Suspend to RAM produces unresponsive blank screen with MSI A6400

[Steersman]

'lo all. I've been having a problem with my laptop for a long time where Linux (uniquely) cannot properly suspend to RAM. I had previously been running a Debian based distro, with both 3.2.6 and the 2.6.32 kernels, and had run into similar problems. In my original install, when closing the lid (or running pm-suspend or related utilities) the screen would go dark, however the fan and hard drive would not spin down, making it unsafe to store the laptop in for example a laptop bag, though it woke from sleep without hibernating. The distro had an unrelated problem of running hot (the 3.2 kernel doesn't have the correct drivers for my display, and so the processor would run at a constant 50 C) so I switched to Fedora 17 KDE.

The problem has been exacerbated. Whenever I run suspend (either from Kickoff, the console, or closing the lid) the screen goes black (however, the backlight is still on), and the computer will not respond to anything except a hard reboot. Originally, all that was left was a blinking cursor, however this disappeared after disabling the VGA framebuffer (appening vga=0 to kernel options in grub2.cfg). The problem of the hard disk refusing to spin down, or the fan to turn off, persists. The computer does hibernate now, as I have included a dedicated swap partition, however the startup time is almost as long as booting fresh. Google has not been much help. Most of the (several!) threads on similar issues are marked solved without any response from the thread initiators. Hopefully I can suss this out with your help and prevent others from encountering this issue.

I am running Fedora 17 KDE spin on a 3.3.4-5.fc17.x86_64 kernel. Appended below are the contents of /var/log/pm-suspend.log. Aside from the "not applicable" it doesn't look like anything is out of the ordinary, but I'm not very well versed. Anyone have any thoughts?

Initial commandline parameters: 
Tue Jun 26 22:40:51 CDT 2012: Running hooks for suspend.
Running hook /usr/lib64/pm-utils/sleep.d/00logging suspend suspend:
Linux focus 3.3.4-5.fc17.x86_64 #1 SMP Mon May 7 17:29:34 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Module                  Size  Used by
lockd                  84836  0 
sunrpc                235511  1 lockd
bnep                   19584  2 
bluetooth             273667  7 bnep
ip6t_REJECT            12939  2 
nf_conntrack_ipv6      14297  3 
nf_defrag_ipv6         18095  1 nf_conntrack_ipv6
nf_conntrack_ipv4      14622  2 
ip6table_filter        12815  1 
ip6_tables             27073  1 ip6table_filter
nf_defrag_ipv4         12673  1 nf_conntrack_ipv4
xt_state               12578  5 
nf_conntrack           82339  3 xt_state,nf_conntrack_ipv4,nf_conntrack_ipv6
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     36102  1 
snd_hda_codec_conexant    70445  1 
arc4                   12529  2 
ath9k                 135226  0 
ath9k_common           13602  1 ath9k
ath9k_hw              408220  2 ath9k_common,ath9k
ath                    23103  3 ath9k_hw,ath9k_common,ath9k
mac80211              492420  1 ath9k
snd_hda_intel          33277  2 
snd_hda_codec         116112  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_codec_hdmi
snd_hwdep              17650  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm                97129  3 snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_hdmi
snd_page_alloc         18101  2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_timer              28690  1 snd_pcm
uvcvideo               76469  0 
snd                    78862  11 snd_timer,snd_pcm,snd_hwdep,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_codec_hdmi
cfg80211              195764  3 mac80211,ath,ath9k
rfkill                 21384  4 cfg80211,bluetooth
i2c_i801               17779  0 
videobuf2_vmalloc      12967  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_memops       13262  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
videobuf2_core         31992  1 uvcvideo
videodev              106925  2 videobuf2_core,uvcvideo
media                  20444  2 videodev,uvcvideo
microcode              19252  0 
iTCO_wdt               17948  0 
iTCO_vendor_support    13419  1 iTCO_wdt
soundcore              14491  1 snd
serio_raw              13371  0 
atl1c                  41356  0 
uinput                 17673  0 
wmi                    18697  0 
i915                  467712  3 
video                  18980  1 i915
i2c_algo_bit           13163  1 i915
drm_kms_helper         40409  1 i915
drm                   241920  4 drm_kms_helper,i915
i2c_core               38028  6 drm,drm_kms_helper,i2c_algo_bit,i915,videodev,i2c_i801
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       3958312    1483568    2474744          0      71796     581252
-/+ buffers/cache:     830520    3127792
Swap:      4197372          0    4197372
/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: not applicable.

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: not applicable.

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.

Tue Jun 26 22:40:51 CDT 2012: performing suspend

[marko]

The first thing you should do is update to the latest kernel which is 3.4.3-1 . The fact that yours is still 3.3.4-5 shows you've missed a lot of kernel updates. There was also an update put out for acpid just a day or two ago. It might help to update that.

[Steersman]

Alright, while I'm at it, could this be a kernel configuration issue? Or should my old configuration be fine

[marko]

The configuration should be fine for any official kernel you pull in from the repositories, Kernel suspend to ram is a plain old basic feature nowadays. These are the suspend settings in my config files (rejecting the USB ones which I think aren't related), for my laptop which is updated to the repos as of today:

grep -i suspend /boot/config* | grep -v USB
/boot/config-3.4.0-1.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_ARCH_SUSPEND_POSSIBLE=y
/boot/config-3.4.0-1.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_SUSPEND=y
/boot/config-3.4.0-1.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_SUSPEND_FREEZER=y
/boot/config-3.4.0-1.fc17.x86_64:# CONFIG_PM_TEST_SUSPEND is not set
/boot/config-3.4.2-4.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_ARCH_SUSPEND_POSSIBLE=y
/boot/config-3.4.2-4.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_SUSPEND=y
/boot/config-3.4.2-4.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_SUSPEND_FREEZER=y
/boot/config-3.4.2-4.fc17.x86_64:# CONFIG_PM_TEST_SUSPEND is not set
/boot/config-3.4.3-1.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_ARCH_SUSPEND_POSSIBLE=y
/boot/config-3.4.3-1.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_SUSPEND=y
/boot/config-3.4.3-1.fc17.x86_64:CONFIG_SUSPEND_FREEZER=y
/boot/config-3.4.3-1.fc17.x86_64:# CONFIG_PM_TEST_SUSPEND is not set

This is also the Sony Vaio shown in the 'smolt' URL below in the signature

[Steersman]

Huh, yeah, no dice. Output of that command looks identical, sans the earlier kernel flags. However, same problem with not waking and no spindown.

---------- Post added 28th June 2012 at 03:12 AM ---------- Previous post was 27th June 2012 at 11:46 PM ----------

New development since the new kernel install: The system no longer restores correctly from hibernate (will reboot into the same dead screen as sleep) and occasionally, when selecting "sleep" from the Kickoff launcher, I will catch a glimpse of the lock screen dialogue before it abruptly disappears.

I've given up hope on a quick fix at this point. Does anyone know anything about the kernel components that are responsible for this? What kind of drivers are involved and etc.?

[marko]

Is the machine in general updated?

That is, this shows no output if your machine is completely up to date with the repos:

yum -q check-update

[hieronymous]

Hi Steersman
Your laptop appears to use the ath9k driver, as mine does, and it also has a suspend problem. I fixed this with the following:

Create the following:
sudo gedit /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_custom-ehci_hcd

- Add the lines below to the file

#!/bin/sh
# File: ”/etc/pm/sleep.d/20_custom-ehci_hcd”.
case “${1}” in

hibernate|suspend)
# Unbind ehci_hcd for first device 0000:00:1a.0:
echo -n “0000:00:1a.0” | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/unbind
# Unbind ehci_hcd for second device 0000:00:1d.0:
echo -n “0000:00:1d.0” | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/unbind
;;
resume|thaw)
# Bind ehci_hcd for first device 0000:00:1a.0:
echo -n “0000:00:1a.0” | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/bind
# Bind ehci_hcd for second device 0000:00:1d.0:
echo -n “0000:00:1d.0” | tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/bind
;;

esac

- Save file and close editor

sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/20_custom-ehci_hcd


Hope it helps...