks they don't care.

You've only heard on ThinkPad having it because it's most easily encountered problem. HP, Dell, ASUS, Fujitsu, Toshiba, VAIO, ... they all have it in some models and not on others. But Dell users don't swear by their Inspirons or maintain LatitudeWiki.

White-box suppliers/resellers like Clevo or Walmart, or more recent entries like Microsoft, Huawei, Razer, Valve, etc might not have it across the lineup. Whitelist feature also invites people break root of trust; that might be an alternate concern for those brands too.

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