Hi there,

I have just once more installed Mandrake 9.0 on my desktop Dell Dimension XPS R400 and it seems to be working fine, except for one thing.

When I choose to shutdown, either as root or usual user, either from the command prompt (shutdown -h n) or from the login GUI, the usual terminating messages are issued, up until a last one ("Power down"), but then the screen still displays and the power LED button keeps on forever; if I press the mentioned power button nothing happens. The only way out of this dilemma is pressing the reset button, then the machine reboots, and I can physically press the power button again and now it works, but that's not what I wanted, which was just turning it off from within Linux...

Could you give me any help?

Well, first of all, you don't actually need to press the reset button, just hold down the main power button for about 5 seconds (maybe longer). This works with most Dells.

Secondly, try running the Advanced Power Managemt Daemon (APMD). This made power downs work on my Dell a while ago. You can do this by making sure it runs as a service, in Runlevel 6.

Do you run windows as well? If auto-poweroff is broken there too, then it could be a hardware fault. I've had this happen to me.

Hi viciousfish,

I will soon try your specific power-off direction for Dell PC's; I'll let you know whether it worked for me.

As concerns dual-booting, I do in fact have Windows installed as well, but the shutdown process works well there: it really powers off from Windows 98.

Thank you again!

Hi viciousfish,

I'm back and glad to say that your suggestion of keeping pressed for some 5 seconds the power off button after the shutdown procedure did succeed.

Thank you!

Hi there,

I thought I had somehow circumvented a problem with an unsuccesfull shutdown, by following the suggestion of viciousfish, what does happen is the following: after the last stopping and shutting down messages from Mandrake 9.0 in the terminal and freezing under the very last statement "Power down", I kept pressed for some 5 seconds the power off button and my Dell desktop turned off; however, to my surprise, after some couple of minutes (three at most), like a zombie, it boots automatically (!!)

I guess this is definitely a bug, and perhaps I should recompile the kernel (?). I have, through Linux Kernel Configurator, checked that there is an option to the kernel called something like "Use APM BIOS to power off", which is not enabled in my kernel; if I enable it, should this work now? The matter is I don't know whether simply changing (clicking on) this option in the Configurator would be enough to have a new working kernel...

Regards

PS: Since I have bought my Mandrake CD's from a third party, I do not know how to submit this bug to Mandrake officially; got any idea?

You say it reboots after three minutes? That's pretty weird. If I were you I'd start looking at the BIOS setttings, make sure something unusual isn't switched on.

I doub that this a Mandrake-Specific bug; more likely to be a kernel problem. You could recompile the kernel with a new version (It's always good fun :-)) But I'd go for the BIOS first.

Try going to Dell's website and looking for a flash BIOS upgrade to download. They fix bugs in the BIOS for you and may solve your problem.

The Dell BIOSs and motherboards are often heavily customised, and do cause trouble with Linux, in my experience.

Hi viciousfish,

The problem is this power off business does work under Windows; and it used to work under previous RH and Mandrake versions I had in this very same machine. The only thing I altered in the BIOS ever since was the boot so that I could have direct first access to the CD-ROM and make my installations without a floppy; I did not change anything else in the BIOS; at any rate, how come the machine can "automagically" turn itself on again? Somehow it must not in fact have powered off, isn't it, despite the fact that the monitor goes blank and the power LED does go off...

I guess I won't have much option: either I should recompile with the Power off option managed directly by the BIOS or I should move to RH 8.0. This might not be such a radical decision because I would like to use the porgram octave which is not available within the usual Mandrake CD distribution...

Well, thanx again!

Hi there,

I have tried to recompile the kernel to solve my shutdown problem: the result was not effective> There we go.

I opened Control Center, then Kernel Linux Configurator. There I enabled from the General setup menu, the option "Use real mode APM BIOS call to power off".
Then, following the instruction which popped up, I gave the command 'make symlinks dep' in the directory /usr/src/linux; a whole bunch of messages showed up in the screen and apparently no error was issued. I shut down, and the whole thing repeated: a zombie-like resurrection after an apparent death for some four minutes. The machine really rebooted, without any reason. I really haven't ever seen this on my machine...

Does anyone have any help? Should I communicate this to Bugzilla?

I have reinstalled (three times in a row now) Mandrake 9.0 on my
Dell PC desktop to try and solve the following problem.

When I try to shut it down, either as simple user or root, either
from the command prompt or from the login GUI, the screen reads
the usual daemon/process killing/stopping messages, up until the
last one: Power down. However the machine does not turn off: the
screen still displays and the power LED keeps on, things are frozen...

If I press the power button off, for some 5 seconds, the micro
apparently turns off, but only, to my surprise, to resurrect some
four or five minutes afterwards.

This never happened before, with this PC; I have Windows 98 installed
as well, and the shutting down from it goes all the way through until
definitely turning off. The same happened with a previous version of
Mandrake (8.0) and with Red Hat 8.0.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION:

My BIOS is a PhoenixBios 4.0 Release 6.0, version 4S4EB0X1.10A.0008.P03.
My processor is a Pentium II, 400 MHz, with 128 MB RAM, cache 512 kB.

In my BIOS, the "Plug and Play OS" option is disabled and the
"Power management" one is enabled.

Within Linux itself I have checked that:
0) the kernel version is 2.4.19-16mdk,
and, through the Linux Kernel Configurator application, that:
1) "Power management support" is enabled
2) "ACPI support" is disabled
3) "Advanced power management BIOS support" is enabled
4) "Enable PM at boot time" is enabled
5) "Use real mode APM BIOS call to power off" is disabled


Well, I hope someone can enlighten me with suggestions to cure this
zombie-like behavior... It's really a pain in the neck! Besides, the
only way I can use now to really circumvent this isn't very healthy:
I press the reset button and, while the machine is rebooting, I press
the power off button... As I said before, previous releases of Mandrake,
on this same machine, didn't present this problem. Is this a bug which
I should communicate to Mandrake somehow???

Thank you

I have a never recompiled a kernel that way but why dont you try it through menuconfig or xconfig?

Hi folks,

I have finally solved my zombie-like resurrection after shutdown.

A friedn of mine, which uses SUSE, found on its help/FAQ poages, a case where they state that this sort of zombie rebooting, after hard turning off, might be due to the Power Management feature being enabled in the BIOS. I just disabled it there, and now everything works fine: in Linux, after the usual shutdown, I still have to press the poer button for some 5 seconds, but then the computer sleeps forever; in Windows, after shutting down, now there appear the (usual) message "It is now safe to tturn off your computer"; I press the power off button and it sleeps too forever.

Thank you for your attention and happy linuxing!