Sleep, shutdown, touchpad Kernel Version 4.14 - 5.1.4. Asus X441ba

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I just got an Asus X441ba laptop. Nothing special except it was very cheap and has a very long battery life, and not too bad on the speed considering. Anyway, I started with the kernel from Leap 15 installation disk. The touchpad would not work. I upgraded to 4.14 and it still wouldn’t work. As a note: shutdown and restart worked fine, as well as sleep.
I upgraded to Kernel 4.19 and the touchpad worked, but then I noticed it would not shutdown. It would take a long time to restart and that’s all it would do. Sleep and hibernate had the same behavior. It would just restart after about 2 minutes.

I then switched to 5.1.4 and it would shutdown, but sleep does not work, the touchpad works fine. By not work, I mean the screen is messed up when it comes back on and must hang the system somehow because ctrl-alt-F2 - F5 does not give me a login that I can do things with.

I am guessing the problem is graphics card related. although If I sleep after
systemctl isolate multi-user.target
it doesn’t work either. This has radeon graphics. I’m not too familiar with AMD, just fyi.

I am currently using kernel 5.1.3 and it has the same behavior as 5.1.4.

So, I would like to get sleep working AND my touchpad. Many times I am working on something using the battery and must step away from the computer and would like to save the battery by putting it to sleep.
Obviously this can be accomplished , as kernel 4.14 is good on sleep but not on touchpad, and 4.19 + is good on touchpad but not sleep.

Thank you for your time

2

Hi, I’m a bit confused reading of your experiments with different kernels, since with current openSUSE repositories:

  • Leap 15.0 is at kernel 4.12.x (maybe that was your first try?)
  • Kernel/stable is at 5.1.5
  • Kernel/Head is at 5.2.rc2
    so I wonder where your other kernels came from and what was the base system of your last tries (still Leap 15.0?)
    To help us give useful help I suggest one of the following:
  • install Leap (better the just released 15.1 which has a newer kernel with many backports);
  • pick a kernel from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/stable/standard/x86_64/ if needed
  • or from http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Kernel:/HEAD/standard/x86_64/ (but be aware that those might have still unresolved quirks)
  • or better still install one of the latest Tumbleweed versions, which feature the latest stable kernels.

Then I suggest sticking to the kernel that offers acceptable overall performance and try to debug residual problems (maybe the touchpad? or sleep?).

3

@OrsoBruno

A week ago the versions that were out there were 5.1.3 and 5.1.4
there is still version 4.19 from
home:Ledest:kernel:lts:4.19
just go to software.opensuse.org and search for kernel-default. Go to other distributions, then Leap 15.0 and community packages

I have since installed 5.1.5 from kernel:/stable
I do not like Tumbleweed and will be installing Leap 15.1 maybe after the summer.
Right now I am using Leap 15.0

you were right, I meant 4.12.14 not 4.14

with 5.1.5 I can still use my touchpad. Sleep still causes problems. I can now see the screen when coming back from sleep but the user interface is not functional. IE I hit the applications menu and nothing. I select from sys-tray and nothing. I select folder on desktop (KDE) and nothing. I can go to a terminal using ctrl-alt-F2 and login to root, but reboot just hangs.

4

OK, Leap 15.0 with Kernel/stable (5.1.5) is a good starting point.
Re sleep/hibernate problem, maybe the AMD processor has specific sleep/deep sleep states and configuration must be tweaked.
Please have a look at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Power_management#Hybrid-sleep_on_suspend_or_hibernation_request and see if you can get a good hint or food for thought. Apparently you can do some tests on your own, but ask here if you need help (there are a few valuable members routinely using AMD HW).
Re shutdown/reboot: does it really hang or is it just slow, like triggering some 1m30s timeout but eventually shutting down / rebooting?

5

To test the “sleep” behaviour of your system you may test which sleep mode works (if any). In a terminal emulator with superuser power (issue “su -”, then root password) try:

systemctl suspend

systemctl hibernate

systemctl hybrid-sleep

If one works, you can configure your system to always use that mode.
If hibernate does not work, you may try to create a file /etc/systemd/sleep.conf with the following content:

[Sleep]
HibernateMode=shutdown

See “man systemd-sleep.conf” for further details.

To get more specific advice from people familiar with AMD HW you should provide exact information about your processor and GPU, for instance the relevant info from the output of:

hwinfo --cpu --gfxcard
6 
sudo hwinfo --cpu --gfxcard
[sudo] password for root:  
07: None 00.0: 10103 CPU                                         
  [Created at cpu.462]
  Unique ID: rdCR.j8NaKXDZtZ6
  Hardware Class: cpu
  Arch: X86-64
  Vendor: "AuthenticAMD"
  Model: 21.112.0 "AMD A6-9225 RADEON R4, 5 COMPUTE CORES 2C+3G"
  Features: fpu,vme,de,pse,tsc,msr,pae,mce,cx8,apic,sep,mtrr,pge,mca,cmov,pat,pse36,clflush,mmx,fxsr,sse,sse2,ht,syscall,nx,mmxext,fxsr_opt,pdpe1gb,rdtscp,lm,constant_tsc,rep_good,acc_power,no
pl,nonstop_tsc,cpuid,extd_apicid,aperfmperf,pni,pclmulqdq,monitor,ssse3,fma,cx16,sse4_1,sse4_2,movbe,popcnt,aes,xsave,avx,f16c,rdrand,lahf_lm,cmp_legacy,svm,extapic,cr8_legacy,abm,sse4a,misali
gnsse,3dnowprefetch,osvw,ibs,xop,skinit,wdt,lwp,fma4,tce,nodeid_msr,tbm,perfctr_core,perfctr_nb,bpext,ptsc,mwaitx,cpb,hw_pstate,ssbd,ibpb,vmmcall,fsgsbase,bmi1,avx2,smep,bmi2,xsaveopt,arat,npt
,lbrv,svm_lock,nrip_save,tsc_scale,vmcb_clean,flushbyasid,decodeassists,pausefilter,pfthreshold,avic,v_vmsave_vmload,vgif,overflow_recov
  Clock: 1325 MHz
  BogoMips: 5190.74
  Cache: 1024 kb
  Units/Processor: 2
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

08: None 01.0: 10103 CPU
  [Created at cpu.462]
  Unique ID: wkFv.j8NaKXDZtZ6
  Hardware Class: cpu
  Arch: X86-64
  Vendor: "AuthenticAMD"
  Model: 21.112.0 "AMD A6-9225 RADEON R4, 5 COMPUTE CORES 2C+3G"
  Features: fpu,vme,de,pse,tsc,msr,pae,mce,cx8,apic,sep,mtrr,pge,mca,cmov,pat,pse36,clflush,mmx,fxsr,sse,sse2,ht,syscall,nx,mmxext,fxsr_opt,pdpe1gb,rdtscp,lm,constant_tsc,rep_good,acc_power,no
pl,nonstop_tsc,cpuid,extd_apicid,aperfmperf,pni,pclmulqdq,monitor,ssse3,fma,cx16,sse4_1,sse4_2,movbe,popcnt,aes,xsave,avx,f16c,rdrand,lahf_lm,cmp_legacy,svm,extapic,cr8_legacy,abm,sse4a,misali
gnsse,3dnowprefetch,osvw,ibs,xop,skinit,wdt,lwp,fma4,tce,nodeid_msr,tbm,perfctr_core,perfctr_nb,bpext,ptsc,mwaitx,cpb,hw_pstate,ssbd,ibpb,vmmcall,fsgsbase,bmi1,avx2,smep,bmi2,xsaveopt,arat,npt
,lbrv,svm_lock,nrip_save,tsc_scale,vmcb_clean,flushbyasid,decodeassists,pausefilter,pfthreshold,avic,v_vmsave_vmload,vgif,overflow_recov
  Clock: 1359 MHz
  BogoMips: 5190.74
  Cache: 1024 kb
  Units/Processor: 2
  Config Status: cfg=no, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

15: PCI 01.0: 0300 VGA compatible controller (VGA)
  [Created at pci.386]
  Unique ID: vSkL.fsC0euClBvF
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:00:01.0
  Hardware Class: graphics card
  Model: "ATI Stoney [Radeon R2/R3/R4/R5 Graphics]"
  Vendor: pci 0x1002 "ATI Technologies Inc"
  Device: pci 0x98e4 "Stoney [Radeon R2/R3/R4/R5 Graphics]"
  SubVendor: pci 0x1043 "ASUSTeK Computer Inc."
  SubDevice: pci 0x1fe0  
  Revision: 0xea
  Driver: "amdgpu"
  Driver Modules: "amdgpu"
  Memory Range: 0xe0000000-0xefffffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0xf0000000-0xf07fffff (ro,non-prefetchable)
  I/O Ports: 0xf000-0xf0ff (rw)
  Memory Range: 0xfeb00000-0xfeb3ffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  Memory Range: 0x000c0000-0x000dffff (rw,non-prefetchable,disabled)
  IRQ: 32 (26181 events)
  Module Alias: "pci:v00001002d000098E4sv00001043sd00001FE0bc03sc00i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: amdgpu is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe amdgpu"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

just fyi I updated this computer to Leap 15.1 for hopes of a better future.
Still at 5.1.5 for kernel.


systemctl suspend

has the desired effect of putting the computer to sleep, but wakeup gives an unusable display. The touchpad works when waking up, however.

If I go to a terminal after this I get something about gfx timeout. I have seen this on bug reports on the internet with amd.
I have tried amdgpu.dc=0/1 and that didn’t work. Still messed up screen when waking.


systemctl hibernate

This shuts down the computer, upon waking up it goes immediately into my linux without grub2 menu, but it doesn’t actually resume where I left off. Nothing I had open is open.

I fiddled with /sys/power/state
I tried


cat s2idle > /sys/power/mem_sleep
#changes from s2idle  [deep]  to [s2idle] deep
cat mem > /sys/power/state

[deep] WAS selected (which is definitely preferred) but wanted to check my bases.
This turns off the screen and seemingly puts me back where I was when “waking” up, but after a few seconds the screen goes to an opensuse screen ( the light blue with a drawn light-bulb)
(same screen when starting up kde but without the progress circle at the bottom) and it stays there. I can go to a terminal when this happens, but could not get back to gui mode, just hangs at that opensuse screen.

Sorry for the late response but the forums were having problems a couple days ago.
As always, thanks for any and all help.

7

OK, so “hibernate” is sort of close to working…
Just to be sure that nothing obvious is left out, to resume to what you were doing you need a swap partition at least as large as your RAM and a matching “resume=/dev/sdx#” option in your boot line, or something equivalent.
You should see lines in the journal related to saving and restoring the memory image to disk, an example here: https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/533911-Issue-where-Leap-15-does-not-always-hibernate?p=2903030#post2903030
Resume problems with AMD HW are not uncommon, but unfortunately I’m not familiar with that HW too.
Searching the web I found somebody suggesting the “iommu=0” boot option, but I’m shooting in the dark here.
Maybe starting a new thread in the HW subforum with a telling title (like “AMD A6 does not resume from suspend”) is a better idea to attract AMD experts hanging about there.