iB::Topic::Can't keep screen ON during slideshow!

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Topic: Can't keep screen ON during slideshow!, ThinkPad 600 kicking me in the butt

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jmlowe

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Posts: 9
Joined: Oct. 2006

Posted: Oct. 06 2006,00:52

FIRST---I have to say DSL is incredible. I tried several years ago to load RedHat on a PC and gave up after a week deciding that it just wasn't worth the effort. I have been AMAZED at how well DSL installed on an old IBM ThinkPad 600.

A TP600 that I bought off of eBay to make a digital picture frame for the grandparents.

A TP600 that is running DSL & feh to show pics---so far, excellent---until exactly one hour after I last touch the keyboard, when the screen blanks.

What I've tried:
'noapm' @ DSL boot (in lilo.conf (yes, ran lilo -C to write to boot record))
various setterm commands (xset q shows 'prefer blanking: no' and 'timeout: 0'
and everything else I can find.

I *cannot* find any option in TP600 BIOS that controls power mgmt in general, or screen blanking in general.

If I can't fix this, I'm in the doghouse, as I have four more TP's lying around waiting to get this load---and I KNOW that one of them does exactly the same thing as this one.

Appreciate any help out there?

^thehatsrule^ Offline

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Posts: 3275
Joined: July 2006

Posted: Oct. 06 2006,19:31

Can you resume use of the laptop after that blanking? Low battery?
Did you try noacpi (or noacpi _and_ noapm)?
Does it blank while you are in a console tty?
You could try other X servers...

also this may be of interest http://zurich.csail.mit.edu/hypermail/thinkpad/2002-12/0492.html

jmlowe

Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: Oct. 2006

Posted: Oct. 06 2006,22:54

^thehatsrule^ - thanks for reply - obviously I left out some key info:

resuming is no problem, any keypress or movement of the little nub that Thinkpads use for a mouse instantly resumes the screen.

screen blanks whether X is running or not

I have booted w/ noapm --- but note that in the lilo.conf APPEND line there is a clause 'apm=power-off' --- that doesn't override the 'noapm', does it?

'noapm' is apparent because I get a boot message saying 'APM Bios detection' is skipped---I cannot tell whether the 'noacpi' is working or not.

Appreciate the link you provided, there was another post somewhere that described that the ThinkPad Utilities did---but not obvious yet that there is any way to issue those instructions from within linux, nor whether you can make them permanent.

Will continue looking, thanks for your advice and happy to take any further suggestions!

roberts

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Posts: 4983
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Oct. 07 2006,03:41

Does xset -s off help?

jmlowe

Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: Oct. 2006

Posted: Oct. 07 2006,13:31

guys - many thanks - roberts, 'xset' did not help, I saw the behavior even when X was not running.

THE FIX (fingers crossed) -
make a DOS bootable CD, put the original IBM ThinkPad utilities on it (PS2.EXE), and run 'PS2 presen enable'

The details for me were a little complicated, I had to make a single-session bootable CD (iso image), 'cause the TP wouldn't boot from a multi-session CD. So I had to put the TP utilities on ANOTHER CD...

This has kept the LCD alive overnight! Allegedly this is the ONLY way to make the change persistent---and given that I had to restart immediately after running the command (I was in DOS) it does in fact seem to stick.

Many thanks...

5 replies since Oct. 06 2006,00:52

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