RE: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

RE: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Brown, Len]

S3 is suspend to RAM (MS calls it standby, IIR)
S4 is suspend to disk (MS calls it hibernate)

you can enter either state directly via
# echo 3 > /proc/acpi/sleep
# echo 4 > /proc/acpi/sleep

or equivalently

# echo mem > /sys/power/state
# echo disk > /sys/power state

cheers,
-Len

Re: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Davy Durham]

Why do you supose none of these are working quite right for me?

"echo 3 > /proc/acpi/sleep" and "echo mem > /sys/power/state" both show 
in the /var/log/messages

Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost kernel: Stopping tasks: 
==========================================================================
Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost kernel: stopping tasks failed (1 tasks remaining)
Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost kernel: Restarting tasks...<6> Strange, 
mDNSResponder not stopped
Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost kernel: done
Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost gpm[4262]: *** info [mice.c(1766)]:
Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost gpm[4262]: imps2: Auto-detected intellimouse PS/2
Apr 22 21:19:24 localhost hald[4360]: Timed out waiting for hotplug 
event 732. Rebasing to 734


And 4 and disk don't do anything.. How can I enable this method, or any 
idea why they don't do anything?  Catting either file shows

$cat /sys/power/state
standby mem disk

$cat /proc/acpi/sleep
S0 S3 S4 S4bios S5


Thanks
  Davy

Brown, Len wrote:

>S3 is suspend to RAM (MS calls it standby, IIR)
>S4 is suspend to disk (MS calls it hibernate)
>
>you can enter either state directly via
># echo 3 > /proc/acpi/sleep
># echo 4 > /proc/acpi/sleep
>
>or equivalently
>
># echo mem > /sys/power/state
># echo disk > /sys/power state
>
>cheers,
>-Len
>  
>

Re: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Jim Carter]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005, Davy Durham wrote:

> Why do you supose none of these are working quite right for me?
> 
> "echo 3 > /proc/acpi/sleep" and "echo mem > /sys/power/state" both show in the
> /var/log/messages
> 
> Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost kernel: Stopping tasks:
> ==========================================================================
> Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost kernel: stopping tasks failed (1 tasks remaining)
> Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost kernel: Restarting tasks...<6> Strange,
> mDNSResponder not stopped
> Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost kernel: done
> Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost gpm[4262]: *** info [mice.c(1766)]:
> Apr 22 21:19:22 localhost gpm[4262]: imps2: Auto-detected intellimouse PS/2
> Apr 22 21:19:24 localhost hald[4360]: Timed out waiting for hotplug event 732.
> Rebasing to 734

If mDNSResponder could not be stopped, likely the suspend process would 
bail out and put everything back the way it was.  Do you need this service?  
It's the server for Mac OS-X style multicast DNS when you have no real DNS 
server on the net.

> And 4 and disk don't do anything.. How can I enable this method, or any idea
> why they don't do anything?  

When resuming is attempted, before the initrd, the first thing it does is 
to translate the resume device (e.g. resume=/dev/sda2) to a major and minor 
number (e.g. 8:2), but if the device does not yet exist (i.e. the driver is 
not yet loaded), that's impossible.  Assuming that there's no resume image, 
the device number would be saved and then used when you suspend.  That's a 
safety feature ensuring that you'll be able to read the image when you try 
to resume.

Starting in kernel 2.6.11.(about 4?), there's a feature where you can set 
the device number and/or attempt to resume by "echo resume > 
/sys/power/state".  The initrd in SuSE 9.3 does this, _after_ loading the 
driver.  But after you've mounted the root filesystem, even readonly if it 
has a journal, or if you've turned on swap, you had better not do this, 
because either the resume image or the filesystem will be corrupted.

I think 2.6.12 has bug fixes which make the process more reliable, at least 
when I've messed with it.  But I have sad news: in 2.6.11.4 (SuSE 9.3 stock 
kernel), one of the drivers gets stuck during the suspend process.  And 
when I have all the drivers loaded in 2.6.12, one of them has a problem 
resuming, and hangs.  (It resumed OK with minimal drivers loaded.)  I'm 
still trying to track down which one.

> Brown, Len wrote:
> 
> > S3 is suspend to RAM (MS calls it standby, IIR)
> > S4 is suspend to disk (MS calls it hibernate)

Oops, I got the Sn numbers mixed up.  Sorry about that.

About obtaining SuSE 9.3: I feel it's worth it to have my own DVD, and to 
support the "artists", but you could download the boot floppy images and 
use those, assuming you have a floppy drive.  Then you do a network 
install.  Be prepared for a loooong wait, since the mirror sites are always 
busy.  I think on the Inspiron 6000 you're supposed to buy an inexpensive 
USB floppy drive separately.  Alternatively, SuSE generally posts ISO 
images for the CDs a month or so after the official release date, although 
now that they're owned by Novell the policy may be different.

Currently I'm having "only" two problems with 9.3: the suspend issue, and 
the Alps touchpad in my machine isn't recognized.  You have to configure it 
as a generic mouse, protocol ExplorerPS/2.  At least it can click and 
double-click by tapping.

James F. Carter          Voice 310 825 2897    FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet;  6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90095-1555
Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu  http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)

Re: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Bill Davidsen]

Brown, Len wrote:
> S3 is suspend to RAM (MS calls it standby, IIR)
> S4 is suspend to disk (MS calls it hibernate)

And what is S5? I have a 2.6.7 system which tells me:
    oddball:davidsen> cat /proc/acpi/sleep
    S0 S1 S4 S5
It's an old machine, not a laptop, does S5 suspecd to stone tablets, or 
what?

> 
> you can enter either state directly via
> # echo 3 > /proc/acpi/sleep
> # echo 4 > /proc/acpi/sleep
> 
> or equivalently
> 
> # echo mem > /sys/power/state
> # echo disk > /sys/power state

Have sleep, don't have state.

-- 
    -bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
  last possible moment - but no longer"  -me

RE: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Brown, Len]

 
>And what is S5? I have a 2.6.7 system which tells me:
>    oddball:davidsen> cat /proc/acpi/sleep
>    S0 S1 S4 S5

S5 is "soft off".
ie. # init 0
takes the system down and turns off the power.

Same for the power button in ACPI mode -- it causes
an event that is caught by a user daemon, such as acpid
which does an "init 0".

cheers,
-Len

Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Davy Durham]

Hi,
   I've been trying for the last few days to get my D810 to suspend and 
resume in linux.

I'm doing it from klaptop in kde using Fedora Core 3, but I've now 
compiled my own linux-2.6.12-rc2-mm3 kernel since I've seen some ACPI 
changes going in.

At 2.6.11 it would seem to suspend ok, but when doing the resume it 
would come back and have I/O errors.. causing the computer to freeze for 
a few seconds, then run for a second, then freeze again, etc.. the HDD 
light would stay on solid, and at the tty1 I saw something like "ata1: 
command 0xc8 timeout... I/O error..."  So apparently something isn't 
getting starting back up.  Thinking it might be the HDD not spinning, I 
powered off, but DID hear it spin down.

Running what I compiled,  2.6.12-rc2-mm3, the suspend happens a little 
faster but the resume comes to a blank screen, then immediately reboots 
without any messages that I can see.

I'm very interested in getting this to work and will do whatever someone 
needs to gather information.

I may need to ask basic kernel info questions when asked to do something 
as I haven't done much trouble shooting at this low a level before but 
I'm game.  From googling around this is a problem for many and I would 
like to help resolve it.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
   Davy

Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Davy Durham]

Hi,
   I've been trying for the last few days to get my D810 to suspend and 
resume in linux.

I'm doing it from klaptop in kde using Fedora Core 3, but I've now 
compiled my own linux-2.6.12-rc2-mm3 kernel since I've seen some ACPI 
changes going in.

At 2.6.11 it would seem to suspend ok, but when doing the resume it 
would come back and have I/O errors.. causing the computer to freeze for 
a few seconds, then run for a second, then freeze again, etc.. the HDD 
light would stay on solid, and at the tty1 I saw something like "ata1: 
command 0xc8 timeout... I/O error..."  So apparently something isn't 
getting starting back up.  Thinking it might be the HDD not spinning, I 
powered off, but DID hear it spin down.

Running what I compiled,  2.6.12-rc2-mm3, the suspend happens a little 
faster but the resume comes to a blank screen, then immediately reboots 
without any messages that I can see.

I'm very interested in getting this to work and will do whatever someone 
needs to gather information.

I may need to ask basic kernel info questions when asked to do something 
as I haven't done much trouble shooting at this low a level before but 
I'm game.  From googling around this is a problem for many and I would 
like to help resolve it.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
   Davy

Re: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Jim Carter]

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, Davy Durham wrote:
>   I've been trying for the last few days to get my D810 to suspend and resume
> in linux.
> 
> At 2.6.11 it would seem to suspend ok, but when doing the resume it would come
> back and have I/O errors.. causing the computer to freeze for a few seconds,
> then run for a second, then freeze again, etc.. the HDD light would stay on
> solid, and at the tty1 I saw something like "ata1: command 0xc8 timeout... I/O
> error..."  

It sounds like one of your drivers has a bad interaction with suspend2disc.
By the way, we are talking about suspend to disc, not suspend to RAM, 
right?  I've given up on trying to make suspend2RAM work, since kernel 
2.4.20, although Linux does the same steps for both and it ought to work
(or fail) equally.  

You mention complaints about ata1, implying that you have a SATA primary 
disc.  Given that it's a Dell system, I'm pretty sure you have an Intel 
chipset of one level or another, so you're using the module ata_piix and 
its scsi friends, which are loaded in an initrd, unless you've hardwired 
them into your kernel.  Now we get into branches:

A.  If you use an initrd, then you should see a message "resume failed..." 
before the initrd runs.  In SuSE 9.3, which is just out and which uses 
kernel 2.6.11.4-rc(something), possibly with advance SuSE hacks, their 
initrd loads the drivers (ata_piix etc) needed to read the suspend image, 
then does the magic incantation (which I'm not going to recite from memory 
and mess someone up if I make a mistake), and resume then works.  To debug 
this, purge the initrd of all drivers except ata_piix and its dependencies, 
and your ext3 or Reiser module if used (if not already done).  Boot with 
the -b switch so no init scripts are run and no drivers are loaded by them.  
Mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys; then echo disk > /sys/power/state (to suspend).  
See if you can resume in this configuration with the absolute minimum of 
drivers.  If so, load your usual drivers manually, one by one, until you 
find the culprit.  It's OK to load drivers off a readonly filesystem.

B.  If drivers are hardwired in your kernel, adapt the above instructions 
but don't hardwire any drivers except ata_piix and friends, and the 
filesystem driver if needed.

Given the symptoms, most likely it will still fail.  Did you make the patch 
that lets you do DMA on your PATA ATAPI device (CD drive)?  Those are 
"experimental", i.e. not officially released by Jeff Garzik.  On kernel 
2.6.12-rc1 I had no problems suspending with PATA ATAPI engaged, but with 
my chipset, ata_piix died horribly at initialization on 2.6.8 (didn't even 
get to trying suspend).  To see what your distro gave you, look at 
/usr/src/linux/include/linux/libata.h; search for ATA_ENABLE_ATAPI and 
ATA_ENABLE_PATA and see if they're defined.  In SuSE 9.3 (kernel 
2.6.11.4-rc(something)) these are turned on.  See here:
    http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc/insp6000/ata_piix-2.6.12-rc1.txt
for a patch to the code that recognizes "combined mode" on the ICH-6M 
chipset for my laptop; probably irrelevant for a desktop system.

Alternatively, do you have a proprietary graphics driver: nVidia or fglrx 
(for ATI Radeon)?  Fglrx-8.12.10 on kernel 2.6.8 gave symptoms very 
similar to yours when I tried to resume, and if I remember right, the 
nVidia driver is not much better.  

On a successful resume on kernel 2.6.8, with my particular gaggle of 
drivers, I have a 30 second timeout during reinitialization and I wasn't 
able to track it down to a specific driver.  In testing SuSE 9.3 I haven't 
gotten far enough to see whether the timeout is still there.  It's annoying 
but harmless (I hope).

I hope some of this helps!

James F. Carter          Voice 310 825 2897    FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet;  6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA  90095-1555
Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu    http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)

Re: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Davy Durham]

Jim Carter wrote:

>On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, Davy Durham wrote:
>  
>
>>  I've been trying for the last few days to get my D810 to suspend and resume
>>in linux.
>>
>>At 2.6.11 it would seem to suspend ok, but when doing the resume it would come
>>back and have I/O errors.. causing the computer to freeze for a few seconds,
>>then run for a second, then freeze again, etc.. the HDD light would stay on
>>solid, and at the tty1 I saw something like "ata1: command 0xc8 timeout... I/O
>>error..."  
>>    
>>
>
>It sounds like one of your drivers has a bad interaction with suspend2disc.
>By the way, we are talking about suspend to disc, not suspend to RAM, 
>right?  I've given up on trying to make suspend2RAM work, since kernel 
>2.4.20, although Linux does the same steps for both and it ought to work
>(or fail) equally.  
>  
>
Actually, I'm not sure if it's to ram or disk.. how can I tell?  Best I 
know, klaptop's right-click menu's "Suspend" option.   But I would like 
to know.  Is this running some command line app that I can run manually?

>You mention complaints about ata1, implying that you have a SATA primary 
>disc.  Given that it's a Dell system, I'm pretty sure you have an Intel 
>chipset of one level or another, so you're using the module ata_piix and 
>its scsi friends, which are loaded in an initrd, unless you've hardwired 
>them into your kernel.  Now we get into branches:
>
>  
>
Yes, ata_piix is listed in lsmod with a "Used by" of 3

What's weird though is that if I pull out the drive it has many many 
pins on it implying that it's IDE and not SATA, but I guess it could be 
a hardware layer.  However, my friend with the same model running WinXP 
lists the drive as IDE.   Like I said, I'm using FC3 now, however the 
first thing I tried was Mandriva 2005 LE.. but it didn't even get past 
kernel loading in the setup process because of some SATA issue.  Maybe a 
specific kernel version problem there.

>A.  If you use an initrd, then you should see a message "resume failed..." 
>before the initrd runs.  In SuSE 9.3, which is just out and which uses 
>kernel 2.6.11.4-rc(something), possibly with advance SuSE hacks, their 
>initrd loads the drivers (ata_piix etc) needed to read the suspend image, 
>then does the magic incantation (which I'm not going to recite from memory 
>and mess someone up if I make a mistake), and resume then works.  To debug 
>this, purge the initrd of all drivers except ata_piix and its dependencies, 
>and your ext3 or Reiser module if used (if not already done).  Boot with 
>the -b switch so no init scripts are run and no drivers are loaded by them.  
>Mount -t sysfs sysfs /sys; then echo disk > /sys/power/state (to suspend).  
>See if you can resume in this configuration with the absolute minimum of 
>drivers.  If so, load your usual drivers manually, one by one, until you 
>find the culprit.  It's OK to load drivers off a readonly filesystem.
>
>  
>
Being ignorant here of exactly how the linux's bootstraping and kernel 
loading works I do think initrd is being used.  I see both:
    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.12-rc2-mm3.img
and
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-rc2-mm3 ...
entries in /etc/grub.conf (which is being used)

When would I see this "resume failed..." message?   Right after hitting 
the power button after a suspend, or when it boots up the next time 
after a failed resume?  I didn't notice one at the former (all happens 
too fast.. all I can see is a blip of a blinking cursor in text mode) 
and don't see one anywhere near the beginning process of the latter.

>B.  If drivers are hardwired in your kernel, adapt the above instructions 
>but don't hardwire any drivers except ata_piix and friends, and the 
>filesystem driver if needed.
>
>Given the symptoms, most likely it will still fail.  Did you make the patch 
>that lets you do DMA on your PATA ATAPI device (CD drive)?  Those are 
>"experimental", i.e. not officially released by Jeff Garzik.  On kernel 
>2.6.12-rc1 I had no problems suspending with PATA ATAPI engaged, but with 
>my chipset, ata_piix died horribly at initialization on 2.6.8 (didn't even 
>get to trying suspend).  To see what your distro gave you, look at 
>/usr/src/linux/include/linux/libata.h; search for ATA_ENABLE_ATAPI and 
>ATA_ENABLE_PATA and see if they're defined.  In SuSE 9.3 (kernel 
>2.6.11.4-rc(something)) these are turned on.  See here:
>    http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc/insp6000/ata_piix-2.6.12-rc1.txt
>for a patch to the code that recognizes "combined mode" on the ICH-6M 
>chipset for my laptop; probably irrelevant for a desktop system.
>
>  
>
Well, this is a laptop here.. Um.. cdrom is /dev/hdc and 80gig HDD 
(PATA?/SATA? see above) is /dev/sda

I'm building my own kernel from source, although I'm taking the settings 
from the config that came with FC3

Seeing that the HDD light is stuck on after resuming in 2.6.11, I think 
it's not an ATAPI issue, but the HDD's driver.  On 2.6.12 I don't know 
what is failing becauase it just immediately reboots after trying to 
resume..

>Alternatively, do you have a proprietary graphics driver: nVidia or fglrx 
>(for ATI Radeon)?  Fglrx-8.12.10 on kernel 2.6.8 gave symptoms very 
>similar to yours when I tried to resume, and if I remember right, the 
>nVidia driver is not much better.  
>
>  
>
Nope, only what it built in. for ATI Radeon

Please advise...

Thanks,
   Davy

Re: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Jim Carter]

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, Davy Durham wrote:
> Actually, I'm not sure if it's to ram or disk.. how can I tell?  Best I know,
> klaptop's right-click menu's "Suspend" option.   But I would like to know.  Is
> this running some command line app that I can run manually?

Now there's an interesting question.  On my Inspiron 6000, the power light 
blinks sexily in S4 (suspend to RAM) state, whereas the machine is 
completely powered off in suspend to disc.  Assuming you still have Windows 
on your machine, for them "suspend" means to RAM whereas "hibernate" means 
to disc.  You could see which lights remain on, if any, after you suspend 
Windows.

Klaptop may fork a command-line process or may do the mid-level signalling 
itself.  Candidates are "shutdown -z", or if "powersaved" is running, then 
you get more features if you do "powersave -U" (not -u, which is suspend to 
RAM).  Ultimately both of these will do "echo disk > /sys/power/state" to 
trigger the actual suspension.  (or echo mem, if you want to try it.)
It's "safe" to do the echo command.  Note that the UNIX clock doesn't run 
while the machine is asleep.  If I remember correctly, "powersave -U" but 
not "shutdown -z" saves the UNIX clock in the hardware clock, and reloads 
it after resuming.  

Hmm, no it is not "safe" to suspend on your system.  See below.

> Yes, ata_piix is listed in lsmod with a "Used by" of 3
> 
> What's weird though is that if I pull out the drive it has many many pins on
> it implying that it's IDE and not SATA, but I guess it could be a hardware
> layer.  

My own drive matches your description, but it's definitely doing SATA.  I 
wouldn't be surprised if all the laptop drives have a PATA connector on 
them, and both PATA and SATA capability in the firmware, but the OEM (Dell?  
Fujitsu?) can put in a jumper to use either protocol according to how the 
motherboard is wired up.  On an ICH6 or ICH6M chipset the 82801 can handle 
either protocol according to BIOS configuration, and of course the 
appropriate connectors.

> However, my friend with the same model running WinXP lists the drive
> as IDE.   Like I said, I'm using FC3 now, however the first thing I tried was
> Mandriva 2005 LE.. but it didn't even get past kernel loading in the setup
> process because of some SATA issue.  Maybe a specific kernel version problem
> there.

If the installer wasn't smart enough to load the ata_piix driver, it would 
not be able to even touch the disc.  Maybe you have to tell it what driver 
to load.  SuSE's installer needs to be told about RAID cards, for example.

> Being ignorant here of exactly how the linux's bootstraping and kernel loading
> works I do think initrd is being used.  I see both:
>    initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.12-rc2-mm3.img
> and
>    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-rc2-mm3 ...
> entries in /etc/grub.conf (which is being used)

Yes, that's them.  Grub stage 2 uses BIOS reading (slow) to copy both of 
those into memory.  The kernel initializes a zillion things including all 
the drivers that are hardwired.  Then as the third-to-last step, it 
decompresses the initrd, mounts it, and executes "linuxrc", which does 
whatever it does: in most cases, just loads a few key modules, but for SuSE 
the installer and the rescue system are in two big bloated initrd images.
When linuxrc exits the initrd is freed, the root filesystem is mounted, and
init is exec'd.  Then the boot scripts start running, after which you can 
do useful work.

> When would I see this "resume failed..." message?   

Just before the initrd steps, on a normal (non-resume) boot.  The message 
is kind of lame; of course it's going to fail because there's no resume 
image in the swap area, on a normal boot.  Since the messages fly by very 
fast, look in /var/log/boot.msg or /var/log/boot.omsg, after booting.  
Assuming you were able to boot.

> Well, this is a laptop here.. Um.. cdrom is /dev/hdc and 80gig HDD
> (PATA?/SATA? see above) is /dev/sda

OK, the ATAPI patches are _not_ engaged, otherwise ata_piix would have 
attached the CD as /dev/sr0.  And ata_piix _is_ talking SATA to the primary 
drive.  Without the patch it is not possible to do DMA on your CD drive, 
which precludes using the burner feature (if any).

Nasty consequence: when the kernel tries to read the resume image from your 
primary disc, it has no driver.  So it prints an error code ultimately 
meaning "no such device" and continues with normal booting, specifically 
doing the initrd.  

Pavel Machek, starting in kernel 2.6.11.something, put in a feature where 
(after loading the needed drivers)  you could set the device number of the 
swap partition, then echo resume > /sys/power/state.  In SuSE 9.3 the 
initrd finishes with this magic incantation.  In checking out SuSE 9.3 last 
night I wasn't able to get to that step, but I'm virtually certain that it 
will work well.

> Seeing that the HDD light is stuck on after resuming in 2.6.11, I think it's
> not an ATAPI issue, but the HDD's driver.  On 2.6.12 I don't know what is
> failing becauase it just immediately reboots after trying to resume..

Maybe we should be sure that it's suspending to disc, not to RAM.  The 
symptom is very reminiscent of a suspend2ram screwup.


James F. Carter          Voice 310 825 2897    FAX 310 206 6673
UCLA-Mathnet;  6115 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA  90095-1555
Email: jimc@math.ucla.edu    http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc (q.v. for PGP key)

Re: Dell D810 Laptop Suspend/Resume

[Davy Durham]

Jim Carter wrote:

>On Thu, 21 Apr 2005, Davy Durham wrote:
>  
>
>>Actually, I'm not sure if it's to ram or disk.. how can I tell?  Best I know,
>>klaptop's right-click menu's "Suspend" option.   But I would like to know.  Is
>>this running some command line app that I can run manually?
>>    
>>
>
>Now there's an interesting question.  On my Inspiron 6000, the power light 
>blinks sexily in S4 (suspend to RAM) state, whereas the machine is 
>completely powered off in suspend to disc.  Assuming you still have Windows 
>on your machine, for them "suspend" means to RAM whereas "hibernate" means 
>to disc.  You could see which lights remain on, if any, after you suspend 
>Windows.
>
>  
>
My power light is fading in and out on the suspended state.. so I guess 
it's to ram.  Plus, the suspend process is a matter of 5 or 6 seconds 
and not much disk activity.

>Klaptop may fork a command-line process or may do the mid-level signalling 
>itself.  Candidates are "shutdown -z", or if "powersaved" is running, then 
>you get more features if you do "powersave -U" (not -u, which is suspend to 
>RAM).  Ultimately both of these will do "echo disk > /sys/power/state" to 
>trigger the actual suspension.  (or echo mem, if you want to try it.)
>It's "safe" to do the echo command.  Note that the UNIX clock doesn't run 
>while the machine is asleep.  If I remember correctly, "powersave -U" but 
>not "shutdown -z" saves the UNIX clock in the hardware clock, and reloads 
>it after resuming.  
>
>  
>
Well, the echo didn't work for me so I gave up in that area.  powersaved 
is not running, and shutdown -z gives usage (as if -z isn't a valid flag)

>>Being ignorant here of exactly how the linux's bootstraping and kernel loading
>>works I do think initrd is being used.  I see both:
>>   initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.12-rc2-mm3.img
>>and
>>   kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-rc2-mm3 ...
>>entries in /etc/grub.conf (which is being used)
>>    
>>
>
>Yes, that's them.  Grub stage 2 uses BIOS reading (slow) to copy both of 
>those into memory.  The kernel initializes a zillion things including all 
>the drivers that are hardwired.  Then as the third-to-last step, it 
>decompresses the initrd, mounts it, and executes "linuxrc", which does 
>whatever it does: in most cases, just loads a few key modules, but for SuSE 
>the installer and the rescue system are in two big bloated initrd images.
>When linuxrc exits the initrd is freed, the root filesystem is mounted, and
>init is exec'd.  Then the boot scripts start running, after which you can 
>do useful work.
>
>  
>
nice to know.. thanks.. and I'd switch to lilo, but can't figure out how 
to do that easily in FC3 (I'm brand new to redhat.. used mdk for years tho)

>>When would I see this "resume failed..." message?   
>>    
>>
>
>Just before the initrd steps, on a normal (non-resume) boot.  The message 
>is kind of lame; of course it's going to fail because there's no resume 
>image in the swap area, on a normal boot.  Since the messages fly by very 
>fast, look in /var/log/boot.msg or /var/log/boot.omsg, after booting.  
>Assuming you were able to boot.
>
>  
>
I do not see this in log or at startup. oh well

>>Well, this is a laptop here.. Um.. cdrom is /dev/hdc and 80gig HDD
>>(PATA?/SATA? see above) is /dev/sda
>>    
>>
>
>OK, the ATAPI patches are _not_ engaged, otherwise ata_piix would have 
>attached the CD as /dev/sr0.  And ata_piix _is_ talking SATA to the primary 
>drive.  Without the patch it is not possible to do DMA on your CD drive, 
>which precludes using the burner feature (if any).
>
>  
>
That's okay, I'm not trying to fry that fish right now.

>Nasty consequence: when the kernel tries to read the resume image from your 
>primary disc, it has no driver.  So it prints an error code ultimately 
>meaning "no such device" and continues with normal booting, specifically 
>doing the initrd.  
>
>  
>
Apparently not doing suspend-to-disk right now I guess this is moot.. 
but I'm going to try hibernate instead to see if there's any difference.

>Pavel Machek, starting in kernel 2.6.11.something, put in a feature where 
>(after loading the needed drivers)  you could set the device number of the 
>swap partition, then echo resume > /sys/power/state.  In SuSE 9.3 the 
>initrd finishes with this magic incantation.  In checking out SuSE 9.3 last 
>night I wasn't able to get to that step, but I'm virtually certain that it 
>will work well.
>
>  
>
I wish I could figure out where to get SuSE 9.3 without forking out 
$100.. I might be willing to if I knew 9.3 would work for me.  I guess I 
could try the live disc, but dunno if the boxed set would work even if 
the live disc did.  FTP installs are fine for me with 4Mx2M internet 
connection.

>>Seeing that the HDD light is stuck on after resuming in 2.6.11, I think it's
>>not an ATAPI issue, but the HDD's driver.  On 2.6.12 I don't know what is
>>failing becauase it just immediately reboots after trying to resume..
>>    
>>
>
>Maybe we should be sure that it's suspending to disc, not to RAM.  The 
>symptom is very reminiscent of a suspend2ram screwup.
>
>  
>
It's not.. so I'm about to try that.

Also, I'm getting a few other replies talking about a guy working on the 
SATA driver's support for that as we speak.. I plan to get in touch with 
him too.

Thanks,
  Davy