[ltp] Strange intermittent problem with T23, RH 8.0--best way to sleep?

[Frank Roberts - SOTL]

Are you sure that the problem is apm?

I have an A30P and I have noted that on boot or when I change users that =
the=20
display manager may or may not work correctly.
I can guarantee that it will not function correctly if I do not shut down=
 all=20
running programs and log out of KDE and Gnome before shutting down. If=20
instead I shutdown directly from KDE or Gnome then I can be assured that =
the=20
nest boot of the box will be problematic for the GUI.

If on booting the display does not come up of if there is flickering I ca=
n do=20
a <Ctrl><Atl><Backspace> (all three buttons must be held down a minimim o=
f 4=20
to 5 seconds) the display manager will re-initiate and the box will funct=
ion=20
fine.

I do not know I have not tried it but judging from the response of my box=
 I=20
would strongly suggest that the concept of placing your computer in stand=
by=20
to transport is not a prudent idea.=20

I have nothing to back this up with but my suspension is that it will be =
a=20
couple of more years before what you are attempting to do will be feasibl=
e=20
unless of course you have the ability to resolve this issue on your own. =
I of=20
course do not have such ability or it would be resolved.

Thanks
Frank

On Saturday 15 March 2003 10:13, Richard Neill wrote:
> Hello Julian,
>
> I have had almost the same problem - apm doesn't wake reliably (it fail=
s
> about 1 time in 10). My Thinkpad is an  A22p, and I've had this problem
> in 5 generations of Mandrake, and also Debian (Knoppix). Even a BIOS
> update yesterday didn't help. I think there is a bug in apm somewhere
> which affects the newer ('A'/'T') thinkpads. My current "solution" is t=
o
> disable automatic suspend; if I really must suspend it, save work first=
,
> and *hope* it reawakes!
>
> My investigations so far lead to:
>
> 1)The problem is that, somehow, the HDD doesn't wake up. On unsuccessfu=
l
> wakes, you don't hear the start up 'kerchunk', and the system blocks on
> HDD i/o. The consequences are:
>
> =09*Programs still in RAM appear to work - that's why X seems
> =09 partly normal at first.
>
> =09*Debugging is impossible - something like
>           "apm -s >apmerror.txt 2>&1" never works, because if there is =
an
> =09error, the system can't write to disk.
>
> =09*You can do "Alt-SysRq-B" to reboot. But none of the other
> =09sysrq things work properly (it may try to sync, but can't)
>
> 2)A good test is this script
>
> =09#!/bin/bash
>
> =09for i in `seq 1 100` ; do
>          =09echo -e "This is attempt $i"
> =09=09touch foo=09#timestamp of last successful write
>          =09sleep 1
>          =09apm -s
> =09done
>
> You'll have to keep pressing 'Fn' every 20 secs. But I would be very
> surprised if the script gets to the end.
>
>
> 3)The only fix I can imagine is to add an SysRq key combination for
> "wake the hard disk, yes really". But I don't know how to do that.
> (I tried to contact the sysrq maintainers, their email is bouncing - I
> think that code has been abandoned!)
> I think it would have to be done in the kernel, since there's no
> filesystem to work with if the hdd isn't alive.
>
> 4)Does anyone know how to do this? Could it actually just be a config
> error? Is it a BIOS bug after all? Would the use of ACPI (supposedly
> planned for Mandrake 9.1) be better  ?
>
>
> Best wishes
>
> Richard
>
> julian underwood wrote:
> > =09Hello list... I have a strange problem with my T23 which is runnin=
g
> > Redhat 8.0, I have run all updates except Kernel updates.  What happe=
ns
> > is the following.  I travel to and from work with my machine, and I p=
ut
> > it to sleep using the command apm -s.  Then I open the lid to wake up
> > the unit when I return home.  I would say one out of 20 times when I
> > wake my unit up, the mouse pointer disappears and the unit appears to=
 be
> > frozen.  But it's not, because I can alt-tab from window to window (I
> > can see the outline of each window change when I press that keystroke=
=2E)
> > Also I can see the mouse pointer again--and move it--if I hold the al=
t
> > key down--however I can't click on anything.
> >
> > =09What I end up doing is hitting alt-esc (I don't know if this does
> > anything in linux) and then press ctrl-alt-del a few times, and final=
ly
> > x-windows quits out and I get the login prompt again-- I can then log=
in
> > as root and restart or shutdown the machine.
> >
> > =09It's kind of annoying; my question is has anyone else had this hap=
pen
> > to them, and is there an easy way to save myself, and possibly my wor=
k
> > if this happens?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > JU