[solved] Display Power Off Problem

SiD · 2006-12-05 17:18:26

Hi,

I have a problem with powering down the Display of my Acer Extensa 3001 WLMi.
I activated the "Display Power Management" in the KDE-Control-Center.
The Display turns off, but after a few minutes it turns on again and shows the Xorg-Logo
(white X on black background). And sometimes it doesn't power down at all.

acpid is running

"dpms" "true" is in the Monitor Section
and
Option "OffTime" "10" in the ServerLayout Section
of xorg.conf

I tried to delete the OffTime Option. Same result.

If I power down the display via xset, it seems to stay powered off.

xset dpms force off

If I run xset in Konsole or XTerm sometimes the display turns off but after a second it turns on again.
After a few executions of xset it works then.
Wiki says that could be a problem with xscreensaver, but xscreensaver is not on my system. (and I don't want it to be there...)

If I run xset via Desktop-Icon (link to a little bash-script) the display always power down the first time...

any ideas whats the problem?

Graphics-driver is "ati"
kernel is a custom 2.6.18.1

EDIT:

If I power down the display via xset, it seems to stay powered off.

No, after a while the backlight of the Display turns on

byte · 2006-12-06 09:22:50

Yeah, me too.
KDE (with Xscreensaver), default current/extra packages, radeon driver.

I've set the KDE preferences to 0/10/30 minutes (if I put my monitor into standby it will drop into suspend a few seconds later by itself, so I skipped standby) and most of the time it won't go into a DPMS mode. No idea if Xawtv, another multimedia app or anything else is at fault.
'xset dpms force off' works ok.

Snarkout · 2006-12-06 13:54:23

I think this may be kde related rather than arch related. I have this exact problem on all of my boxen, some of which are non-arch, but all of which are kde 3.5.5. My wife has even complained to me about it.

SiD · 2006-12-06 15:37:15

hmm, I tried to start the Xserver with the -su Option
and added this to xorg.conf.

Section "Extensions"
    Option "MIT-SCREEN-SAVER" "Disabled"
EndSection

and tried it with xscreensaver. Nothing!
The display powers off and after some time the Backlight turns on again... :cry:

I'll trie it with fluxbox the next days, and report the results...

EDIT:

I think this may be kde related rather than arch related.

I think so. Tested it with Fluxbox and Xscreensaver and it seems to work correctly. And in an other forum (gentoo.org) some poeple report similar problems with dpms and/or screensavers after upgrading to KDE 3.5.5

A workaround from the gentoo forum is to disable the default-Xorg-screensaver (what disables maybe kscreensaver too..)

xset s off

I don't know if it works for my problem, cause the problem there was that the screensaver started although it was disabled in ControlCenter.

The Problem that dpms sometimes doesn't work at all is "gmplayer".
gmplayer disables dpms and don't enable it again on exit.

SiD · 2006-12-06 20:36:59

xset s off seems to solve the problem.

Without it the display power down and turns on again after ca. 10 minutes.
After the execution of xset s off I waited 30 minutes and the display was still powerd off

If kscreensaver is affected I've not tested cause I don't use any screensaver...

I saved the command in a little script in the ~/.kde/Autostart directory

#! /bin/bash
xset s off

EDIT:
It's not solved!
My Laptop was running all the last night, and this morning the display backlight was on

Snarkout · 2006-12-08 14:47:21

Cool - this seems to work for me as well. Thanks.

[EDIT] - huh - maybe it doesn't work then. For the first time in days my screen was off this morning rather than on with a large "X" on it, though. I haven't tried my lappy yet.

SiD · 2006-12-08 15:05:04

hmm, I'm not shure if it's only a KDE problem.
last night I tried Fluxbox with Xscreensaver. (and the xset s off variant today)
It seemed to work. All the evening (about 3h) the display was off, but the next morning same problem as in KDE. Blank screen with Backlight of the LCD on... :?

dienadel · 2006-12-08 15:47:32

Snarkout wrote:

[EDIT] - huh - maybe it doesn't work then. For the first time in days my screen was off this morning rather than on with a large "X" on it, though. I haven't tried my lappy yet.

I had exactly that problem. Today i've solved thanks to a post in the forum. Don't remember what.

I added this option to the Monitor section of xorg.conf:
Option "dpms"

I use KDE

Dienadel

SiD · 2006-12-08 21:44:39

I hope these two apps will do it:

radeontool from AUR (my graphics-card is a ATI-Mobility-Radeon-9700)
xlockmore from Extra

#!/bin/bash
xlock -mode blank -nolock -startCmd '/usr/bin/radeontool light off' -endCmd '/usr/bin/radeontool light on'

radeontool needs to be executed with root privileges cause it needs access to /dev/mem

I'll test it tonight...

edit:
backlight on this morning! :evil:
I don't know what to do else to prevent the display from turning on the backlight...
If I had a Monitor I would just press the power button, but there is no power button for the display of my laptop. ... hmm, the LID button, but same problem, backlight tunrs on after a while

so I don't know if it's a WM, Xorg, kernel or graphics-driver problem.
Should I report this as a bug?

edit:
I thought it could maybe a problem with radeonfb...
so I tried:
1. vesafb
--> backlight turns on after 2h

2. radeonfb and video=radeonfb:force_sleep in kernel opt in grub.conf
--> backlight turns on after 1h

3. + UseFBDev in Device Section of xorg.conf
---> backlight turns on after 1h

I searched the log files, loaded kernel modules 'backlight' and 'lcd'
--> nothing

:?

Is it possible that a script or configiguaration (maybe acpid ACPI or similar) powers up the display after some time??

help me, please...

SiD · 2006-12-11 16:46:15

so, my last idea was to try fglrx instead of the Xorg Radeon driver.
without success

Tested it with my gentoo installation, same results.

Is it possible that it's a problem with kernel-2.6.18 ?
I don't remember, but I think with earlier versions it worked fine.

p.s.
haven't tried 2.6.19 yet...

pelle.k · 2006-12-11 20:36:48

"dpms" "true"

it is supposed to be

Option "DPMS" "true"

Maybe that is what you meant?

SiD · 2006-12-11 21:14:57

hmm,
xset q says

...
DPMS (Energy Star):
  Standby: 120    Suspend: 180    Off: 300
  DPMS is Enabled
  Monitor is On
...

but I'll try it with

Option "DPMS" "true"

edit:
no, that is not the problem

SiD · 2006-12-12 22:05:37

so,
I watched the acpid logfile via tail

tail -f /var/log/acpid & sleep 1

and turned the display off manually.
after one hour the backlight turned on AND:

at the time it turned on the log file contains this:

[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] received event "battery BAT0 00000080 00000001"
[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] notifying client 2820[82:82]
[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] notifying client 2850[0:0]
[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] notifying client 2909[0:0]
[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] executing action "/etc/acpi/handler.sh battery BAT0 00000080 0000
0001"
[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] BEGIN HANDLER MESSAGES
[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] END HANDLER MESSAGES
[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] action exited with status 0
[Tue Dec 12 18:06:10 2006] completed event "battery BAT0 00000080 00000001"
[Tue Dec 12 18:14:28 2006] exiting

so I think the problem is the ACPI-battery event.
How can I handle this event so that the display stays powerd off?

I unloaded the ACPI-battery modul and will test it without the modul now...

edit:
unloading the battery modul don't works, I think cause the sbs modul (for my smart-battery) is loaded.
But I solved the problem

I power down the Display with this script. It creates a file and deletes it when I power up the Display.

#!/bin/bash
xset s off
xlock -mode blank -nolock -startCmd '/usr/bin/radeontool light off && touch /tmp/display-ist-aus' -endCmd '/usr/bin/radeontool light on && rm /tmp/display-ist-aus'

and I modified the acpi-event-hanlder-script in /etc/acpi.
If the the created file exists (Display is off) it powers down the Dislpay via radeontool on acpi-event battery.

 battery)
                case "$2" in
                        BAT0)
                                case "$4" in
                                        00000000)       #echo "offline" >/dev/tty5
                                        ;;
                                        00000001)       #echo "online"  >/dev/tty5
                                                        if [ -f /tmp/display-ist-aus ]; then
                                                                /usr/bin/radeontool light off
                                                        fi
                                        ;;
                                esac
                                ;;
                        CPU0)
                                ;;
                        *) logger "ACPI action undefined: $2" ;;
                esac
                ;;

Arch Linux

#1 2006-12-05 17:18:26

[solved] Display Power Off Problem

#2 2006-12-06 09:22:50

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#3 2006-12-06 13:54:23

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#4 2006-12-06 15:37:15

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#5 2006-12-06 20:36:59

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#6 2006-12-08 14:47:21

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#7 2006-12-08 15:05:04

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#8 2006-12-08 15:47:32

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#9 2006-12-08 21:44:39

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#10 2006-12-11 16:46:15

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#11 2006-12-11 20:36:48

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#12 2006-12-11 21:14:57

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

#13 2006-12-12 22:05:37

Re: [solved] Display Power Off Problem

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