I have a problem long since with APM support, in particular with
power-off function:
The computer is an Pentium i586 MMX-233/66, with a motherboard
Gigabyte GA-586-ATX (chipset Intel TX).
When I bought it, installed Linux and it was able to power-off the
machine when halting the system (APM support compiled in the kernel).
But then, since I had problems with the board due to the installation of
more RAM, I had to flash-upgrade the BIOS (several times through the
year). With one of these upgrades and with newer versions of the BIOS it
never powered-off when halting again (but with M$ Windoze it still does! :(
I discovered the problem was in the BIOS, since flash-downgrading
it to previous versions, it worked again. The cause: the manufacturers of
the BIOS (it is AWARD, modified by Gigabyte) had included a 'feature' with
the new version: "Suspend to Disk". Supposedly, this means that when
suspending the computer, the contents of the main memory and registers of
the CPU will be stored in the hard disk, in a part created ad hoc, and
then, it will power-off. Next time you power-up the computer, it will
resume the previous state of execution by reading the contents of the part
into main memory & CPU's registers.
So, today, with BIOS version 2.0, my linux box doesn't power-off
when halting, despite the 'feature' is disabled in my BIOS setup menu. It
works with M$ Windoze 95/98, but when trying to halt the system with Linux
(2.0.x & 2.2.x), at the end of the process, the kernel dumps a lot of
numbers (it doesn't stop) between brackets, with no meaning to me, and the
computer remains powered.
I cannot use elder BIOSes without this troublesome 'feature',
because these have bugs which make the system a bit tricky, specially
when booting (I have 128 MB of RAM: 64 MB DIMM SDRAM/66 + 64 MB SIMM EDO).
Last version corrects these other problems, so it's the one i must use.
I write to you hoping anybody has any idea about where should I
modify the apm driver in order to make it to work again under Linux, or
any solution.
Thank you very much.
-- Pancho Horrillo pancho@atdot.org
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