SUSE 9.2 and Toshiba A70 ACPI (I think) Problem
 

I installed SuSe 9.2 on a Toshiba Satellite A70 laptop yesterday. I had to disable hyperthreading to get KDE to come up, apparently because of an ACPI issue. Today, I have been experiencing a problem that I think may also be ACPI related.

I will be happily working away when suddenly the screen will shut off, the external mouse will shut off and the hard drive will shut off (I here it turn off). But, the power is still on but nothing brings the system out of its coma except powering down. I have switched the CPU frequency control from dynamic to performance and so far it is behaving.

I was looking at the power management settings in /etc/sysconfig with YaST and noticed two interesting settings that I wonder if anyone has tried. For both of

POWERSAVE_ACPI_MODULES located in System/Powermanagement/Powersave/General

and

ACPI_MODULES located in System/Powermanagement/acipd/General

a setting of toshiba_acpi may be included in the list of values possible for these parameters. So, as anyone used this, what were your results, might it solve my problem?

Of course, I could do the cavalier thing and just try it, but I'm a little bit cautious. :)

Thanks.

I noticed the following message in /var/log/messages

Feb 10 19:28:55 rho modprobe: FATAL: Error inserting toshiba_acpi (/lib/modules/2.6.8-24.10-smp/kernel/drivers/acpi/toshiba_acpi.ko): No such device

This occurred at boot and again when I added toshiba_acpi to the parameters in my initial post.
Now, the file /lib/modules/2.6.8-24.10-smp/kernel/drivers/acpi/toshiba_acpi.ko does exist.

Any suggestions?

I also have SUSE 9.2 on a Toshiba Satellite laptop. I took a different approach to getting it all to work. I took the SYSGEN option NOACPI in order to the load process to work; I did not have to turn off HyperThreading. KDE & the desktop work fine once I then used SAX2 to resize the video from VGA to XGA (9.2 does not detect that the ATI video will work in XGA mode, so it defaults to VGA.

If I boot up first into XP and let the laptop fan come on, and then reboot into SUSE LX, the laptop runs fine all day after that. What you experience was a hard shutdown because with no ACPI module enabled, the fan won't automatically turn on to cool everything down. You should have seen a Kernel Panic message about the CPU overheating, but I'm guessing you missed it. By booting up into XP first, the heatsink warms up & the fan starts, so I know I have no hardware problem.

I do have to turn HyperThreading off when I run Symantec PartitionMagic under XP to fool around with my dual boot partitioning; once done I then re-enable it in the BIOS.

Sooner or later, Toshiba will release a newer ACPI module that is compatible with SUSE 9.2 and HyperThreading; until I just do the dual-boot trick above.

Other contributors have posted script commands to force the fan on during boot-up; search the postings & look for them.

Also, the Toshiba LAN card did not work on 9.2; I had to download the latest Kernel upgrade from an RPM mirror site for 9.2 & install it using YAST (easy to do!); once I did this & rebooted, I had immediate Internet connectivity so I could download all the SUSE 9.2 updates.

Regards,
MoonRover

Thanks for the suggestions moonrover. Maybe I missed the kernel panic message. I certainly couldn't see it with no display. :) I had no trouble with my LAN card being recognised. My system never felt hot when it went down and the fan does come on periodically.

When I was looking at the documentation for fnfx (fn keys on toshiba) it indicated that the message I'm getting probably means toshiba acpi support is not compiled into the kernel and it gives a couple kernel parameters to set. I'm about to see about recompiling my kernel.

I guess I'm just stubborn and don't want to have to boot into XP to make Linux work just on principles.

Thanks.

Hi.

I also have a Toshiba Satellite (in the M35 series). I got the same error message about Toshiba_acpi and after some research, learned that my BIOS was not Toshiba native, but Phoenix. If that's the case with yours', the fnfx will make no difference to you whatsoever. Just a thought...

Thanks JSpired, I had come to the same conclusion last night. My bios is also Phoenix. In looking at the kernel parameters associated with APM, although it doesn't get loaded because ACPI does first, the help suggested a number of things to try if you were getting random kernel oopses. They range from passing paremters at boot eg. no-hlt to compiling without APM.

I will try some more things but would be really interested to hear from anyone who has gotten this stuff to work without the "boot into xp" workaround.

From my suggestion to you to search postings for references to "fan" & overheat, you will find the following in another posting:
=================================================================
Kwast & Co
Newbie
Registered: Oct 2004
Location: Amsterdam
Distribution: Fedora
Posts: 9
HCL Entries: 0
Reviews: 0
Re: Toshiba Satellite A65 Dual Boot Overheats with Fedora only ( post #4)
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by jpc1258
I have a Toshiba Satellite A65-S126, I installed Fedora Core in a Dual Boot with Windows XP. Everything went smooth. Now my laptop will overheat and shut down only when running Fedora. Windows XP Works great. Any Help?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
put echo "force_on:1" > proc/acpi/fan/FAN1/state in rc.local to turn the fan on if you don't want a sudden shut down due to overheating.
Best regards,
Dick.
=================================================================

Regards,
Moonrover

Thanks Moonrover for doing that search. I tried but came up empty, clearly because I restricted my search to the suse forum. That'll teach me. You mentioned in your first post that there would likely have been a kernel panic. I have searched some of the logs (/var/log/messages and /var/log/faillog to name two) but do not see a kernel panic in them. Maybe I'm searching the wrong log.

Now I did see something interesting in /var/log/messages

Feb 12 20:22:24 rho [powersave][5509]: DIAG in Function activateSettings, line 2
95: No trip point support
Feb 12 20:22:24 rho [powersave][5509]: DIAG in Function activateSettings, line 3
04: Cooling mode is not supported by BIOS or the thermal module is not loaded,
nag your vendor to implement all ACPI specfications.

I wonder if I should tell powersaved to not load the thermal module.

I'll check out that fan on setting you pointed me to.

Thanks again.

Hmmm. I'm starting to think that my problem is not ACPI related. I tried booting with the acpi=off boot parameter today. The system boots fine and acipd reports no acpi in the kernel. Makes sense.

The fan has been going on and off by itself (presumably the bios is doing this) throughout the morning. I was working in a shell when I saw the display flash and after that - comatose.

No kernel panic in messages.

Any thoughts on how I might trace down what is causing these lock-ups? :scratch:

Thanks

I have an A65-S1068 Toshiba, which is slightly different than the A70 model, so I don't know if the BIOS's are the same between the two or not. All I can give you are just general troubleshooting suggestions:

1) Download all the SUSE 9.2 updates with YOU from any distro mirror site that has them; I used the one in Ulm, Germany, and install them. Verify SUSE still works OK.

2) Reboot one last time & turn off hyperthreading in the BIOS, then bootup cold the next morning with ACPI turned off, and without booting up into XP first to start the fan. Verify that either that the fan somehow starts up automatically on its own as you state above, or that the CPU shuts down after a kernel panic. When I created my initial login account/password, I check-marked the box that said "OK to receive system messages", so maybe why this is why I get the panic messages and you don't.

3) If you do get it to shutdown, immediately reboot up into XP or LX and verify that the fan comes on automatically because the heatsink is already HOT. If not, you have a thermal problem with the heatsink/fan for Toshiba to fix.

Regards,
MoonRover

I will try what you have suggested. I did request system messages when I created my account. I had another look and /var/log and some files of the form mail* which indicated that poxtfix was having trouble. I will have to look at its configuration. That probably explains why I havn't seen any panic messages.

To Moonrover or anyone:

I have a Toshiba Satellite A65-S1067, one number less than yours (Probably the same). You might be the only one on web with the similar specs that I have.

I have wasted 2 weeks trying to configure linux on this hunk of junk. I had to pick the worst possible configuration for linux. Anyways, I was wondering if you could give me a walkthrough of what you did as soon as you bought the laptop?

I've tried Slackware-Current and Ubuntu Warty on it and the same problems show up every time. I've already given it back to my parents to get it fixed.

I'd like to know what you think is the best distro for this laptop (S1067 or S1068)? You seem to be using Suse. How's that coming along?

The bottom line is, I just want to be productive.

I had to give up and now my parents have installed XP Home already. But today, the internal drive to use linux sprung out again.

Here are problems I had when I configured it:

ACPI - This seems to be recurring theme on linuxquestions.org ( Yes, I get the Random Shutdown as well because the fan does not turn on ).
Video - I can't seem to get 3D acceleration with xorg. Any tips there?
Sound - This I got to work, No probs here
PCMCIA/Cardbus - I bought the world's worst wireless card OR toshiba's cardbus slot is not detecting it at all. I bought the newest Linksys WPC54GS w/ Speedbooster (have to use ndiswrapper) (uses a Broadcom chipset), but in /sbin/lspci, I don't get anything except for Texas Instruments Cardbus Controller. I assume you have the same cardbus and run similar pcmcia scripts if you use the port.

Also do you know whether the BIOS for (S1067 or S1068) is authentically toshiba or just pheonix? According the toshiba's specs page at http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/t...ceghdgngdgmm.0

it just says it's ACPI Bios.

Also, can linux damage your battery because of random shutting downs. Because soon after I had my troubles, I realize I can't turn on my laptop with out the AC Adapter and even after charging the laptop for a day, the battery light is still amber.

I hope these clues will help all toshiba linux users. I just don't want to have to succumb to Windoze in the end. In order to use the stability of Windows, I've compromised to have 20 GB WIndows and 20 GB Linux. Which linux to use (Arch, Slackware, Suse, Debian, Ubuntu, or Gentoo)? That's up for you guys to suggest. This might actually turn out to be a very helpful thread for the future. Thanks!

Well, let's start at the top of the heap, and work your way thru your problems, one at a time, in small incremental steps, instead of the big bang you are hoping for.

First off, you have a great shot at success in getting LX working on the Toshiba gear. It required a bit of debugging on my part, but I'm a full-time programmer and used to this sort of thing. I've had many years on SCO Unix, "C", Windows, and decided to take the plunge into SUSE LX after the announcement that Novell picked them up. I've used Netware many years and all their documentation is good, so this is the advantage I perceived over all the other LX distros that are available. They all have a common Unix family tree, but performance, support, and documentation is what will make or break a vendor. I tackled this task just to keep my debugging skills sharp, because over the years Windoze does so much self-configuration and automatic driver insertion and automatic updating without intervention, it's kinda like having a nice touring car that you never lifted the hood on ........

From absolute ground zero, I took notes of every step in getting my Toshiba up & running; I will eliminate the deadends & just give you the shortest path to success. Here we go. "You're gonna git your fingers a little oily under the hood now ....."

1) I bought Toshiba Pentium laptop after Xmas was over; got a good deal at CompUSA. Best bang for the buck, and I wanted a Pentium "V-8" instead of a Celeron "4-banger". I verified that the XP preloaded on it worked OK, and that all hardware (LAN, modem, wireless, CD, etc.) worked fine under XP. It came with 256 MB memory; I doubled it to 512 MB. Tested audio CDs, a DVD movie, and Internet access. Then be ready to blow it away knowing that you have a Rescue CD from Toshiba; it definitely works, I tell you.

2) Next, I bought SUSE LX 9.2 at Fry's. After having practicing loading it on an Athlon based system at work, the next weekend I started getting ready for the dual-boot reconfiguration on my new laptop. Early on a Saturday morning I started the process with DVD 1 in the distro package and chose English as my primary language. Now we're off and running .....

3) Next, you have an opportunity to mess with the partitioning. The lowest I could go was 11GB for XP so that it would work with the GRUB dual boot loader, There was a bug in the 9.1 distro that for larger XP partitions, the dual-boot loader failed to load XP (see other threads on this site) that was still in the 9.2 distro. I put XP at the bottom of the disk, a future expansion area (undefined), and at the top of the drive an 878MB swap area, and a 33GB LX partition on my second try, because I found out that any larger for XP that GRUB failed (the infamous "Chainloader +1" bug), and that with ACPI enabled I failed at multiple points along the way too.

4) Got thru the rest of the system loading, but I noted that the monitor resolution chosen was at VGA mode instead of XGA. Don't be temped to change it now; you will get the "black screen of death". Just let it reboot and then use SAX2 to set it to 1024x768 XGA mode once you do the initial signon. Catch 22 -- you can't use YAST; I tried; you can't save the new configuration because the "SAVE" button is off the screen because of the wrong resolution.

5) Because I had first booted up into XP, at this point I didn't realize that my fan was working fine, so it was not a problem at this point. I played around with the desktop, resizing the icons, with KDE, and got familiar with everything.

6) Next problem -- couldn't get the modem, LAN, or wireless to work, so I couldn't execute YOU to fetch the latest updates. After Googleing for a few hours on my Win98 desktop, I decided to download the latest kernel (both the default and the NOGPL versions) from an RPM mirror site and burned them onto a CD and inserted into the laptop & loaded them both using YAST.

7) Upon rebooting, I discovered that my LAN card was now working with no more editing and changing. I verified Internet connectivity (Hello, eBay !!), and then executed the YOU function (YAST Online Update). I downloaded all suggested updates from the Ulm, West Germany mirror site, and let YAST install them all. I gave up getting the modem & wireless drivers for now; I will tackle that later.

8) The next day I ran into the Kernel Panic I've discussed with NOACPI; I get around it by first booting into XP long enough for the heatsink to heat up. Yes, a kludge, but LX runs the whole day afterward with the fan in low speed instead of cyclone mode.

9) Final problem was running PartitionMagic on XP to resize the XP partition from 11GB to 16GB; DON'T do it unless you first turn off HyperThreading in the XP BIOS or you will blow out the XP partitioning table like I did; I had to stop & fix it, and it is now at 16GB.

10) Now to wait for drivers for the Wireless NIC, my USB mouse is where I'm at. I don't want to use the NDIS wrapper solution using Windoze drivers on LX, so I wait .....

10) I'm also waiting for an ACPI driver that won't misbehave on the Toshiba on LX.

In the meantime, GRUB faithfully loads both systems, and I play to my heart's content late at night trying learn what many other LX pioneers before me have found out.

Regards,
Moonrover

Even more answers:

3-D graphics - No, haven't gotten it working, neither have others I see from other LX postings on this site I've cruised thru. Nice to have if I needed it, but I don't yet.

BIOS (Phoenix or ??) -- Don't know, don't care. I have SUSE 9.2 LX up & running with the LAN card, so I have a "Linux Labortory" with dual boot working. I will be patient & wait for working drivers once Novell convinces the manufacturers to open up their specs so SUSE can write working native drivers instead of using the NDIS wrapper solution.

Battery damage - No, LX cannot damage it. It should recharge OK overnight and come back to the "two green LEDs" the next day. I have a wireless router in my house, so I use XP anywhere I'm at in the house with no power cord, & then re-dock it at night to recharge. Maybe you have a weak battery. If it's a NiCad, toss it & get a Nickel-Metal-Hydroxide ASAP. LX runs just fine on the battery once I get the fan cranked up, and I have had no more Kernel Panics followed by a shutdown.

In short, remember that my total LX experience is with SUSE 9.2, but a lot of the information I gave you applies to other distros as well. A Ford and a Chevy both get you down the freeway, but people buy one or the other for styling, confort, and service. I won't critique or even critisize any of the other distros because I have no experience with them. I chose SUSE for the reasons stated above & was willing to be a pioneer on 9.2 like everyone else ahead of me simply because of my previous experience with Novell Netware.

Best Regards,
Moonrover

Moonrover, I tried your suggestions and here is what happened.

I did the online update yesterday.

I did a cold boot this morning straight into Linux with acpi=off. The fan cycled on and off throughout the morning. There were idle periods (where screensaver activated) and active periods. The system ran for about three hours and crashed. A crash is indicated in wtmp but still no kernel panic messages to me or root and no errors in /var/log/mail.

I rebooted immediately in xp and the fan came right on. Also, I stuck my hand underneath and the the air coming out of the fan vent was cool. It just doesn't seem like the thing is overheating.

Is there a boot flag that will cause the system to do some sort of crash dump?

BTW, the A70 has a phoenix bios and I am running the most recent bios and I have had hyperthreading disabled since my initial install.

I'm not sure what to try next.

I don't know anything about a boot flag, sorry. Once I figured out the kernel panic popup message telling me the CPU was ready to fry eggs, I haven't had it happen again. If you ran for 3 hours, were you running on AC or Battery at the time? If battery, is it being drained to the point of running out of juice? If not, and you are on AC, then something else is causing the shutdown.

It was running on AC.

Kernel panic popup message? How did you manage that?

The Kernel Popup came because of an interrupt from the Pentium that it is overheating. It was automatic, I assume, in SUSE LX to route it to me as a popup, because I never configured anything during the SYSGEN process other than to send "system mail" to me.

More googling and more reading has led me to this. There is a kernel module called omnibook that is written for phoenix bios notebooks. I'm going to take a closer look. Here is the URL if you are interested.

http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...ease_id=268361

If XP still runs all day on your laptop with AC or Battery and no shutdowns, then it is still something to do with the ACPI module not being enabled for LX. Other posts I see say that with HyperThreading turned off, you can use the ACPI module on LX, so give that a try. The only reason I've had to turn off HT was to be able to run Symantec PartitionMagic to resize my partitioning without blowing up the MBR partitioning tables, which I found out the HARD way. If you have ACPI enabled and when LX comes up and you signon and start up KDE, if KDE hangs when initializing peripherals (the "globe" icon), then you know you cannot run with ACPI enabled; this was my experience.
Regards,
Moonrover

It was because of the lockup at the initializing peripherals that I turned off hyperthreading. Now, when I've had acpi running, I took a look at trying to force the fan on by catting into /proc/acpi/fan/FAN/state (which is what the file should be according to the admin guide), but my /proc/acpi/fan directory is empty. Moreover, I could not create the expected files as root either. I have tried it both with powersaved and acpid (powersaved supercedes acpid).

There is also a note in the admin guide that suspend is not supported with hyperthreading systems.

I have not tried letting xp run all day, largely because I don't have any software loaded on it that I need to use. I only kept it around just in case I need to use it some day.

OK, sometime I'll leave my SUSE LX on long enough to see what happens when a powersave suspend-to-disk request is made. In the meantime, this URL below has a lot of Toshiba-specific experience with the Power Management and the fan and the CPU overheating confirming what you are seeing. This user also has problems with the CPU overheating and shutting down. Try a peek at: http://www.michaelminn.com/linux/not..._suse_9.0.html , then click on the Power Management and Fan link. Hope this helps ..... found this by Googleing again.
Regards,
Moonrover

I found that same site with my googling. That was what got me looking into the omnibook module. I've downloaded it and am trying to summon up the courage to try compiling it. Unlike you, I'm not a programmer, just a dumb statistician. :)

Thanks for doing a google search yourself and sharing it with me. Much appreciated.

Well, I compiled and loaded the omnibook kernel module according to the accompanying documentation. There were no errors and the system still boots. I'm not 100% sure that it is actually going to do anything for me. There is a /proc/omnibook entry however the various things that this is supposed to control do not seem to appear as subdirectories of /proc/omnibook.

Anyway, I did my cold boot straight into Linux this morning with acpi. Now I wait and see what breaks.

Hi,

I just noticed this forum and I have been playing with my A70 (see A70 notes http://koslx1.triumf.ca/gertjan/tosh...shiba_A70.html bit out of date now). I used to have my laptop freeze, especially under linux (FC3) but also under win XP. Somehow the problem is occuring less and less. I dont have any info on Suse 9.2. per se.
I haven't had too many problems with wireless (Atheros, Madwifii drivers) or screen resolution (minor modification to x conf file, see page mentioned above). The only thing that's not working at all is the modem. My biggest problems with the A70 are

1. ACPI - I really, really want to be able to suspend to RAM or at least hibernate

2. Fan control - I have the opposite problem - under Linux I find the fans come on very often. There are two and they can be very annoying. They come on much less under XP.

So my question of the day is, has any one been succesful with any of the ACPI sleep modes (S3, S4) or swsusp ? (under any distro). I have tried swsusp from scratch (vanilla 2.6.11 kernel, and patches) but my latest attempt came from http://mhensler.de/swsusp/ who has pre-compiled kernels with swsusp2 build in. Still doesnt work, the laptop goes to sleep but never wakes up.

Does any one have fan control working ? acpitool gives no 'no FAN information available' (or something like that). The kernel modules are there, so it's not that. I figure there should be a way to have the CPU throttled (that works under ACPI) and have the fans come on less frequently. Should also save battery power.

Cheers

Gertjan

Gertjan - Thanks for the info and joining our thread that is rapidly becoming a defacto Toshiba ACPI fan control forum!
Statguy - Good luck with the omnibook mods. I'll still plan to try my powersaver test this weekend.
Regards,
Moonrover

I may have had some partial success with the omnibook mods by forcing a firmware type load. Some things work like changing lcd brightness and taking the cpu temperature. It shows the fan as on although the fan level doesn't seem to change when I hear the fan speed change. The fan does speed up when the temperature goes a bit past 50 C (55 maybe) and drops down when it gets to 48-49 C. The values in the fan_policy are a bit wonky and don't seem to be connected to the fan behaviour I'm observing. I cannot actually change the fan policy settings except to a default which is clearly wrong for my box.

The author of the module has provided instructions to help get other machines supported, so I will try to follow up on that as well.

Thanks Gertjan, I'll check your pages next.

OK. The omnibook module (as I loaded it anyway) did not prevent a lockup. As near as I can tell, the fan behaviour looks like it is being controlled entriely by the BIOS since nothing I have done so far seems to affect it.

What I've tried now is to turn hyperthreading back on and boot with acpi=off. That is one combination I havn't tried. The KDE login did not freeze during the "Initializing Peripherals" with acpi disabled. My rationale for trying this is that since my kernel is 2.6.8-24.11-smp which is a multiprocessor kernel, I'm wondering if the kernel is getting upset about only seeing one processor. Based on my experimentation to date, I don't believe the CPU is overheating.

My reasoning may not be a logical leap, but so far, nothing else has fixed the problem. At the moment, all ACPI is doing for me is auto power down when I shut down. I would gladly suffer the inconvenience of pressing the power button to have complete control over when the system goes down.

Yet another failure! This problem is REALLY starting to annoy me!

This is how I've been running -- HyperThreading ON and ACPI OFF. I'm up to the same kernel revision level as you also. When I shutdown, I have to manually hold the power button down to quit because auto-powerdown doesn't work (with ACPI OFF) it seems.
Regards,
Moonrover

Hmm... am not sure if Hyperthreading makes a difference. I believe stock Fedora 3 kernels come with hyperthreading off but ACPI is on - which is all I have ever tried (it gives me the battery display and ties the power on/off button to a gentle shutdown). But I also have the problem of having to manually switch off the lap top after a shutdown -h now so I doubts it's hyperthread related.

As an aside, Pavel M (one of the people involved in swsusp2) mentioned not to use an smp kernel when trying to get
sleep modes (S3/S4) to work.

I briefly looked at the omnibook sourceforge.net page but it doesnt look there is much recent activity. Still - I guess I have to try this too. Sigh...I long for the days when with RedHat6.2, Sleep/Hibernate worked like a charm and the fan rarely ever needed to come on with my Gateway Solo.

Guess what we need is an ACPI module that is HyperSleep tolerant !!
Sorry for the comedy at this point, but we're getting nowhere twice as fast as we were before.

Sounds like with ACPI off, the fan is free-wheeling in some low-level communication with the heatsink to turn off-and-on for all of us, but just not the way we want it to with smooth variable rate speed increases that the ACPI would be capable of managing on demand based on processing in the CPU chip.

Regards,
Moonrover

A couple of thoughts. As for 3D acceleration, all I did was switch it on in SaX (is that a SuSE specific utility?) and it appears to work.

Next, let's step back from the problem a bit. There is clearly an ACPI problem. Some evidence is that /proc/acpi/fan is an empty directory on my system. But, if ACPI is the source of my lockups, why do I still get them with ACPI disabled. In fact, so far, nothing I've tried has had any effect on my lockups.

So, let's assume for a moment that ACPI is not the cause of the lockups. What are some other explanations. For example, a friend of mine, who is also using SuSE 9.2, mentioned that he thought there was a bug in the current kernel related to USB. I am using an external USB mouse. Is it within the realm of posibility that my mouse is the problem?

I'm just trying to take a fresh look rather than get tunnel vision on one particular known issue.

Hey, at least I'm learning things. :)

Check out the following URLs

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/APIC
http://http://lists.suse.com/archive...-Dec/2716.html
http://seclists.org/lists/linux-kern.../Jan/1137.html

There is another beastie APIC (not ACPI) that deals with interrupts. But it can cause lockups.

Anyway, I've tried booting with the noapic boot parameter. Now, I'm not really clear what the difference is between apic and lapic. Yes, I know the l is for local, but does noapic imply nolapic?

I doubt the mouse is the problem; disconnect it & use the laptop "scratch pad" & I'll bet you still have the same problems. I think we have lockups with or without ACPI, based on all the responses from everyone. It's buggy if enabled (KDE hangs when initializing peripherals for most of us) and we still have random fan & cooling shutdowns without it enabled.

3D graphics acceleration - good for you if that's all it took to enable it. Can you prove to yourself it is actually working?

I think the general conclusion is that the hanging is not related to ACPI - I certainly havent had problems that I could relate to it. Also, I get occaisional freezes in XP as well. Dont use it as much so it's hard to judge how often. I am now using 2.6.10-741 (FC3 2nd to latest update) and my A70 has not hang up at all. I do wonder if the problem is release related (maybe even KDE). What's the latest kernel for Suse ? I also seem to recall sound driver problems at the same time as the hanging and had to add the snd-atiixp-modem on the hotplug blacklist (ask me if this is unclear).

My fans are both going full speed right now. Very annoying. Can someone summarize the results of the omnibook kernel patch ? It wasnt completely clear to me.

As an aside, I manage to do a hibernate (swsusp), at least without X running and removing some kernel modules. One small step...

G

The extent of testing on 3D acceleration is pretty limited. While exploring my newly installed system I tried to start the tackballs game and it wouldn't because it require 3D. I clicked it on in SaX and the game started. That's as far as I took it -- I had other things to do.

I ran my system for 3 hours last night after booting with noapic and there were no lockups despite many screensaver activations.

In short, the omnibook module "out of the box" does not solve the ACPI problems in the A70. I would say that all that works is temperature monitoring although it has no effect on fan behaviour. Yes, you could also change the lcd brightness, but those hot keys work on my system.

Booting with noapic did not prevent a lockup. I let the computer idle for several hours while I was out this morning. When I keyed my password and pressed enter to unlock the screen, it flashed once and froze.

More googling found this:

http://tiptsoft.com/laptop/linux.html

This guy traced his lockups to the frequency with which some apps were polling the /proc files. When I had turned up the verbosity of powersaved I saw something similar. Here it is:

Feb 12 19:28:46 rho [powersave][5417]: DIAG in Function getCPULoadSMP, line 490: Could not evalutate CPU load, /proc/stat is not updated, yet, please slow down polling this file!

I tried shutting down the kpowersave applet, but still locked up when trying to write this post. I had to start again. :mad:

I've also noticed a lot of messages like this one:

Feb 17 16:51:35 localhost kernel: SFW2-INext-DROP-DEFLT IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=192.168.0.102 DST=192.168.0.255 LEN=249 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=9 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=138 DPT=138 LEN=229

I had assumed that these were from the firewall and had ignored them, but the last message before my last crash was this one:

Feb 17 16:33:12 localhost kernel: SFW2-INext-DROP-DEFLT IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:0f:b0:38:86:1d:00:10:4b:65:47:1c:08:00 SRC=192.168.0.100 DST=192.168.0.102 LEN=198 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=0 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=138 DPT=138 LEN=178

I don't know if it is connected or not.

Right now I'm really really annoyed. Nothing I've tried seems to have any effect. I'm starting to consider exchanging this laptop for something else.

I decided to try the screensaver/powerdown test tonight. I tested with AC power & with the battery and NOACPI in both cases. I set my screensaver to come on at 4 minutes, standby mode at 10 minutes, suspend at 20 minutes, and powerdown at 30 minutes.

I observed the screensaver & standby modes, but never got a suspend to disk or a power off shutdown to take effect. In both cases, as soon as I touched the touchpad, the desktop came back again. I was never dead in the water.

Regards,
Moonrover

Saturday Update:
Performed same tests with HyperThreading ON, same results. Got the screensaver & standby modes, but never the suspend & powerdown.

That's interesting. In some instances where I've messed around with boot parameters, the boot process has frozen when doing something with atiixp. I also have these messages from dmesg.

ATIIXP: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:14.1
ATIIXP: chipset revision 0
ATIIXP: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ALSA sound/pci/atiixp.c:522: atiixp: codec reset timeout

The last message about the codec reset timeout also appears in /var/log/messages.

Will putting snd-atiixp-modem in the hotplug blacklist completely disable sound or only some sound component related to the internal modem?

On my system, running lsmod | grep snd gives the following:

I don't know if any of this will be helpful, but figure I'd rather err in giving too much information.

It's not linux's fault!
 

Hey. I did some more googling and think I've found the problem. Check out the last post by madmaxter on this URL.

http://notebookforums.com/archive/in...p/t-46919.html

It appears that static discharge is responsible for the freezes. In a matter of minutes I found three links describing the problem.

It is consistent with my most common lockup, walk back to the computer and type my password to unlock it. It explains why gertjan has had lockups in windows as well.

The good news is that the problem does not appear to be related to anything in linux, it's just coincidental that parts of ACPI don't work.

The bad news, how to prevent static discharge. It's a good thing I use an external mouse. I guess resting my hands on the console (especially the left speaker) is a no-no. I guess I have to ground myself before touching anything. Oh yeah, don't use it in an electrical storm. :)

Maybe some good news. After posting this I looked at some more links. Toshiba has acknowledged the problem and it can (apparently) be fixed by replacing the speakers.

Hi,

Just a brief message (i am at work...) but I presume every one has seen:
http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/t...ceghdgngdgnj.0

(if the link doesnt work, go to Toshiba support and search for A70). The message (from Toshiba) is describing locking problems specifically with the A70.

Re: sound driver - no, blacklisting the modem does not have an effect on the sound card - in fact, I had to put it to get sound to work. SUSE may do this for you - at least I noticed tha the SUSE 9.2 demo CD (i forget the right term for it at the moment...I mean the 'knoppix' like release) got sound working right off the bat. Check your /etc/hotplug black list file. I dont have my laptop with me, or I would paste the entry here.

Gertjan

Oops..reading more carefully, I guess we are both referring to the same issue, although Toshiba doesnt state it. I came across it indepently this morning.

Good Googleing, guys. Guess we'll all need to order grounding straps with 20 foot tethers for use around the house. All my testing was done at a desk in my living room where I have no static discharge problems. I still plan to do the 2nd half of my testing this weekend (with HyperThreading ON; the previous tests were with it OFF) just to see if I see any lockups when the laptop should be hibernating or shutting down.

Arrangements have been made to send mine in for repair. They say it takes 2-3 business days.

BTW, one of the pages I read suggested that the lockups don't occur when running on battery. That may be true. I have not had a lockup when using it on the train and my hands are all over the console and speakers.

Before we get into a Toshiba bashing, other mfrs. have had similar problems.
I had something similar on my older Compaq laptop that my new Toshiba A65 takes the place of.
It had only 195MB memory & a slow processor, so I couldn't install Linux on it, hence the new Xmas gift to myself.

From the Compaq website at this URL: http://h18027.www1.hp.com/athome/sup...5/electro.html :

Typical Electrostatic Voltages:

At Relative Humidity 10% 40% 55%
Event
Walking across carpet 35,000 V 15,000 V 7,500 V
Walking across vinyl floor 12,000 V 5,000 V 3,000 V
Motions of bench worker 6,000 V 800 V 400 V
Removing DIPS from plastic tubes 2,000 V 700 V 400 V
Removing DIPS from vinyl trays 11,500 V 4,000 V 2,000 V
Removing DIPS from Styrofoam 14,500 V 5,000 V 3,500 V
Removing bubble pack from PCBs 26,000 V 20,000 V 7,000 V
Packing PCBs in foam-lined box 21,000 V 11,000 V 5,000 V
NOTE: 700 volts can degrade a product.

As you can see, walking across a carpet generates the most juice.
Regards,
Moonrover

I dont recall a lock up either on batteries. Sounds like this is it. Apparently, Toshiba will even pick up my lap top at home. Hard to believe that living on the We(s)t coast I have static problems...but oh well.

Well, I'll let you know what happens after my repair. Other than the lockups, I like this machine.

Question for statguy: I have a A70C-KL100E. This must be a canadian model number since I can't find this number on the US support web site (and the canadian site seems flaky and less complete). Do you know what the equivalent US model number is ?
Thanks

I suspect you are correct about that being a Canadian part number. My part number is PSA70C-SC100E. A quick glance at the US site suggests two models, an A70 which can be customized and an A70-S249. Mine has the 60 gb drive so is likely the A70-S249, whereas yours is a customized A70. Software bundles also look a bit different.

My conclusion, there is probably no direct translation between the Canadian part number and the US part number.

I can check, but I suspect my support person simply contacted Toshiba Canada to arrange the repair.