ThinkWiki - User contributions [en]

Problem with high power drain in ACPI sleep

2005-03-29T07:09:48Z

220.244.224.9: /* For Thinkpads with Radeon graphic driver */

Information about the problem of too high power drain in ACPI sleep mode.

==Problem description==
Several people realised that their ThinkPads eat up too much power while suspended to ram via ACPI. Compared to APM suspend to ram the power drain is experienced to be about 10 times as high, 2-5 Watts. This empties the battery within one or two days.

==Affected Models==
*Different symptoms have been reported for different models. In some models the origin of the power drain is obvious ([[Problem with LCD backlight remaining on during ACPI sleep|backlight on during suspend]]), in other models there is no obvious reason.
*On some models/configurations the higher power drain couldn't even be realized or was at least significantly lower.
*The T4x thinkpad series (T40, T40p, T41, T41p, T42, T42p) suspends to ram just fine, and there are no components that are obviously left powered up. The ultrabay and network light is on, but that is the same under windows (but under APM sleep to RAM those lights are OFF).
The following table gives an overview of the models suffering from the mysterious power drain. To find out about your model, you may use the following [[ACPI sleep power drain test script | script]]. It creates a file <tt>/var/log/battery.log</tt> which will tell you if you are affected or not.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that some models only suffer this problem with certain software. For example, my T40 (2374-94U) has the high power drain issue with the stock Fedora Core 3. If I use one of the more recent kernels from [http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~vbraun/computing/T41/kernel.html Volker Braun's T-41 site], everything (suspend-to-RAM, suspend-to-disk) works just fine and my battery life seems much better than APM. In other words, just because you see this problem with your ThinkPad with your current software does not mean that your ThinkPad will doomed to always be affected. There are similar solutions for Debian-based systems too.

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"
|-
! style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#ffcfbc;" | affected models
! style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#cfefcf;" | unaffected models
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#fff0e0;" |
*[[:Category:T23 | T23]]
**2647-???
*[[:Category:T40 | T40]]
**2373-MU3
**2373-82U
**2373-92U
**2373-22G
*[[:Category:T40p | T40p]]
**2373-G1U
**2373-G3U
**2373-G3G
**2373-G1G
* [[:Category:T41 | T41]]
**2379-DJU
**2373-9HU
**2373-4FG
**2373-2FG
**2373-6U4
**2373-7JU
* [[:Category:T41p | T41p]]
**2373-9FU
* [[:Category:T42 | T42]]
**2378-DUU
**2373-FWG
* [[:Category:R40 | R40]]
** 2722-5MG
** 2722-B3G
** 2897-GWU
* [[:Category:X21 | X21]]
* [[:Category:T30 | T30]]
** 2366-81A
** 2366-97U
* [[:Category:R50 | R50]]
** 1829-7RG
* [[:Category:R51 | R51]]
** 1829-EHG
** 1836-Q6U
| style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#e9f9e9;" |
*[[:Category:T41p | T41p]]
**2373-GKG
**2373-GGG
**[[2373-GHG]]
*[[:Category:T42p | T42p]]
**[[2373-HTG]]
**[[2373-W6M]]
**[[2373-GTG]]
**[[2373-GXG]]
**2373-KXM
*[[:Category:T42 | T42]]
**[[2378-FVU]]
*[[:Category:R50p | R50p]]
|}

==Affected Operating Systems==

*Linux, all flavours.
*Windows, for some models as well (only when using non-IBM drivers).

==Status==
The cause of the problem is not really clear, yet.

A faulty DSDT might be responsible for the phenomenon. The thinkpad T4x DSDT has a few small bugs, none of which should cause the extra power drain. (Interesting to note: The DSDT from BIOS 3.13 (Nov 04) for the T42p compiles without bugs.)

There is a interesting discussion taking place in the [http://bugme.osdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3022 OSDL Bugzilla].

Update: it seems that the most significant difference can be made by properly turning off the video chip.

==Solutions==
===For Thinkpads with Radeon graphic driver===
A proposed solution is to remove the CONFIG_PPC_PMAC condition for enabling D2 sleep in drivers/video/aty/radeon_pm.c as discussed in [http://bugme.osdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3022 kernel bug 3022]. There you can also find patches doing this. The patches divide into unconditional ones like [http://carrot.hep.upenn.edu/~vbraun/kernel-T4x/test/patch-2.6.11-rc2-radeonfb-D2.patch.bz2 this one for 2.6.11-rc2] and conditional ones. The conditional ones only do D2 on models where it has been reported to work, the unconditional ones force D2 sleep on every model and you might experience hangs on resume with those.

For [[:Category:Fedora Core | Fedora Core]] there's are precompiled patched kernels (2.6.11-rc2 based) available:
*[http://carrot.hep.upenn.edu/~vbraun/kernel-T4x/test/kernel-DANGEROUS-T4x-2.6.11-8.i386.rpm kernel with unconditional patch applied]
*[http://carrot.hep.upenn.edu/~vbraun/kernel-T4x/test/kernel-T4x-2.6.11-8.i386.rpm kernel with conditional patch applied].

If you try, please send the result (hang yes/no, battery drain yes/no) with the precise model number (for example, I have a IBM thinkpad T41 2379-DJU) to <tt>vbraun at physics dot upenn dot edu</tt>, it would be nice if your subject line would include "RADEONFB:" to make sure that I do not miss any emails.

'''ATTENTION!'''<br />
This solution enables doing suspend-to-D2 on non-PPC-machines, which is not tested at all and supposed to be the wrong thing to do!
Be careful and have a look at [http://bugme.osdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3022 the bugs discussion] before applying the patch.

===Other models===
Nothing yet.

[[Category:R40]] [[Category:R50]] [[Category:R50p]] [[Category:R51]] [[Category:R51p]] [[Category:T30]] [[Category:T40]] [[Category:T40p]] [[Category:T41]] [[Category:T41p]] [[Category:T42]] [[Category:T42p]] [[Category:X30]] [[Category:X31]] [[Category:X40]]

Ordering Recovery CDs

2005-03-29T06:56:33Z

220.244.224.9: /* Country overview */

Information on getting Recovery CDs from IBM.

The information on this page is unofficial. It is gathered from personal experiences. It is here to raise your chances of success when you give it a try yourself.

==About Recovery CDs==
Recovery CDs enable you to reproduce the original software state on your ThinkPad. Until the beginning of 2001 IBM delivered recovery CDs with the ThinkPads, but starting with the A30/T23/X22 models ThinkPads have a [[PreDesktop Area]], which's purpose is to make Recovery CDs obsolete. There are, however, reasons why you might still want to have them, and for the time being they are available on request.

Recovery CDs are localized, meaning that there are specific versions for each language. The language you will get depends on the language of the OS that was shipped with your ThinkPad. There's usually no way to get CDs in a different language from IBM.

==How to get them==
The normal procedure is to contact the IBM service and ask for them. This can be done by eMail or phone.

If you actually get them or not, seems to be more a personal decision of the service person dealing with you than following fixed rules. Also it seems to depend on your country (see below).

They will usually expect you to tell them a good reason for your request (see below).
As with every service request, you'll also have to provide your model and serial number to verify the warranty state. You can be almost certain not to get the CDs after your warranty has expired. The model number is also used to determine which CDs you will get.

Orders placed during the first month after purchase have proven to be the most successful. Note that you will need to pay a $45.00 fee for the CDs regardless of when you order them.

Or if you haven't already junked Windows and the predesktop partition it is possible to burn off a set of recovery CD's. This totals a 6 CD set and takes a while, but means you have them on hand later if needed.

==Good reasons to tell==
*You replaced your hard drive.
*You installed Linux or some other OS and accidentally removed/destroyed the [[PreDesktop Area]].

==What happens then==
Once it's decided that you get the CDs, they usually get shipped very fast. Times from 16h to 3 days have been reported, 3 days being the time to expect. The shipping can even happen without prior confirmation of your request, so don't be worried if you hear nothing within this time.

==Country overview==
Please put an entry for your country into this table if it's missing and you made a try to get the Recovery CDs.
{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"
|-
! style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#cfefcf;" | CDs received in
! style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#ffcfbc;" | CDs were denied in
|-
| style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#e9f9e9;" |
*Argentina
*Austria
*Canada
*Finland
*France
*Germany
*Italy
*The Netherlands
*Philippines
*Spain
*Switzerland
*UK
*USA
| style="vertical-align:top;background-color:#fff0e0;" |
*Israel but received after calling IBM Europe
*Australia, payment was requested
|}

[[Category:A30]] [[Category:A30p]] [[Category:A31]] [[Category:A31p]] [[Category:G40]] [[Category:G41]] [[Category:R30]] [[Category:R31]] [[Category:R32]][[Category:R40]] [[Category:R50]] [[Category:R50p]] [[Category:R51]] [[Category:T23]] [[Category:T30]] [[Category:T40]] [[Category:T40p]] [[Category:T41]] [[Category:T41p]] [[Category:T42]] [[Category:T42p]] [[Category:X22]] [[Category:X23]] [[Category:X24]] [[Category:X30]] [[Category:X31]] [[Category:X40]]

Installation instructions for the ThinkPad G41

2005-03-29T05:49:08Z

220.244.224.9:

What I've done so far:

I initially booted the machine and the installed Access IBM software (I presume) converted the primary FAT32 to NTFS. I downloaded a [http://www.gentoo.org/ Gentoo] LiveCD and a [http://www.sysresccd.org/ System Rescue CD] (known to have ntfsresize).

In my scouting around on the net, I read that the Thinkpads have a have a Rescue and Recovery partition which must be the 4th entry in the partition table. It occupies the final 4Gb of the drive as a primary partition. Using the System Rescue CD, I resized the partition on my 80 Gb drive to 30Gb. The space made available between the end of the resized NTFS partition (/dev/hda1) and the Rescue and Recovery partition (/dev/hda4) was split into a primary partition to act as a boot partition (/dev/hda2), and an extended partition (/dev/hda3). The extended partition was further subdivided into a 2Gb swap partition (/dev/hda5) and all of the remaining space as a root partition for Linux. N.B. If you are using ''fdisk'', rather than the excellent ''QTParted'' (accessed as ''run_qtparted'' from the System Rescue CD), you will have to fix the order of the partition table entries using the
x extra functionality (experts only)
entry on the first fdisk menu, then the
f fix partition order
entry on the expert menu, after you have created the new linux partitions. The end result looks like this:

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 10337 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 4058 30678448+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 4059 4072 105840 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 4073 9794 43258320 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda4 9795 10337 4105080 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/hda5 4073 4343 2048728+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/hda6 4344 9794 41209528+ 83 Linux

After the initial Gentoo installation using ''grub'', I was able to boot Gentoo and XP. XP complained on booting, but was able to sort itself out. I think that ''fdisk'' may affect the MBR in a slightly different way from QTParted. When setting up grub, I provided an entry for the R&R partition, like so:
# For booting the IBM Rescue & Recovery partition
title=Access IBM
rootnoverify (hd0,3)
chainloader +1

However, when I try to boot that partition, I am told there is no operating system, so it apparently does not have a bootstrap in the usual place. I have asked IBM about this, but have yet to receive a reply.