Power management

[worker201]

On my Mac, shutting the lid causes the computer to go into sleep mode, suspending everything.  However, on my Thinkpad, shutting the lid causes godknowswhat.  It makes the logout sound when I shut the lid, and I have to reenter my password when opening the lid.  While it's closed, though, the fan continues to run.  I thought my settings for power management had taken care of this, but perhaps not.  Any suggestions?

[davidnix71]

There are too many acpi states and the bios support must match the OS or you can make a mess. On an Apple you shouldn't have to worry because of the limited hardware set and Apple should know what works and what doesn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Configuration_and_Power_Interface

Turning off the display and stopping the hd should be safe enough. Suspend to ram or hibernate machine state to HD is just begging for trouble.

[Lead Head]

S3 Stand-by is fairly common on more modern computers. The computer completely powersdown and uses standby power from the PSU/Battery to keep the ram alive. Older standy states kept the computer powered up but essentially in an idle.

Hibernation is implemented for sure in newer Linux distros and Windows. Works good enough.

Your thinkpad may just be too old to support the S3 state.

[worker201]

I set the computer to suspend to RAM when I shut the lid, and that seems to have the desired effect.  So far, no troubles.

[Kintaro]

Suspend magically started working for me when I moved from debian stable to debian unstable (oh the irony).

Hibernation isn't good enough because most people arn't nerds and do not have sixteen 15,000 RPM disk in a massive RAID config to boot on.

Also, how are you going to get your lid button to UN suspend the system now genius?

For a second point against your laziness I believe you should consider the fact that booting and suspending to ram use a lot of battery power. The screen being off should be a big enough saver if you just have the disks go to sleep.

What bothers me more is that at the top for "suspend linux kernel panic" you get http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/06/13/howto-workaround-for-kernel-panic-on-suspendresume/ at the top of results.

This just describes disabiling firewire, which is easy enough, and I have a hack ready on hand for those that use it...

Just modprobe dodgy-firewire-kernel-shit
and rmmod when you are done. JUST DONT CLOSE THAT LID, lol.

[worker201]

Opening the lid brings the computer out of suspension.  Easy.  I'm not terribly worried about battery consumption, as I don't have a battery.  My main concern is power consumption - the computer uses almost no electricity while in suspension.  I suppose I could just power down between sessions, but I like being able to just pop the lid and get working.

[davidnix71]

On my VM Windows I prefer to suspend state to hd since it makes booting faster. I've never had a problem that way. On my Mac laptop, I want the machine off when I'm not using it. If ram gets corrupted, I don't know what would happen. Since I rarely run on battery power, I don't need to chance it.

If Apple sold their MacPro's with ecc ram, then that would help.