IBM ThinkPad x40 suspend issues and other freezes - SOLVED

[dgoss]

I have some light experience with FreeBSD on server machines and was interested in installing on an intel laptop as I just can't do that other OS... that being said, PC-BSD is appealing as it is all packaged and I thought I'd give it a go on an IBM x40 ThinkPad.

The installation went off well, or so it seems, aside from having to load the Atheros wireless driver. I am having a problem though that what seems to be *any* kind of suspend activity freezes the machine - the BIOS timed suspend, the system shutdown, restart, lid close - they all result in an unrecoverable freeze. I even had one freeze when unplugging from wall power and going to battery. The battery works fine on it's own but the transition caused a freeze - maybe that's a clue as I didn't expect that to raise any issue.

I have searched the forum here first for suspend / resume issues and haven't had much luck. I even found a blog entry via google for someone using FreeBSD 6.1 without a hitch on an x40 but haven't been successful in contacting them. Anyone know a bit about this machine and had any luck with setting it up to have usable suspend or even shutdown?

Sort of blindly I was able to find that there is an IBM-specific ACPI module but I think that it is concerned with having the volume keys and various status lights hooked in. In any case, I added:

/boot/loader.conf:
acpi_ibm_load="YES"

to no avail. Can someone point out some suggestions or confirm if this machine is not able to work well with PC-BSD at this time? It's strange because before I picked up this laptop it seemed to come up in a lot of BSD / *IX threads about being a very suitable machine.

Thanks!
d.

EDIT:

Some more googling finds this:


Noteably, FreeBSD doesn't work when the 2nd IDE channel is enabled on the X40 IBM thinkpad... The problem is that whenever you generate some ACPI event, your computer locks up.


I have to run out but I will try this and I think it should resolve at lease some of the issues, hopefully all. I'll post back for the record.[/quote]

[dracheflieger]

Try turning off the secondary IDE (http://freebsd.rambler.ru/bsdmail/freebsd-acpi_2004/msg00838.html)

[dgoss]

Thank you.

Yep, that is it. The one thing is that unfortunately disabling the 2nd IDE channel is not in my BIOS settings. Instead if you search the IBM or Levano support areas for a file PS2.EXE it can be done.

Also, I don't dual boot this machine - to me one major factor for BSD is to totally remove all traces of software from Redmond. Unfortunately since the above is an .EXE DOS executable you'll have to do a workaround if there is no Windows partition on your hard drive.

Using another machine that has windows on it I ended up creating a bootable DOS CD for booting the ThinkPad with. Seperately I ran the above installer on that same windows machine and it ends up placing the software in a single directory (WINROOT\DRIVERS\WIN\UTILITY). I created a second CD containing just the full path and contents from that directory, just copied over. Then it is a matter of booting from the MS-DOS CD, switching CDs and doing

C:\UTILITY> PS2.EXE IDE2 DISABLE

That was it. A bit of a pain compared to a switch in the BIOS but it does the trick.

Thanks for the above advice, too.

d.

[dracheflieger]

Thank you and welcome to the community :)