Fedora 18 Suspend to RAM Problems

[bastani]

Hello

I recently installed Fedora 18 on my machine and have spend a few days on configuring it. I am using the kernel version 3.7.4.

I have unfortunately faced the following two very strange issues that I couldn't solve them:

1. Suspend to RAM does not work. When I choose suspend I get the black text mode screen with log messages but the system does not suspend. At that time if I press the power button it seems the machine comes back from suspend mode and asks for the password to unlock. pm-suspend.log file reads like:

/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/00logging suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/00powersave suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/00powersave suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/01grub suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/01grub suspend suspend: not applicable.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/49bluetooth suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/49bluetooth suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/55NetworkManager suspend suspend:
Having NetworkManager put all interfaces to sleep...Done.
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/55NetworkManager suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/56dhclient suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/56dhclient suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/75modules suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/75modules suspend suspend: not applicable.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/90clock suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/90clock suspend suspend: not applicable.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/94cpufreq suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/94cpufreq suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/95led suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/95led suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/95packagekit suspend suspend:
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/95packagekit suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/98video-quirk-db-handler suspend suspend:
Kernel modesetting video driver detected, not using quirks.
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/98video-quirk-db-handler suspend suspend: success.

Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/99video suspend suspend:
kernel.acpi_video_flags = 0
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/99video suspend suspend: success.

Mon Jan 28 21:28:09 CET 2013: performing suspend
/usr/lib64/pm-utils/pm-functions: line 301: echo: write error: Device or resource busy

Even I tried to manually do

 echo -n "mem" > /sys/power/state

but I got

bash: echo: write error: Device or resource busy

Occasionally after rebooting the machine for a few times I get to a state that suspend works normally. Another interesting observation is that at those cases, the power consumption of the laptop is much lower than the normal cases (where I cannot suspend). This is interesting in the sense that I have installed bumblebee to switch of my nvidia graphic card and apparently there is an incompatibility between bumblebee and the new kernel under which bumblebee does not work (see http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=1626537).

2. I was advised to install thinkfan. After spending couple of hours for configuring it and finding the correct location of sensors, I got it work today. However, when I try to put the system into suspend (and it fails) and then resumes the cpu temperature jumps up to 85 °C and as a consequence the fan would work for a long while at the highest speed (which is natural). I was wondering why this happens and how can I ensure this does not cause serious damages to my hardware?

Actually one explanation could be that once the machine attempts to go to suspend it disables the services (such as thinkfan and ...) hence the fan does not run. But as it fails to suspend the cpu will remain working and warms up. Even the short time I takes for me to press the power button and resume the machine is sufficient to increase the temperature to 85 - 90 °C.

I guess if I find a solution for the suspend errors I would never face this issue anymore but until that I was wondering what is the safest way to ensure the CPU will not be damaged if I mistakenly suspend the machine (or even the machine tries to go to suspend mode after being idle for a while and it fails).

I thank you in advance for your helps,
Cheers,

[george_toolan]

Even I tried to manually do

Same difference ;-)

What does line 301 say? It's probably something like this

do_suspend() { echo -n "mem" >/sys/power/state; }

What kind of hardware do you have? If the cooling system was designed properly there shouldn't be any permanent damage to your hardware.

There's a little bug in recent 3.6 and 3.7 kernels which is preventing Intel Sandy Bridge GPUs like HD3000 to enter power saving states after resuming.

The only solution is to either use a 3.5 kernel, a 3.8 kernel or don't suspend/hibernate at all.

But you already knew this, because it is mentioned in the official Fedora 18 bug list. See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common...e_from_suspend

[bastani]

Actually line 301 reads exactly what you have mentioned and that is why I tried to manually run that line.

My hardware is the standard thinkpad T420 structure. I have not changed anything. The only thing that I am worried that thinkfan overrides the fan control settings in the hardware and as I mentioned if the system remains in the faulty suspend mode the cpu gets warm.

I had realized the problem you mentioned (although I have not read the bug list, thanks for mentioning it ;-) ) because previously I had Fedora 17 and I was observing that after resuming from suspend the power consumption goes high.

However, the problem now is that the system cannot go to the suspend state at all. If this relates to the same bug it is fine and I shall probably wait for kernel 3.8 to be released. I just want to ensure there is nothing wrong in my configuration that I can solve it by myself.


Thanks again for all the information you mentioned.

[george_toolan]

Your CPU will shut down automagically when it's getting to hot. You don't really have to worry about that, but your HDD is getting warmer too ;-)

Does this file exist and is it at least readable?

ls -l /sys/power/state
cat /sys/power/state

Is somebody else writing to it?

fuser /sys/power/state
lsof | grep -i /sys/power/state

[bastani]

Thanks a lot!

Yes, the file exists and I just verified that no one is using it!!!!

This could also be an issue related to the kernel bug you pointed out. I wonder if there are other people experiencing the same problem?