W530 freezing on boot when CSM enabled

Question

So, i have this rather strange problem:
While most people encounter issues when they want to boot with UEFI, i can boot UEFI just fine, but am having issues when trying to boot having the Compatibility Support Module (CSM) of my W530 enabled. CSM still boots my Arch via UEFI, but emulates some features of a BIOS system (like running/loading the VGA BIOS). And funny enough, my system only boots if the Firmware is NOT doing this.
I used a pure UEFI boot for quite some time, simply because the CSM is slowing down my boot, and i don't need it for Linux or Windows to work. However, I ran into some problems with the proprietary nvidia-driver lately (not part of this thread) and tried to boot with CSM enabled, to see if it fixes anything.
When i try to boot with CSM enabled, there seems to be a race condition. In rare cases, the system simply boots, but in most cases, the Laptop completely freezes, some time after starting udev (i think). But even if i enable kernel debug messages, the system freezes before showing anything related in the output. The last message from the journal is about starting udev, no error messages seem to be logged. Magic SysRQ does not work either.
Has anyone of you experienced a similar problem?
Can someone tell me a bit more specific what the CSM of a Lenovo W530 does? Maybe I can disable a few modules for troubleshooting?
And what would be a good way to debug the boot process, if everyhting is freezing? I could think of disabling udev, and listing modules statically, but how do i know which modules are required?
Thanks in advance for helping.

Answer 1

Gigadoc 2 wrote:
So, i have this rather strange problem:
While most people encounter issues when they want to boot with UEFI, i can boot UEFI just fine, but am having issues when trying to boot having the Compatibility Support Module (CSM) of my W530 enabled. CSM still boots my Arch via UEFI, but emulates some features of a BIOS system (like running/loading the VGA BIOS). And funny enough, my system only boots if the Firmware is NOT doing this.
I used a pure UEFI boot for quite some time, simply because the CSM is slowing down my boot, and i don't need it for Linux or Windows to work. However, I ran into some problems with the proprietary nvidia-driver lately (not part of this thread) and tried to boot with CSM enabled, to see if it fixes anything.
When i try to boot with CSM enabled, there seems to be a race condition. In rare cases, the system simply boots, but in most cases, the Laptop completely freezes, some time after starting udev (i think). But even if i enable kernel debug messages, the system freezes before showing anything related in the output. The last message from the journal is about starting udev, no error messages seem to be logged. Magic SysRQ does not work either.
Has anyone of you experienced a similar problem?
Can someone tell me a bit more specific what the CSM of a Lenovo W530 does? Maybe I can disable a few modules for troubleshooting?
And what would be a good way to debug the boot process, if everyhting is freezing? I could think of disabling udev, and listing modules statically, but how do i know which modules are required?
Thanks in advance for helping.
I am on a pure UEFI setup with secure boot disabled. I have a T530.
I cannot boot the discrete card (remember, the T530 has a different nvidia card nowhere near as good as yours) without a kernel panic occuring at EXACTLY the same point you mention. If I add 'noapic' to the kernel line, it boots fine on the discrete card. My DPI settings are all wacked out then though (compared to using the intel card). I have no issues with the discrete card using bumblebee (except that it sucks ).
I dont think my info really helps you, but I figured id mention it in case it gives you any clue. Let me know if you want me to try something..
Last edited by GSF1200S (2014-01-18 00:32:19)