Crash when switching from AC to Battery

English Applications
1

I just formatted my Thinkpad T60 and installed OpenSuse11.0 with KDE3.5
I installed the newest flgrx driver.

All works smoothly so far, but I am running into Problems with Powermanager, or at least something with the Power.

Whenever I pull the ac cable out, my Laptop crashes, and I really dont understand whats happening.

The first time it somehow switched to KDE4, I have no idea how this happened. The whole system was extremely slow, and i force-restarted. I was able to chose KDE3.5 at login.

However, the problem persists. Whenever i pull the AC chord, there is now black screen. I am able to enter ctrl-alt-f1 console from there.

Edit: And one more thing i cant get to fix, even though i think i’ve read every thread on the topic in this forum… I have an external Monitor attached to my Laptop, but just cant get it to show the right resolution. The bottom right part of the screen is always cut off!

Section “Monitor”
Option “CalcAlgorithm” “XServerPool”
DisplaySize 286 214
HorizSync 30-68
Identifier “Monitor[0]”
ModelName “LENOVO LCD MONITOR”
Option “DPMS”
Option “PreferredMode” “1400x1050”
VendorName “LEN”
VertRefresh 43-60
UseModes “Modes[0]”
EndSection

Section “Modes”
Identifier “Modes[0]”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Depth 15
Modes “1400x1050” “1280x1024” “1280x960” “1366x768” “1360x768” “1280x800” “1152x864” “1280x768” “1280x720” “1024x768” “1280x600” “1024x600” “800x600” “768x576” “640x480”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 16
Modes “1400x1050” “1280x1024” “1280x960” “1366x768” “1360x768” “1280x800” “1152x864” “1280x768” “1280x720” “1024x768” “1280x600” “1024x600” “800x600” “768x576” “640x480”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 24
Modes “1400x1050” “1280x1024” “1280x960” “1366x768” “1360x768” “1280x800” “1152x864” “1280x768” “1280x720” “1024x768” “1280x600” “1024x600” “800x600” “768x576” “640x480”
EndSubSection
SubSection “Display”
Depth 8
Modes “1400x1050” “1280x1024” “1280x960” “1366x768” “1360x768” “1280x800” “1152x864” “1280x768” “1280x720” “1024x768” “1280x600” “1024x600” “800x600” “768x576” “640x480”
EndSubSection
Device “Device[0]”
Identifier “Screen[0]”
Monitor “Monitor[0]”
EndSection

Section “Device”
BoardName “ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 (M54 7145)”
Driver “fglrx”
Identifier “Device[0]”
Option “XAANoOffscreenPixmaps” “true”
Option “Capabilities” “0x00000000”
Option “OpenGLOverlay” “off”
Option “FSAAScale” “0”
Option “FSAAEnable” “off”
Option “VideoOverlay” “on”
VendorName “ATI”
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Layout[all]”
InputDevice “Keyboard[0]” “CoreKeyboard”
InputDevice “Mouse[1]” “CorePointer”
InputDevice “Mouse[3]” “SendCoreEvents”
Option “Clone” “off”
Option “Xinerama” “off”
Screen “Screen[0]”
EndSection

Section “DRI”
Group “video”
Mode 0660
EndSection

Section “Extensions”
Option “Composite” “on”
EndSection

I hope this might help?

2

Not sure about where to start here, but I’ll give it a shot. With KDE 3.5.9 running, open a console and type

ps -A |grep power

I get this:

dean@linux:~> ps -A |grep power
2710 ? 00:00:01 powersaved
3308 ? 00:00:32 kpowersave

KDE 4.2.2 uses PowerDevil (which is part of kdebase4 package AFAIU).

3

I get this:

doncarlo@linux-qkdv:~> ps -A |grep power
10228 ? 00:00:00 kpowersave
doncarlo@linux-qkdv:~>

4

For some reason powersaved daemon is not running. As a quick test you can try starting from a console as root with:

rcpowersaved start

There are other options available too. Just type ‘powersaved’ to see them. Then see how AC → battery behaves.

If not installed (I’m not sure why this would be the case) you could reinstall the powersave package via yast software manager, or from CLI:

zypper in powersave

Lets see how you go, before proceeding.

5

command rcpowersaved is not known
command powersaved not known

with software installer i can find kpowersave, which is installed.
no other “powersave” program i can find, and the zypper command also doesnt give me any new program.

Something strange i noticed. I am having a small problem with my audio drivers, only sometimes they dont work when i log on. Just now, after returning from ctrl-alt-f1 to normal desktop, my sound suddenly started working.

6

And one more thing i noticed:

OpenSuse boots to a blank screen, and I’m unable to enter any type of console in “default” kernel mode.

I can only boot in PAE mode.

Maybe i should go back to reinstalling the whole thing, as this was my first Linux installation :expressionless:

Because by now i have a better idea of what to install when and how… hm

7

This is driving me crazy, and i cant seem to find any solution. I have tried reinstalling the Kpowersave without success, and still whenever I pull the AC chord my system crashes.

8

Can you post output of

zypper lr (to see what repos you have present and enabled)

The powersave rpm is available from openSUSE oss repo.

You can also install by 1-click method from here:

Webpin

It would normally be installed by default. (kpowersave is just the front-end). Trying to get a handle on underlying problem here - it looks like an update gone wrong perhaps (based on your kernel boot option problem)? After your initial installation, was everything working properly? Anyway, see how you get on with powersave package install…

9

doncarlo@linux-qkdv:~> zypper lr

| Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh

—±-------------------------±-------------------------±--------±-------
1 | ATI | ATI | Yes | Yes
2 | Education | Education | Yes | Yes
3 | Emulators:Wine:STABLE | Emulators:Wine:STABLE | Yes | Yes
4 | devel:languages:perl | devel:languages:perl | Yes | Yes
5 | openSUSE 11.1-0 | openSUSE 11.1-0 | Yes | No
6 | openSUSE:11.1:NonFree | openSUSE:11.1:NonFree | Yes | Yes
7 | openSUSE:Factory:Contrib | openSUSE:Factory:Contrib | Yes | Yes
8 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.1-Debug | No | Yes
9 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.1-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes
10 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.1-Oss | Yes | Yes
11 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.1-Source | No | Yes
12 | repo-update | openSUSE-11.1-Update | Yes | Yes
doncarlo@linux-qkdv:~>
doncarlo@linux-qkdv:~>

I now also managed to install the powersave from software.opensuse.org by 1-klick installation.

10

Maybe this is important, I can boot from battery. This works without problems.
And when i boot from AC and pull the chord to battery mode, i can see the dimmed display (Like i set it up in kpowersave for batterymode brightness) for a very very short period of time. Then everything goes black.

i now get this:

doncarlo@linux-qkdv:~> ps -A |grep power
3300 ? 00:00:00 powersaved
3690 ? 00:00:00 kpowersave
doncarlo@linux-qkdv:~>
doncarlo@linux-qkdv:~>

11

Ok I have managed something else by now:

I can boot in battery, and then connect AC-Power -> no crash.

I can then remove the AC-Power -> black screen

Then I put the AC-Power back in → display comes back on and i can resume normally…

So the only remaining problem is, why does the display go blank when i remove the AC-chord…

12

Since reinstalling the powersave package, have you tried using kpowersave to configure your power schemes on battery and AC?

13

yes i tried that… No change. I pull the chord → display gone. But the system definately doesnt crash, its just black display!
Maybe the problem is really with the flgrx driver

Do you think i should try reinstalling the flgrx driver?

Can i somehow disable it and use the standard driver, to test if the problem persists then?

14

Something bad happened.

I tried to uninstall fglrx, and go back to the standard radeon drivers.
I went to the yast software manager and looked for the fglrx entries, put a red X on them and uninstalled. Then i rebooted - and now i cang get into the Desktop Environment. Only console possible. I tried

sax2 -r -m 0=radeon

or just

sax2

to reconfigure my graphics, but this does not work. I get into sax2 and can edit resolution etc, but after returning to console i cannot start xorg.

This error appears when i type startx:

xauth: creating new authority file /root/.serverauth.4461/etc/x11/xinig/xserverrc: line56: exec: X: not found
xinit: Server error.

So now I’m stuck with only console and cant get into the desktop environment :frowning:

15

Ive had enough of this! I’M reinstalling OpenSuse. Was my first installation anyway :slight_smile:

16

I’ve got the same problem on my thinkpad T60, with opensuse 11.1 and KDE4.2. Screen goes black whenever the power cord is pulled out or plugged in. Sometimes ctrl-alt-backspace can be used to restart the x-session, sometimes I have to do a hard restart with the power button.

Please post here if you find a solution.

17

Well, I’ve figured out the source of the problem, at least. It’s the ati fglrx drivers, which is probably not a surprise to anyone. I deinstalled the fglrx drivers (which I had previously installed via yast), and reconfigured Xorg with Sax2*, and now the problem is gone. Of course now compositing doesn’t work and 3D graphics are slow. I guess you can’t have everything!

I’ve also tried installing the fglrx drivers using the ATI Catalyst installer, but had problems each time. Catalyst 9.2 ran compositing well, but caused suspend problems. Catalyst 9.3 did not run compositing at all, and still had suspend problems. In both cases the computer locked up when the AC was pulled.

Hope this helps someone other than me.

*Warning: deinstalling the fglrx drivers caused my X session to crash, and left me with a non-functional Xorg.conf. However, after running Sax2 from the failsafe system, and then rebooting, everything worked again.