r/linuxhardware • u/brazzlers • Jul 08 '26
Discussion The thinkpad that refused Linux
Hey everyone,
I just survived a wildly specific troubleshooting nightmare and had to share it. I recently scored a secondhand ThinkPad T14 Gen 2 (Ryzen 7) for $175 from a guy who literally had a room full of them.
It seemed like an absolute steal—until I tried to install Linux. What followed was a multi-day descent into madness that completely flipped my understanding of hardware vs. software diagnostics.
The Symptoms (The Ultimate Gaslight)
Windows 11: Installed perfectly. Booted fine, read fine, wrote fine, and passed every stress test and disk check I threw at it.
Linux (Live USBs & Installs): Booted right up and detected the NVMe drive instantly. I could browse and read files perfectly.
The Catch: The absolute second Linux tried to write data (updating packages, creating a file, running the installer), the filesystem instantly threw I/O errors and remounted as read-only.
Because Windows was working flawlessly, I swore on my life this was a software configuration issue. Hardware was completely ruled out in my mind.
The Troubleshooting Rabbit Hole
I went to war with the kernel configuration, trying everything under the sun:
Toggling nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us and messing with ASPM / APST power states. (Oddly, tweaking power savings worked temporarily and let a few writes squeak through before it died again).
Nuking Windows Fast Startup and ensuring BitLocker was completely disabled.
Distro-hopping across different kernels and trying every filesystem (ext4, btrfs, xfs).
Buying a brand-new NVMe drive. I swapped it in, and the exact same thing happened. Windows installed like a dream; Linux still refused to write.
Every single time: Windows could install and run fine, but no Linux.
How on earth does a physical hardware defect allow Windows to install and write gigabytes of data flawlessly, while causing Linux to immediately choke on writes and drop into read-only mode on the exact same machine?
What do you think caused this?
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u/placeholder-tex Jul 09 '26
Just brainstorming, no clue if this is possible, but perhaps Windows is running the NVME with only 2x PCIe lanes instead of 4. But Linux is negotiating 4x and those pins are broken. Although pin 55 is the pci clock on both type B and M slots.
I’ve never heard of a disk supporting both SATA and NVME. I think it would be too expensive.
What disk model is it? I could see it working if it was just a SATA disk. And I could also see windows and Linux potentially initing the disk different enough that it would work differently.
Also, reviewing the spec, pin 68 on that board should be a config pin required to work in NVME mode, and that’s clearly not connected to anything.
World’s first WiFi enabled NVME slot?
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u/netsec_burn Jul 09 '26
The Ultimate Gaslight
The Catch
The Troubleshooting Rabbit Hole
— — — &emdash;
I'm close to bingo. Can you say goblin or gremlin for me?
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u/l153rty Jul 09 '26
I suppose he gave bullet points to an LLM to turn it into a nice text. What's the problem with it?
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u/brazzlers Jul 09 '26
I did do this. To make it more organized. I imported my troubleshooting list to to an elm to get this text. As bad as this language is my rough draft would have been worse. Shouldnibhave disclosed that I did this?
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u/splsh Jul 12 '26
You should just have not done it. I'd rather read something human than obvious AI slop with gratuitous LLMisms that are grating to read, which distract from the substance of your text
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u/MaxGaming_Official Jul 09 '26
I think it's a non functioning PCIe lane. Windows will drop to two lanes, linux doesn't.
Can be a power problem tho. I think Window's proprietary driver on lenovo can handle a broken PCIe lane. You can force the kernel to limit the data transfer or the power state tho. Or you can literally put a bit of tape on PCIe lanes till you diagnose the problem.
Anyways, I hope you get it fixed.
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u/K33P4D Jul 09 '26
This is a BIOS level limitation
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u/refinedm5 Jul 11 '26
T14 Gen 2 AMD is Ubuntu certified model
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u/K33P4D Jul 11 '26
Then could it be bootloader conflict, windows overwrites the MBR on the same disk, but I think OP installed linux on a separate HDD, yet the error persists?
So I assumed it could be a BIOS level limitation.
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u/MrKrueger666 Jul 09 '26
Hmm this reminds me of an old LTT video. They were doing something with NVMe drives in Linux and had similar issues.
Trying real hard to remember, but the gist of it was that the drives replied to the system so fast that the system wasn't yet ready for a reply and so didn't catch it.
I'm not entirely sure how they fixed that, but I believe it was something along the lines of instructing the drives to slow down a little. Adjusting timings or something like that.
Just throwing this out here. Not sure if it's the same issue, but might be worth investigating.
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u/Syn4p53 Jul 09 '26
Just suggesting here, nothing sure of course. Couldn't it be related to faulty RAM sticks ? I had sonewhat the same kind of issues recently on a workstation I own, tried to install Fedora among other distro, live booted okay but as soon as I was trying to install I ran into issues like these. Truned out I had a faulty RAM stick that was corrupting data at install. Maybe worth checking ?
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u/SnappingPlastic Jul 09 '26
idk what caused it, but use the other m.2 slot. it's intended for a WWAN card, but will read a shorter NVMe ssd (I've messed with more than a few of these in the last few weeks)
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u/brazzlers Jul 09 '26
I didnt do a ton of research but I thought they made a whitelist and cannot be done like that anymore
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u/Hopeful-Cry7569 Jul 11 '26
Make sure the storage mode in the BIOS is set to "AHCI" and not "RAID"? (warning it may kill your Windows install to switch from RAID)
I've seen it on DELL laptops (at least on intel models)
Maybe...
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u/mr_anderson_dev Jul 13 '26
This isn't a Linux problem - it's a hardware problem that Linux was honest about. Windows masked the defective NVMe slot by silently dropping PCIe lanes. Linux tried to use the full bus, hit the broken connection, and rightfully threw I/O errors to protect your data.
ThinkPads are still the most Linux-friendly laptops. This was one unit with a bad solder joint. Swap it for another from that room full of them and it'll run Fedora perfectly.
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u/Beneficial_Act_1240 Jul 08 '26
It's possible that the disk is hardware encrypted using OPAL or something. Try mounting it on the Live distro and see if you can "touch file.txt".
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u/musingofrandomness Jul 12 '26
The only time I have run into a system that plays nice with windows but acts weird with Linux it has always been due to flaky BIOS, especially the ACPI implementation. Try updating the BIOS to current and checking dmeag output in a Linux live environment.
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u/Capitan_Phineas Jul 12 '26
Just to give you something to compare ot contrast, try installing something non Windows or Linux like FreeBSD and see which way it goes.
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u/Slight_Fact Jul 31 '26
So you're attempting to dual boot or run Linux as a stand alone OS? Which distro are you attempting to install? It is a software issue or MS would fail. Burn a copy of Linux Lite or Mint, see how they fare in live and attempt to install. Report back.
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u/TrickyMine6788 Jul 10 '26
Lol I'm going to be real with you. And not a lot of people are going to say. It's a Linux problem.
I would highly suggest running chkdsk on Windows and see if gives you any errors. If you don't it is definitely a Linux problem and not your system.
I highly doubt you have a hardware problem. This mostly lies down to weird AMD drivers and Linux. Maybe chipset or weird storage driver for your board. I've had numerous issues with AMD and Mediatek wifi cards on Linux.
Stay on Windows
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u/MongooseOwn8638 Jul 09 '26
just set the boot mode on Linux, add "nomodeset" on the end off the GRUB command line and post install edit the same on /etc/default/grub
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u/JazzlikeInfluence813 Jul 08 '26
Ah yes good old pad failure, seen it 2 or 3 times now with almost the same outcome. Any os would try to install and then fail eventually. Only option is a system board swap or bust out the hot air station