[Lenovo X230s] Jumpy cursor with TPPS/2 IBM Trackpoint

[Po-Hsu Lin]

CID: 201301-12655 Lenovo X230S

Steps:
1. Install 12.04.3 and boot to desktop.
2. Try to control coursor with the trackpoint (TPPS/2 IBM Trackpoint)

Expected result:
Cursor could be controlled smoothly by using the trackpoint.

Actual result:
Cursor jumping around, if try to move it vertically / horizontally, it will move toward that direction and jumping in a zig-zag pattern.

Please find attachment for xinput list-props, xev and evtest result.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: linux-image-3.8.0-29-generic 3.8.0-29.42~precise1 [modified: boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-29-generic]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-29.42~precise1-generic 3.8.13.5
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Sep 18 04:06:34 2013
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20130820.1)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: linux-lts-raring
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
---
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version k3.8.0-29-generic.
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.4
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC269VC Analog [ALC269VC Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ubuntu 1488 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'PCH'/'HDA Intel PCH at 0x91530000 irq 45'
   Mixer name : 'Intel PantherPoint HDMI'
   Components : 'HDA:10ec0269,17aa2209,00100203 HDA:80862806,80860101,00100000'
   Controls : 29
   Simple ctrls : 11
Card29.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:29 'ThinkPadEC'/'ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw unknown'
   Mixer name : 'ThinkPad EC (unknown)'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 1
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card29.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Console',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [on]
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=aaf763fb-e63c-4989-84ce-9270713c69a5
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20130820.1)
MachineType: LENOVO 20AG0C1
MarkForUpload: True
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-29-generic root=UUID=d0749200-545f-434c-81df-90c494ea4f04 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-29.42~precise1-generic 3.8.13.5
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.8.0-29-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.8.0-29-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.79.6
Tags: precise running-unity
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-29-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
dmi.bios.date: 02/18/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: GGET15WW (1.03 )
dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available
dmi.board.name: 20AG0C1
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Defined
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrGGET15WW(1.03):bd02/18/2013:svnLENOVO:pn20AG0C1:pvrThinkPadX230s:rvnLENOVO:rn20AG0C1:rvrNotDefined:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 20AG0C1
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X230s
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

Tested with Left->Right->Up->Down

[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

It's hard to contorl the cursor, the cursor didn't enter the inner square.

[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Po-Hsu Lin (cypressyew)]

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[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Anthony Wong (anthonywong)]

I am checking with QA if this issue also happens in 12.04.2.

[Alex Wen (ronglu-wen)]

The older image sutton-precise-amd64-20130312-1 exists the issue but the latest image sutton-precise-amd64-20131015-0 TPPS/2 IBM Trackpoint works well.

[Hui Wang (hui.wang)]

From the evtest.log in the comment #2, we saw lots of big coordinate value change, this definitely can make the cursor jumpy.
Event: time 1379494502.606841, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -232
Event: time 1379494502.606841, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value -24
Event: time 1379494502.606841, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1379494502.636533, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -232
Event: time 1379494502.636533, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value -24
Event: time 1379494502.636533, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1379494502.666019, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -232
Event: time 1379494502.666019, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value -24
Event: time 1379494502.666019, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1379494502.703971, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -232
Event: time 1379494502.703971, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value -24
Event: time 1379494502.703971, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1379494502.754022, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -232
Event: time 1379494502.754022, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value -24
Event: time 1379494502.754022, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------

When i run this test on a normal machine, the change of coordinate is very small and smooth:

u@X240s2:~/alsa-utils-0.9.4$ sudo evtest /dev/input/event12
[sudo] password for u:
Input driver version is 1.0.1
Input device ID: bus 0x11 vendor 0x2 product 0xa version 0x0
Input device name: "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint"
Supported events:
  Event type 0 (EV_SYN)
  Event type 1 (EV_KEY)
    Event code 272 (BTN_LEFT)
    Event code 273 (BTN_RIGHT)
    Event code 274 (BTN_MIDDLE)
  Event type 2 (EV_REL)
    Event code 0 (REL_X)
    Event code 1 (REL_Y)
Testing ... (interrupt to exit)
Event: time 1381978204.580973, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value 1
Event: time 1381978204.580975, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1381978204.715128, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value 1
Event: time 1381978204.715130, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1381978205.170376, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -1
Event: time 1381978205.170379, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1381978205.195733, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -1
Event: time 1381978205.195735, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value -1
Event: time 1381978205.195736, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1381978205.237546, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -1
Event: time 1381978205.237549, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1381978205.247205, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -2
Event: time 1381978205.247207, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value -1
Event: time 1381978205.247208, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1381978205.257781, type 2 (EV_REL), code 1 (REL_Y), value -1
Event: time 1381978205.257783, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1381978205.267328, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -1
Event: time 1381978205.267331, -------------- SYN_REPORT ------------
Event: time 1381978205.276894, type 2 (EV_REL), code 0 (REL_X), value -2
Event: time 1381978205.276898, type 2 (...

[Hui Wang (hui.wang)]

The last 13 lines in the comment #27 belong to the evtest.log of malfunction machine instead of the normal machine.

[Hui Wang (hui.wang)]

This problem includes two situations, one is the jumpy cursor with Trackpoint, another is the trackpoint totally doesn't work.

This problem will randomly happen on both lenovo x230s and lenovo x240s with ubuntu Linux installed (any version).

And on both machines, i kept the ubuntu rootfs and replaced the ubuntu linux kernel with upstream latest kernel, linux-3.8, linux-3.5, linux-3.0 and linux-2.6.38, the result didn't change, the problem still happened randomly.

Then on the x230s, i installed windows7 home basic edition, CentOS-6.4-x86_64, openSUSE-12.3 and Fedora-Live-Desktop-x86_64-19-1, the result was same as the one got on the ubuntu Linux, this problem still can happen randomly.

Through debugging, i found if i8042 want to communicate with trackpoint device, it will send the command or data to synaptics trackpad device first, then trackpad device send the command or data to trackpoint device through pass-through write, so we can say synaptic trackpad is the master device, trackpoint is the guest device. The problem is here, when i8042 send commands/datas to the guest devices, it will fail randomly both on x230s and x240s, let's suppose a situation, the host want to send a ENABLE(0xf4) to the guest device, but this command is failed to pass to guest device, so the trackpoint can't work totally. And i did debugging on lenovo T540 and lenovo x130e as well, the communication between i8042 and trackpoint device was very stable, never failed.

Based on my investigation, i doubt more or less, this problem has some relation with hardware, according to the section 5.2.1 in the page 57 of Synaptics PS/2 TouchPad Interfacing Guide (http://www.synaptics.com/sites/default/files/511-000275-01_RevB.pdf), i doubt the guest port doesn't solder a proper pull-up resistor on lenovo x230s and lenovo x240s.

[Alex Wen (ronglu-wen)]

For my comment #26, IBM Trackpoint doesn't work well every time.
Today i tried the latest image sutton-precise-amd64-iso-20131030-0 , the bug reproduced again.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Po-Hsu Lin / Hui Wang / Alex Wen, as per http://download.lenovo.com/express/ddfm.html an update is available for the x230s BIOS (1.06). If this is updated following https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BiosUpdate , does it change anything? If it doesn't, could you please both specify what happened, and provide the output of the following terminal command:
sudo dmidecode -s bios-version && sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date

Thank you for your understanding.

[Anthony Wong (anthonywong)]

After extensive investigation we think this is a hardware issue.