Re: Configuring a monitor (power downs)
Hello Virtanen,
Re the power problems you're having:
1. You've disabled the BIOS power management features on the MB,
presumably using S/W on ROM, supplied on bootable fd with the MB or
installed onto a small 'maintenance partition' on your 'root' HD.
2. You've told the M$ OS not to use power management features (M$ might
be temporarily overwriting settings in such a way that only a full
power cycle will properly reset them - I don't know for sure on this
one but I've had problems that have suggested it and some H/W I've
installed has required it after initial installation - some NICs for
example)
3. M$ has no problems with your H/W but Debian does - this implies your
H/W is ok and points at Debian (If it was inconsistent with M$ too, then
suspct the H/W).
4. You say that power goes off while booting Debian - is this consistent
(that is, each time it powers down while booting - obviously, it doesn't
always power-down on boot, otherwise you wouldn't have the X problem) -
does it power-down at the same point each time, assuming you get some
sort of info before it happens? If it is consistent, then Debian is
doing something specific to make it happen.
5. If it isn't consistent, then why is Debian being inconsistent?
6. If Debian is doing something to power-down during boot, then it must
be either the loader or the kernel, or something compiled into it [the
kernel].
If it's not right with no power management features compiled into the
kernel - change it. Try with the PM features compiled in.
And why not try the MB BIOS too, as it's not working anyway, try
enabling it [PM] through basic to advanced (if you've got those
options).
One at a time though! to start with.
Each time you change something, see what effect it appears to have (I
hope we don't have to resort to timing things - pretty tedious and
usually inconclusive)
I've just spotted, in one of your postings: "With Win95 the power goes
off automatically when I stop the os" - M$ is managing your power! If
the power switch is one of the simple (cheap and common) 'push to make
- release to break' type, and doesn't 'click' on and off (push to make
- push to break), or a toggle type, then your PC isn't getting
completely powered down. I can't say exactly what is still powered-up
but certainly the PSU management system, which is probably quite
intelligent these days. There may be 'BIOS' settings in there (the
PSU). Some elements of the PSU will always still be active, with a
'simple' power switch, because it needs power
to detect the 'make' signal from the switch when you push it. Otherwise
you would have to hold the switch in all the time. If it's a
'wake-on-lan' MB, there will be even more MB systems running while your
system is 'powered down'.
We don't know what is causing this problem, but to me it points to
something in your Debian kernel behaving inconsistently (although
sometimes consistent (Eh!) in the boot-up - power-down scenario). We
should be able to come up with /possible/ answers to what is going on
that could cause what happens, and then investigate that.
Re the dependencies thing, I find dselect pretty good in that respect -
in fact I rely upon it. However, I have downloaded everything via ftp
so don't have anything near a complete distribution (less than 100 MB -
fits on a ZIP100) and have found that if I don't have the .deb for a
package and try to install it, dselect doesn't notice the fact and just
shows it as installed ok. It only points this out when you try to
install a dependee.
Try not to get too down about this - I recently wasted three days trying
to install NTS on a new server before I found that the NT boot floppies
asked an extra question when compared to the M$-Select CD I was using.
Could you mail me your /etc/XF86Config? - I'd like to have a look at
that.
I've got to say that I'm a Debian newbie, but I've 'done' 25 years on
'other' various systems. Re your (and everyone else's (computer))
problem, either it can be fixed, or we can find out why it can't. Best
thing about computers is there is no random element in the design, so
we know there is an answer. It's just tracking it down that's the hard
(best) part.
Bye,
LeeE
--
http://www.spatial.freeserve.co.uk
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