Inspiron 8200 Laptop - Close Lid

For some reason, when I close the lid on my laptop, the screen stays on. I have tried altering the lid.sh files and have set the power management up to standy, hibernate, blank screen, and nothing seems to work. I don't think that it is a physical issue because previously I had windows installed on this laptop and closing the lid would cause actions. I have searched several forums and websites and have found a ton of help for if my screen would not come on after opening it, but I seem to have a different problem in that my screen won't turn off or take any action when I close the lid. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm running Ubuntu Dapper kernel 27-386.

I also have no idea if it would be related to the actual video card, but I thought it might be. I have an NVidia GeForce4 440 GO and I followed the instructions on the Ubuntu Community Forums for updating to the newest drivers and the specific problem related to this card. The card seems to work fine.

I have had very little luck with this situation but I almost positive that it is not the video card... at least not entirely if it's at all related.

You're lucky, actually... when I close my Inspiron 8200, X crashes completely as if I've done a Ctrl+Alt+Backspace.

This is an issue with ACPI and an issue I have yet to resolve. Your post has kicked me back into gear again to see if something has changed with it. Last I knew the ACPI support for linux was lagging rather far behind Windows and I think it's worth a check to see how this is going. Unfortunately I'm off to bed very soon but now that I'm subscribed to the thread I will notice this tomorrow as a reminder and I will continue to check... providing that nobody posts a solution. Check in if you find anything... I certainly will!

1. Edit the /etc/acpi/events/video.conf. This file should contain:
event=video.*
action=/usr/sbin/vbetool dpms on
2. Restart the acpi daemon by typing:
/sbin/service acpid restart

Excellent odcheck... I think I know what I'm dealing with now but I don't have the vbetool program.

On my machine my /etc/acpi/events only has a "default" file which has a similar entry that directs all events to an /etc/acpi/acpi_handler.sh script which contains:

#!/bin/sh
# Default acpi script that takes an entry for all actions

IFS=${IFS}/
set $@

case "$1" in
  button)
    case "$2" in
      power) /sbin/init 0
         ;;
      *) logger "ACPI action $2 is not defined"
         ;;
    esac
    ;;
  *)
    logger "ACPI group $1 / action $2 is not defined"
    ;;
esac

I'm assuming this is the case for most Slackware installations. I'm going to try to find and compile the vbetool program and then I'm going to "hack" this script to get the "lid" event recognized. I searched briefly last night and there is a thread on here somewhere that has a modified acpi_handler.sh script. I'll edit or report back when I get a chance to shift my attention to the matter.

Anyone have any tips for modifying this script? More importantly, I like the idea of having neat little configs in /etc/acpi/events to handle this stuff rather than having this ugly looking script that does everything. Am I stuck with this implementation or can I modify it?

Thanks... I'll be back later.

EDIT: On the advice given from this thread, here are the changes I made to /etc/acpi/acpi_handler.sh which I have bolded:

#!/bin/sh
# Default acpi script that takes an entry for all actions

IFS=${IFS}/
set $@

case "$1" in
  button)
    case "$2" in
      power) /sbin/init 0
         ;;
      lid)
     	 case $(cat /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state | awk '{print $2}') in
	    open) /usr/X11R6/bin/xset -display :0 dpms force on
	       ;;
	    closed) /usr/X11R6/bin/xset -display :0 dpms force off
     	       ;;
   	 esac
	 ;;
      *) logger "ACPI action $2 is not defined"
         ;;
    esac
    ;;
  *)
    logger "ACPI group $1 / action $2 is not defined"
    ;;
esac

`xhost +local:root` has also been executed and Option "DPMS" has been added to the monitor section of xorg.conf. Nothing. I found vbetool and I'm going to compile it now... hopefully it will work better than xset.

EDIT 2: vbetool compiled okay but is funky. I was able to get vbetool to control the lid event okay but again... funky. It's better than it was but X still crashes ... but only sometimes... Thanks for your help odcheck.

@rshillin: I hope you continue to have better luck than I have. Please let me know if you were successful.

I'm baffled and confused, but what can I say?

I did several things... I modified several acpi files (not that I knew what I was doing, I just continued to google), I completely erased the lid.sh file and made my own, I managed to install the new driver for my GeForce4 440 Go, I did everything I could think of and everything I could find on the internet, and nothing worked. I am very patient, and so other then when I upgraded my card, every file I changed I backed up and replaced, and then I verified that NO changes were made. So, a few days later, the ONLY change that remains is my updated card. Now, having said that, I still couldn't close my lid without getting everything really hot, and my FN (function) key doesn't seem to work, so I made a keybind and binding ALT+F8 to turn off the monitor. Apparently it also locks my computer because when I hit a key, it asks for my password. I believe the command was vesb off or something like that.

Now, here's the point of my post: I then restarted. THE ONLY LASTING CHANGES out of the 100's of things I have tried is a keyboard shortcut and an updated graphics card, (and yes I rebooted after doing and undoing nearly every change), and now, it works perfectly. Whenever I close the lid it goes into the lock mode, turning off the screen, it comes on when I hit any key and asks for the password. So, I'm happy! Confused, but happy.

After talking to someone more experienced, they said that there was a possibility that one of the scripts I did change might have ran and either turned on or off something else, and even though I can re-edit the scripts, I can't get to that config that was changed (or atleast I don't know where it is). That's the only thing I can think of, but best of luck to anyone else with this same problem!

@rshillin: I'm glad you were able to get an acceptable result. By any chance, was your Inspiron 8200 made after 2002? I was able to find out that the reason why nothing I do works is because my ACPI is not properly supported. I suppose Ubuntu might have some extra code in there which would compensate but I tend to doubt that.

I don't have APM enabled in my kernel as it says that it's "deprecated." Does anyone out there know if the inclusion of APM in the kernel would help? If I do include it, will it interfere with ACPI? The only reason I ask is that I seriously do think that vbetool is catching these lid-closed lid-open ACPI events but (after checking dmesg) these lid events actually shut down the monitor at the hardware level. When the lid is opened my X-server "loads AGP v2 compliant device" so then I get my kdm login screen once again.
EDIT: When I say it shuts down the monitor, I mean it shuts down the whole display system: graphics card and the panel. And it doesn't do this immediately. Rarely it works okay but if I leave it alone then I have the problem again. And sometimes on the rare occasion it works, it might not load my X-server and I have to switch to an agetty first then switch back to X.

Thanks ahead of time.

Originally Posted by zetabill I don't have APM enabled in my kernel as it says that it's "deprecated." Does anyone out there know if the inclusion of APM in the kernel would help? If I do include it, will it interfere with ACPI? The only reason I ask is that I seriously do think that vbetool is catching these lid-closed lid-open ACPI events but (after checking dmesg) these lid events actually shut down the monitor at the hardware level. When the lid is opened my X-server "loads AGP v2 compliant device" so then I get my kdm login screen once again. EDIT: When I say it shuts down the monitor, I mean it shuts down the whole display system: graphics card and the panel. And it doesn't do this immediately. Rarely it works okay but if I leave it alone then I have the problem again. And sometimes on the rare occasion it works, it might not load my X-server and I have to switch to an agetty first then switch back to X. Thanks ahead of time.

I started having a similar problem a week (X & acpi) or so ago. I'm not able to pinpoint a cause, I know I upgraded xorg-server around then, but downgrading didn't help. I probably made some small change to my xorg.conf, but whatever.

I recompiled my kernel without Power Management -> ACPI -> Video and I can now close my laptop lid! I'm not completely sure why this worked. I have an older Dell Latitude C610 with an "ATI Technologies Inc Radeon Mobility M6." I'll guess it doesn't comply to the ACPI 2.0 Specification, and that's probably the reason.

I'm running linux-2.6.18, vanilla-ish. (Just the suspend2 patch)

Interesting.

It never occurred to me to just remove the video component of ACPI and just leave the monitor on. I suppose that sacrificing the power consumption to keep X from crashing will have to be the preferred compromise here.

I also took a brief look at APM and was somewhat disgusted by it. It doens't really look like a good solution anyway. The laptop is only like 4 years old and it isn't completely ACPI2 compliant.

Oh well. When I get home from work I'll recompile my kernel without ACPI-Video support and see how that one flies. Now that the thread is bumped... if anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

I'm not so sure that the Video part has anything to do with the monitor being on or off. The Lid part is what fires when the lid opens or closes,

From the kernel help:

This driver implement the ACPI Extensions For Display Adapters for integrated graphics devices on motherboard, as specified in ACPI 2.0 Specification, Appendix B, allowing to perform some basic control like defining the video POST device, retrieving EDID information or to setup a video output, etc. Note that this is an ref. implementation only. It may or may not work for your integrated video device.

I'm not sure what "defining the video POST device or retrieving EDID information" is all about, but it doesn't sound to me like that has anything to do with turning the monitor on or off.

In /etc/acpi/default.sh Or, whatever your system/version of acpi calls it
The LID is the important one. I have no problem turning the screen on/off with "xset dpms force on/off" I also use "radeontool light on/off" to turn the back light off because I have a ATI graphics card. I also throw in an "xscreensaver-command -deactivate" because I like it like that (;

So, as far as I can tell throwing out the ACPI Video (and possibly modifying the acpi scripts) solves all problems!