Fedora and ACPI [Laptops] (Answered)

[venson]

As a laptop user, i found little help online to installing linux on laptop systems. Many systems, such as my Compaq Presario 2100US, do not support APM but ACPI only. Else they overheat quickly. This simple FAQ is for the new laptop users who want to know how to install ACPI with Fedora on their laptop.

Q: How to enable ACPI on Fedora?
A: Simple. Put the installation CD in. At the boot prompt type in "linux acpi=on" and press enter. Rest will be taken care of by Fedora!

Q: How to know whether my system supports ACPI or APM?
A: Visit the hardware manufacturer site and look around there.

Q: How do i know whether my system needs ACPI or not?
A: If your system is heating up quickly, this is not a normal thing. It could affect and reduce your battery life drastically. It's best to installl some kind of a power management system (namely, APM - enabled by default and required for most desktop systems - and ACPI )

Thanks for reading, and i hope this helps all those laptop users out there (and encourages them to use Fedora ;) )
--Venson

[fjleal]

Greetings from another laptop user! I had already found out how to enable ACPI, but I still haven't found the "suspend command" to use in the "Battery Charge Monitor" (the small applet on the Gnome panel that displays the battery status). May you, by any chance, know it?... And is there an utility to automatically shut down or suspend the computer when the battery power goes below a certain level? (I don't think Battery Charge Monitor has an option for it.)

Thanks. ;)

[venson]

Hi there!

I use KDE, and so i have KLaptop running all the time to display my battery status. I'm pretty positive that Gnome has a similar applet for you. I strongly suggest looking in the Gnome homepage or googling for the applet (if it's not already installed on your computer by default, along with other gnome tools). Good luck!

As for your other question(s)....my computer says that system suspend and standby are not enabled/supported under ACPI. I'm still looking to see if there's a way of doing it. However, if you go to Control Center->Power Control -> Laptop Battery you'll see that Low Battery Warning, and Low Battery Critical each allow you to execute a command in those respective states. You might want to utilize those options to perhaps run a shell script that saves all your work and shuts down cleanly etc. Just my 2c - i haven't tried that one yet. :P

If you find out more information, do share it with me. And thank you in advance! Take care.
--Venson

[prisen]

Gkrellm works well to show battery/AC status, charge remaining and lots of other stuff. On my Dell Inspiron 8100 it has a plugin that controls fan speed and temperature monitoring also.

[xrunner]

I have a Toshiba 1805-S274 that worked fine w/FC 1, but overheats in a few minutes w/FC 2. I've checked to be sure ACPI is running, but it still overheats. Are there other things that I can try?

[azurlune]

I think I am having a problem with my acpi, a minor one to be sure, but it is bugging me. On every other linux system (or, well, Gentoo) i have installed on my Acer Travelmate 630, when shutting down the computer manages to turn itself off automagically, without me having to go to the trouble of holding down the power button. Since I installed fc2 though, it no longer does this, just calls acpi_power_off and sits there. Acpi is on, i can see it in dmesg, so any idea what the problem could be?

[xrunner]

I had the a similar problem w/FC1 on my Toshiba. If I tried to do a reboot, it would just hang. On shut-down FC1 worked fine.

[hashish]

I have a Toshiba 1805-S274 that worked fine w/FC 1, but overheats in a few minutes w/FC 2. I've checked to be sure ACPI is running, but it still overheats. Are there other things that I can try?

Are the fans working?

poke around in /proc/acpi/fan/ and see.

if I [hash@lappie hash]$ cat /proc/acpi/fan/C1C9/state
i get:
status: off

and on if it goes over a trip point

and if I [hash@lappie hash]$ cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/TZ1/trip_points
i get:
critical (S5): 100 C
passive: 90 C: tc1=1 tc2=2 tsp=100 devices=0x11f1b93c
active[0]: 80 C: devices=0x11f1079c
active[1]: 65 C: devices=0x11f106fc
active[2]: 40 C: devices=0x11f1067c

you can monitor the temp here too, but i use gkrellm. I can hear the fans go on with the trips points.

another thing is to get the latest BIOS for your PC. acpi is still in development with the pc makers. issues may be fixed with the lastest BIOS

[xrunner]

Thanks for the reply.

For the state, I also get "off".

Here is what I get for the trip points:
[root@localhost root]# cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/trip_points
critical (S5): 76 C
passive: 85 C: tc1=9 tc2=2 tsp=1800 devices=0x20f008bc
active[0]: 85 C: devices=0x20ef87fc
active[1]: 85 C: devices=0x20ef87fc

I can hear the fan running. I'm assuming that the different states are speeds? How does that work?

I have the latest version of BIOS that I can find (1.1).

I found a little info googling for "trip_points". I'm not sure where the current values in my file came from. It seems odd that critical is a lower temperature than the other states. I was not able to find anything that tells me the correct (or even reasonable) values for my system. Does anyone have suggestions?

I find people talk about updating the file using "echo". Is there any reason I can't update the file using "vi"?

Thanks.

[xrunner]

OK, just in case someone is actually following this thread, I found an answer to my question about editing "/proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/trip_points". At http://acpi.sourceforge.net/documentation/thermal.html, they state also talk about using "echo" to update the trip_points, so I assume that must be the way to do it. Besides, I kept getting an error when trying to update it using vi. :)

[gmontag]

For the toshiba laptop there is a program called tclkeymon. It will allow you to turn on and off your fan.

[xrunner]

Thanks gmontag. I didn't know about tclkeymon.

I did find a BIOS update that seems to help. I haven't given it a solid test yet, but the laptop stayed up for several hours instead of the several minutes that it had been doing.

For those looking for Toshiba updates, go to:

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_modSel.jsp

Hope this helps someone.

[Ned]

Hi,

I'm using a Sony laptop and my thermal acpi seems to be working OK.

My critical (S5) is reporting 84 C

My system normally sits at 50 C under no load, but when under heavy permenant load (long compiles etc) goes up to 70 C. Is this safe???

How is this temp being reported. Is it an onboard chip sensor or a thermister located under the chip?

Any input would be appreciated.

Ned

[seph]

Hey Guys,
I'm using a Toshiba Satellite P15-S409 and ACPI seems to be working pretty good...other than no suspend, and the screen backlight stays on (unless the lid is closed). But those aren't why I'm writing, when I boot from grub, the boot options that i put in are "apm=off acpi=on" among other options...and when the kernel starts booting, it gives a message similar to this " ACPI:S3 and PAE don't like each other (for now), disabling S3." is this normal? and what are S3 and PAE.....??

thanks a lot guys,

seph

[gmontag]

I think the S3 stands for the stages of hibernating or suspend and it is telling you that you cannot suspend. Look at some of the suspend docs on the exact settings.

[Harryc]

Here's a good basic explanation of suspend states;

http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020927S0028

[seph]

it means you can't use suspend (S3) with the SMP kernel.
(It's actually an incompatibility between highmem and suspend,
but the SMP kernel has highmem support enabled so...)
I did a quick google and that is what I got. I found it here: http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2004-June/msg04162.html Oh well, I guess I'll just have to deal w/ it for now.... ;)

thanks,

seph

[easada]

Hi,
When the trip_points are modified via echo command it returns to the original value after rebooting. Are there options other than putting it in rc.local ?

Regards