Making s2RAM work on MSI MegaBook GX600-series

Zibi1981 · 2009-02-02 21:48:01

O.K., I'm now fed up with difficulties trying to properly set-up s2RAM on my laptop and decided to post a dedicated thread. So far I was very unsuccessful with finding any help all over the Internet. Perhaps this thread would be an occasion to sum up all the knowledge necessary to solving my problem. So here we go.
My laptop is a MSI MegaBook GX600P-208NL (Gaming Series - Performance). The exact specifications can be found i.e. here. The major problem I have with it is that suspend to RAM doesn't work, or I should say it works but it doesn't resume after a successful (I think) suspension. Currently I'm running Arch64 with KDE3mod 3.5.10. My current nVidia drivers are 185.27. I've tested many different drivers for my GeForce 8600M GT - without avail. Every single time the same history repeats - OS suspends and never resumes (hard reset is required to bring him back to life).
I've read so many forum threads, wiki pages and other content and tried so many solutions, that I even don't remember all of them.
Firstly I was trying to do it with KPowersave. After I pressed the suspend button it showed a pop-up window

[TRANSLATION: "Could not umount external media before suspend/standby. (Reason: Could not call DCOP interface to umount external media.) Would you like to continue suspend/standby anyway? (Warning: Continue suspend can cause data loss!)"]

If I pressed it anyway, the machine did suspend properly (at least I think it did) but never went back, until hard restart.

Then I've tried to work things out with s2RAM and, of course, I did everything according to wiki. I also tried many suggestions from SuSE's wiki pages. Never got it working. One think particularly gives me a headache - s2RAM doesn't even read my system specs (!)

bash-3.2# s2ram -i
This machine can be identified by:
    sys_vendor   = ""
    sys_product  = ""
    sys_version  = ""
    bios_version = "V1.0Z"
See http://suspend.sf.net/s2ram-support.html for details.

If you report a problem, please include the complete output above.

Finally I headed towards pm-utils as my last resort. The same thing happened - lots of reading and trying, but eventually disappointment... The /var/log/pm-suspend.log says nothing constructive to me

Initial commandline parameters: --quirk-dpms-on
sob, 31 sty 2009, 16:58:26 CET: Running hooks for suspend.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/00auto-quirk suspend suspend: success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/00logging suspend suspend: Linux felipe 2.6.28-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jan 25 09:43:53 UTC 2009 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T8100 @ 2.10GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
Module                  Size  Used by
nls_cp437               8960  0 
vfat                   14464  0 
fat                    56760  1 vfat
usb_storage           110400  0 
ipx                    29264  0 
p8022                   4096  1 ipx
psnap                   5520  1 ipx
p8023                   3840  1 ipx
bridge                 56736  0 
stp                     4740  1 bridge
llc                     8224  4 p8022,psnap,bridge,stp
bnep                   14720  2 
rfcomm                 43552  4 
l2cap                  26112  16 bnep,rfcomm
bluetooth              60836  5 bnep,rfcomm,l2cap
coretemp                9088  0 
ext2                   73872  1 
mbcache                10244  1 ext2
joydev                 14208  0 
sg                     31840  0 
uvcvideo               62344  0 
ohci1394               34612  0 
sdhci_pci              10624  0 
sdhci                  19588  1 sdhci_pci
ricoh_mmc               6272  0 
i2c_i801               12444  0 
compat_ioctl32         11520  1 uvcvideo
videodev               37888  2 uvcvideo,compat_ioctl32
v4l1_compat            17284  2 uvcvideo,videodev
ieee1394               91392  1 ohci1394
mmc_core               54624  1 sdhci
nvidia               8118424  28 
i2c_core               26144  2 i2c_i801,nvidia
psmouse                57116  0 
iTCO_wdt               15184  0 
iTCO_vendor_support     5636  1 iTCO_wdt
video                  22164  6 
output                  5248  1 video
serio_raw               8196  0 
thermal                20896  0 
fuse                   59584  4 
cpufreq_powersave       3840  0 
cpufreq_ondemand       10512  1 
acpi_cpufreq           10896  1 
freq_table              6272  2 cpufreq_ondemand,acpi_cpufreq
processor              46776  4 thermal,acpi_cpufreq
snd_seq_oss            35584  0 
snd_seq_midi_event      9344  1 snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                58336  4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_seq_device          9364  2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq
snd_hda_intel         531124  4 
snd_hwdep              10632  1 snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm_oss            45440  0 
snd_pcm                82952  3 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              24720  3 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd_page_alloc         11792  2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
snd_mixer_oss          18944  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd                    65096  15 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_seq_device,snd_hda_intel,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mixer_oss
evdev                  13984  12 
soundcore               9632  1 snd
fan                     7304  0 
button                  9504  0 
battery                14600  0 
ac                      7176  0 
arc4                    4096  2 
ecb                     5248  2 
iwl3945               103288  0 
rfkill                 13904  2 iwl3945
mac80211              183088  1 iwl3945
led_class               6280  1 iwl3945
cfg80211               36896  2 iwl3945,mac80211
ipv6                  309440  10 
r8169                  39428  0 
mii                     7296  1 r8169
rtc_cmos               14040  0 
rtc_core               21060  1 rtc_cmos
rtc_lib                 4992  1 rtc_core
jfs                   182096  2 
usbhid                 41536  0 
hid                    49856  1 usbhid
sr_mod                 18884  0 
sd_mod                 29096  7 
cdrom                  39080  1 sr_mod
ata_generic             8068  0 
ata_piix               27652  6 
uhci_hcd               27552  0 
pata_acpi               7296  0 
sata_sil24             17540  0 
libata                176352  4 ata_generic,ata_piix,pata_acpi,sata_sil24
scsi_mod              119256  5 usb_storage,sg,sr_mod,sd_mod,libata
ehci_hcd               41356  0 
usbcore               160560  6 usb_storage,uvcvideo,usbhid,uhci_hcd,ehci_hcd
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       3089372    2830708     258664          0         64    2249636
-/+ buffers/cache:     581008    2508364
Swap:       257000      41916     215084
success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/00powersave suspend suspend: success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/01grub suspend suspend: not applicable.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/11netcfg suspend suspend: success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/49bluetooth suspend suspend: not applicable.
/etc/pm/sleep.d/50-hdparm_pm suspend suspend: success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/55NetworkManager suspend suspend: success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/75modules suspend suspend: success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/90chvt suspend suspend: disabled.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/90clock suspend suspend: not applicable.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/94cpufreq suspend suspend: success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/95led suspend suspend: not applicable.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/98smart-kernel-video suspend suspend: success.
/usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/99video suspend suspend: disabled.
sob, 31 sty 2009, 16:58:27 CET: performing suspend

If anyone has any suggestions, any clues or any ideas which I could try, please post them here. It's crucial to have such basic function as suspend to RAM on any notebook.

Thanks in advance.

baeksu · 2009-02-03 04:14:43

Did you try s2ram in a minimal environment (not running X).

Add 'single' to the kernel options in grub, reboot to that, and then try 's2ram --force'.

Basically, you need to see if s2ram can be made to work at all, before trying to make it work with nvidia drivers, pm-utils, or kpowersave.

Zibi1981 · 2009-02-03 19:23:00

Hello baeksu. Thanks for your suggestion.
I logged-in to my system, then I issued as root

init 1

to go to single-user environment, and then tried to force suspension, as you advised above. The result was the same as always - my machine suspended correctly but didn't want to resume. I only heard my disk and processor fan both spinning up. The back-light of my LCD stayed off. Does it mean that my laptop isn't supported? Will I have to wait for the release of new kernel 2.6.29 with this problem?

Last edited by Zibi1981 (2009-02-03 19:24:15)

anrxc · 2009-02-03 20:03:53

In most of these cases a broken module(or more of them) is causing problems. The solution, debugging kernel suspend is not an easy task for an inexperienced user as Arch default kernel has no supend debug support, so you would need to recompile your kernel etc.
...all this is true if your machine is really freezing up and not just keeping the panel off (that would be an easy thing to fix).

Presuming you will not recompile your kernel; going to init 1 is a good first step, now you sohuld try to remove some modules and then suspend (good first choices are bluetooth modules, wifi, card reader, webcam...). As I wrote numerous times before in threads like this one, on Acer machines a common problem is the psmouse module which causes all kinds of problems like hard freezes, lockups etc. Maybe you should start with that module too.

If I'm wrong and you want to debug your suspend to see what's really going on start with these:
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Document … /s2ram.txt
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingKernelSuspend

zyghom · 2009-02-03 20:50:08

I have MSI GX700 - the only thing I can say is: broken BIOS
that means:
1-not working properly ACPI
2-sometimes working hibernate
3-not working susped2ram
4-some problems with webcam

apart from this it is ... nice laptop :-)

Zibi1981 · 2009-02-07 10:56:04

I don't think it's because of bad BIOS in my case. Arch is working fine besides not waking up from suspension and Vista is doing everything it should do nicely. Besides, lately I've upgraded my BIOS to the newest available version - V1.0Z.

EDIT

My first attempt on locating (possible) culprit modules failed... After going to a single-user mode with

init 1

and removing modules responsible for Bluetooth handling

rmmod bnep rfcomm l2cap bluetooth

the resume process failed as always. The journey continues...

Last edited by Zibi1981 (2009-02-07 12:40:47)

princeamd · 2009-08-02 06:09:57

to get s2ram to work i had to remove arch64 and install i686, then s2ram worked, before on x64, the laptop suspends fine, but when resuming i get a blank screen, i have msi gx630, also the laptop runs much cooler on i686 like 8c less, everything working except hibernate, in windows i can not hibernate also.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-02-02 21:48:01

Making s2RAM work on MSI MegaBook GX600-series

#2 2009-02-03 04:14:43

Re: Making s2RAM work on MSI MegaBook GX600-series

#3 2009-02-03 19:23:00

Re: Making s2RAM work on MSI MegaBook GX600-series

#4 2009-02-03 20:03:53

Re: Making s2RAM work on MSI MegaBook GX600-series

#5 2009-02-03 20:50:08

Re: Making s2RAM work on MSI MegaBook GX600-series

#6 2009-02-07 10:56:04

Re: Making s2RAM work on MSI MegaBook GX600-series

#7 2009-08-02 06:09:57

Re: Making s2RAM work on MSI MegaBook GX600-series

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