Multiple driver issues with MSI M673X

Hi!

I have an MSI M673X (nForce430 / MCP51) notebook. I am having problems with some drivers since I bought it and installed Ubuntu. I solved all of them, but I have to repeat the procedure after each kernel update, so I think these issues did not come to your attention till this time, so I hope my feedback will be useful.

Firstly about the machine:

http://www.msimobile.com/NB/product_spec.asp?model=M673-018US
Here is an lspci output: http://pastebin.com/m20d97f74

About the OS:

Ubuntu 7.04, 7.10 beta also

Intel HDA sound card:
I have to use alsa 1.0.14rc4, any other version does not work, and I have to patch it like this:
--- 2.6-rc2/sound/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c 2007-05-02 10:02:22.000000000 +0100
+++ 2.6.22-rc2/sound/pci/hda/patch_realtek.c 2007-05-31 16:45:00.000000000 +0100
@@ -6002,2 +6002,3 @@
SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x1462, 0x3fc3, "MSI", ALC883_TARGA_DIG),
+ SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x1462, 0x3fdf, "MSI", ALC883_TARGA_DIG),
SND_PCI_QUIRK(0x1462, 0x4314, "MSI", ALC883_TARGA_DIG),

RT61 wifi card:
Ubuntu identifies the chip (rt61) "well", but the provided driver has some serious problems. It creates the interface, sometimes it communicates with the dhcpd and sometimes it transfers some data, but the connection dies after some seconds.
I have to compile the rt61 driver from serialmonkey (http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page)
Plus I have to uninstall network-manager because after a while it causes a freeze (it sees the interface though, and tries to connect, but never succeeds, I am forced to configure with iwconfig and ifconfig). As far as I remember network manager does the same with the built-in driver.

Ethernet card:
Ubuntu identifies it as a realtek r8169 chip, but it is r8168B (http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=13&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=12)
I have to compile it too.

There is another issue I have just met:
After initiating suspended mode, Ubuntu shut down just the 'half' of the computer Display was on but fan was off. I almost boiled it :-) I hope it never happens again, but I'll keep an eye on it and try to find out what is going on.

That is all for now. I know it must be hard to debug a machine you probably do not have in hands, but I can provide you with some more input (logs or whatever) if needed.

Regards,

ahorvath