Re: various laptop nagles - any suggestions? (note: 2.6.19-rc2-mm1 but applies to multiple kernels)

[teunis <teunis@wintersgift.com>]

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Dmitry Torokhov wrote:
> On 10/20/06, Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org> wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:30:37 -0700
>> teunis <teunis@wintersgift.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>>
>> Please don't play with the Cc:s!  Just do reply-to-all, thanks.
>>
>> > Andrew Morton wrote:
>> > > On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:05:49 -0700
>> > > teunis <teunis@wintersgift.com> wrote:
>> > >
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>> > >> Setting the internal clock to 100 Hz stablizes the laptop - and the
>> > >> synaptics touchpad stops "crashing"  (when "crashed" the pad
>> reads out
>> > >> all kinds of seemingly random values).   I would suspect the driver
>> > >> needs adjusting for the variable clock.   Also - it's definitely
>> nicer
>> > >> on the laptop power use as far as I can tell - should this be in the
>> > >> documentation?
>> > >
>> > > So you're saying that CONFIG_NO_HZ breaks the touchpad?
>> >
>> > yes.  At least for Acer Travelmate 8000 and HP nx6310 and HP nx7400.
>> > Other than the touchpad - there is not a lot of common hardware between
>> > these units.   The readout becomes highly unreliable.   (in X it starts
>> > jumping around - it SORT OF resembles the output)
>> >
>> > My suspicion is a timing problem in the synaptic USB driver
>>
>> OK, that's going to be hard to fix and it'd be awkward (and unpopular) to
>> make inclusion of the dynamic-ticks feature dependent on fixing this.
>> (Then again, it'd get Ingo into device drivers ;))
>>
> 
> I wonder if the problem is with the in-kernel synaptics driver or with
> X (itself or synaptics driver in it). Does the touchpad misbehaves
> when you using GPM on text console? What about when you using legacy
> mouse driver (as opposed to synaptics) in X?
> 

Not sure - but testing now.

on the flip side it seems that ACPI C3 (???) - restore after suspend to
RAM anyways - halts high resolution timer and NO_HZ on one of the laptops.
At that point the synaptics freezes solid.

I've had CONFIG_NO_HZ disabled already but am now testing with high
resolution timer turned off.  (I'm too used to desktops)

with that test I can be -almost- certain it's a kernel problem.

now off to figure why ndiswrapper now doesn't load....  (it's a GPL
module and the kernel claims it isn't... something changed but I'm not
sure what yet as it works with rc1-git6)

- - Teunis
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