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I am running Linux Mint 18.1 on an Asus UX305UA. When I suspend on AC power, the laptop resumes properly. But on battery when I suspend either from the CLI or menus it suspends and then shuts down in several seconds requiring a reboot. This was the case for awhile and then for some reason it stopped and suspended normally. Then several days ago the condition came back. Here's my setup. Any help would be much appreciated.
Location: Montreal, Quebec and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia CANADA
Distribution: Arch, AntiX, ArtiX
Posts: 1,364
Rep:
Hey bertradio ... There are several ways to troubleshoot this type of issue. Some involve some rather low level validations of acpi event handling by various system components.
Sometimes, however, a satisfactory resolution can be arrived at more simply with the help of certain packages specialized in laptop power management. May I ask if you have any of the following packages installed, and if so which ones and how they are configured ?
- powertop
- laptop-mode-tools
- your Desktop Environment's (Cinnamon) power management utility
No I don't have any of those packages installed, though I did at one time.
As a test today, I booted with a "clean" Linux Mint from a USB to see if I ran into the same problem and I did. So this clearly has to do with hardware and not particularly with something in my Linux install.
The weird thing is that when I first installed Linux the suspend and return was working with no problem. Then at some point the problem developed. I never could trace it to any software install. It continued for a month or two and then one day it disappeared and everything worked well. Then a week ago the problem returned. It seems it's an issue with Linux/Umbutu and the Asus hardware.
The problem only exists on battery. On AC, the laptop suspends and returns normally. If I suspend on AC, then remove the AC adapter, the laptop reboots when I open the lid. The same thing happens if I suspend while on battery.
Correction, I do have the Cinnamon Power Management package installed. It installed along with Linux Mint. I do not have the others, though I tried them in the past.
Location: Montreal, Quebec and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia CANADA
Distribution: Arch, AntiX, ArtiX
Posts: 1,364
Rep:
Hi bert,
OK ... This may be a bit of an iterative, trial and error, type of troubleshooting method, but here are my comments and recommendations:
- This type of issue is extremely common on laptops. The suspend-resume functionality depends on a slew of factors, and may vary in reliability with kernel updates. I run into issues regularly with Arch Linux (my distro of choice), given that it is a rolling-release model and kernel updates are frequent.
- I would do the following, in order, rebooting and using the laptop between each step and seeing how things are before progressing to the next step :
1) If not already done, make sure the Cinnamon power management utility is configured as appropriately as possible, using any options it has for suspend-resume, lid opening and closing, etc. ..
2) Install powertop, create its systemd service file, configure it to auto-tune, enable and start the service.
3) Install laptop-mode-tools, enable and start its systemd service.
Cheers - let us know how it goes ! ... Also, maybe others here will chime in with their own experiences and ideas, especially if they primarily use Mint. Personally, I only occasionally experiment with Mint inside of a VM.
Location: Montreal, Quebec and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia CANADA
Distribution: Arch, AntiX, ArtiX
Posts: 1,364
Rep:
Hi again bert,
I was hoping that your distro's (Mint) documentation would have the pertinent details as to how to set up powertop. In Arch, it simply involves creating the appropriate systemd unit (config file) and enabling the service. To your knowledge, does Mint use systemd to manage services/daemons ?
In a nutshell (assuming systemd):
- Create the powertop systemd unit file. This is simply a text file called powertop.service, that must be located (in Arch, anyway) in /etc/systemd/system/. Its contents would be:
I was able to get the powertop service enabled on boot. FYI on my system powertop was in /usr/sbin not /usr/bin so I changed the powertop.service file accordingly.
Unfortunately this did not fix the issue. Are the any other tweaks to powertop you might suggest before I move on to the other solution?
Location: Montreal, Quebec and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia CANADA
Distribution: Arch, AntiX, ArtiX
Posts: 1,364
Rep:
Hi bert,
There are many tweaks possible with powertop :-) ... That said, it still may be easier to try the next solution (laptop-mode-tools), in combination with powertop in simple "auto-tune" mode (the way you have it now). If you run powertop (needs root or sudo) from the command line and go to the last panel, you'll find all the "tunables". Auto-tune sets them all to "good" (optimal power-saving mode) by default, but tweaking the appropriate ones is possible here and could lead to a solution. This however takes some time and the addition of laptop-mode-tools, enabled in its default mode, may improve the situation. It's easy to do and can also easily be undone.
I installed laptop-mode-tools with the defaults. This did not fix the problem. I looked at all the things that were checked and unchecked and did not off hand see anything relevant. I did, however, experience an ethernet issue and so I unchecked that.
One more clue. When I suspend on battery the "sleep" light on the laptop blinks which means it is sleeping. So the shutdown appears to come not from the suspend, but from the resume.
Location: Montreal, Quebec and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia CANADA
Distribution: Arch, AntiX, ArtiX
Posts: 1,364
Rep:
Hey bert,
I did some quick online research and apparently this line of laptops from Asus has some known issues along the lines of the problems you've been experiencing. I would suggest you take a look at (at least) the following links. Even though one of them is a Windows-based discussion, the comments concerning the display driver may be of interest. The other link is from a Ubuntu-based discussion and contains some specific suggestions you may try.
I've seem some of that stuff and it seems quite extreme for a relative newbie to Linux. As I understand it, the drivers are part of the kernel and are updated with the kernel. I've tried different kernels with the same result. The weird thing is that it used to suspend and resume on battery with no problem and as I said even booting with a clean USB Linux I have the problem. So it seems it may be hardware related. Other than that, the Asus is working very well with Linux. From what I can see, Asus only supports Windows on the laptop, so I'm not sure they can be of help.
Thanks for the links. I'll do more research. But for the moment, I just need to shutdown and reboot when on battery. It's a bother, but not impossible to deal with.
Man I wish I'd seen that Ubuntu info when we had a Zenbook in the house ...
FWIW we had an older model, worked fine, including suspend/hibernation, until one day it just died. No power anywhere. Data on the SSD was still ok, but I had to get a special adaptor in from China. The thinness of the case meant a "normal" SSD wasn't able to be used.
Of course the backup I had was missing the file(s) needed. Always seems to happen.
Location: Montreal, Quebec and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia CANADA
Distribution: Arch, AntiX, ArtiX
Posts: 1,364
Rep:
Bert - although it definitely sounds like our member syg00 had a hardware issue (see his post immediately above), I would not assume that your problem is hardware related.
As you have surmised, kernel updates sometimes cause compatibility problems on some systems. These are often corrected/resolved in future kernel updates. Since in your case, your Asus functioned as expected initially, but no longer does, I'm guessing it's a question of an update having occurred in the interim that has caused the issue. The distro you are using is not "rolling release", so updates to the kernel are not as frequent (in order, paradoxically, to maintain stability). Your options, if this is indeed the cause of your problem, would therefore be :
- live with the problem and wait for an upcoming kernel update in Mint and hope that this resolves the issue
- try to identify the last version of the kernel under which everything worked normally (perhaps starting with the version installed with whatever media you used at the time ...), and downgrade to that version (assuming no dependency issues)
- upgrade to a more recent version of the kernel. You are on 4.4 and the current stable release is quite far ahead, 4.10.11-1 (... and 4.11 is due out this weekend, apparently). The issue may have been corrected somewhere along the way.
- identify the specific module or component that has changed that is causing the issue (more difficult) and try correcting that. This may involve recompiling the kernel, which is a task you may not feel comfortable with. ... Or it may involve certain workarounds that are simpler to implement (for example the suggestions given in the Ubuntu post I linked earlier).
In the end, it's up to you. The world of linux is a bit different than that of Windows. Neither are necessarily better or worse (... opinions vary), but linux does require a bit more of a "figure-it-out-and-do-it-yourself" mindset on the part of the user. Even this depends a lot on the distro you choose. You are using Mint, which is definitely one of the more "Windows-like" experiences, in my opinion, but it is still linux and that means you get all the advantages and challenges that come with it.
Personally, I've been using Arch for the last 7 years and I love it - your mileage may vary.
All this said, I hope you find this community (LinuxQuestions) helpful - please feel free to continue troubleshooting this issue or any other with us.
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