A Couple Of Irritating Problems

[adam]

Very often when I put my Zaurus to sleep (with zzz) the clock appears to stop. I've seen that people have reported this before - was there any solution? It's a problem when you're trying to use the Z for storing your upcoming calendar events and it's way out.

I've also noticed that the battery has a habit of suddenly being completely drained - is this a known issue, or do I just have a bad battery?

Thanks in advance,
Adam

[barryg]

Good day!

Very often when I put my Zaurus to sleep (with zzz) the clock appears to stop.

<SNIP>

Fixed in -current and snapshots, logs here[0] and here[1].

I've also noticed that the battery has a habit of suddenly being completely drained -
is this a known issue, or do I just have a bad battery? 

Also experienced by devs, theyre hunting it down. Not sure if this is the same issue though.
Mine works fine.

Adam

Mabuhay! barryg

[0]
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/...le/pxa2x0_apm.c
[1]
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/...ev/zaurus_apm.c
--
Barry Dexter A. Gonzaga, bofh

[adam]

Thanks as always, Barry. I've just upgraded to the current snapshots.

At first I thought that the battery issue might be down to buttons being pressed while the Zaurus was being thrown around in my laptop bag, but inconsistent readings from apm probably means it has something to do with that instead.

I'll keep an eye on things and report back in a few days.

[adam]

I can happily report that the clock problems have gone away  

On the downside, the battery is still an issue. "apm" never seems to think that the battery drops below 90% or so, but this sometimes rises back to 100% even though it hasn't been recharged. I'm sure I don't remember this problem with the original OS but I'm still considering buying a new battery just in case it's broken.

The power button now seems to suspend the Zaurus - I don't remember it working before (I had to do apm -z or zzz) so this is a nice improvement. If only it would suspend when I close the lid...!

[iamasmith]

Adam, check the features in the latest current, there is a sysctl.conf switch to suspend on lid close - note says that it doesn't wake it up when it opens though.

the setting you are looking for is machdep.lidsuspend=1

(http://www.openbsd.org/plus.html)

I like to leave this turned off myself since I leave my Z running for long periods of time compiling stuff and use an ssh connection whilst it's doing this. Seems to generate a lot less heat whilst the screen is off

- Andy

[adam]

Adam, check the features in the latest current, there is a sysctl.conf switch to suspend on lid close - note says that it doesn't wake it up when it opens though.

the setting you are looking for is machdep.lidsuspend=1

(http://www.openbsd.org/plus.html)

I like to leave this turned off myself since I leave my Z running for long periods of time compiling stuff and use an ssh connection whilst it's doing this. Seems to generate a lot less heat whilst the screen is off

- Andy
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Andy,

I've been running the latest with suspend on lid close for two or three weeks now. I'm still finding that the battery is completely drained when not used for a few days; I don't find this problem if I boot back into Linux. Barry hinted that some of the OpenBSD developers might have experienced a similar problem. I'm hoping something is found by the time 3.9 is officially released. If not, I'll just have to remember to charge up more often!

[Sequethin]

I think APM is a liar. On the way to work I was working on my zsh prompt and my apm status said 50%, 90 mins remaining. Then the z went to sleep. I turned it back on and it went to sleep again. Obviously it didn't have 90mins remaining. Now I'm here at work, I plug in my z and after 2 minutes it says 100%! Yet the orange charging light is still on. I know that it must still be charging, even my cell phone takes at least a few hours to get fully charged. Why is apm lying to me?

[iamasmith]

I think APM is a liar. On the way to work I was working on my zsh prompt and my apm status said 50%, 90 mins remaining. Then the z went to sleep. I turned it back on and it went to sleep again. Obviously it didn't have 90mins remaining. Now I'm here at work, I plug in my z and after 2 minutes it says 100%! Yet the orange charging light is still on. I know that it must still be charging, even my cell phone takes at least a few hours to get fully charged. Why is apm lying to me?
[div align=\"right\"][a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=122637\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a][/div]

Not sure really, I get about 3 hours constant runtime from my battery, however, I do a calibration run every month or so, maybe this makes a difference.. basically all I do is charge it up fully and then let it drain itself powered up doing nothing until it hits forced suspend.

3 hours is about what to expect from a Z running OpenBSD because the Microdrive is constantly moving.

It sounds like you were getting the failsafe poweroff when your device was showing 50%... I would suggest trying calibration first then hitting arm@openbsd.org to see if anyone has any answers (Uwe will almost certainly be the one who can answer this).

-Andy

[barryg]

Good day!

I think APM is a liar.
<SNIP>
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It is, [0]. [1].

Mabuhay! barryg

[0]
[a href=\"http://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsd2005/niallo-uwe/mgp00036.html]http://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsd2005/...e/mgp00036.html[/url]
[1]
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-ar...38906524485&w=2

[sylvain]

Could you detail what you mean by "calibration run" ? Is it a simple cycling of the battery ?

[jpmatrix]

i'm under GENERIC#113 and it seems that apm is no longer a liar !

apm

Battery state: high, 91% remaining, 163 minutes life estimate
A/C adapter state : not connected

[mathemajikian]

i'm under GENERIC#113 and it seems that apm is no longer a liar !

apm

Battery state: high, 91% remaining, 163 minutes life estimate
A/C adapter state : not connected

You can edit the Zaurus zapm source code and change the 180 minute max battery life to a less pessimistic value.

[ZDevil]

But then how do we know the actual value? We know that battery life depends on many factors, such as cpu clock, screen brightness, connection status, running programs, to name but a few.