Re: Power button doesn't work
"Derek Hans" <whans@total.net> writes:
> Is it normal that my power button doesn't work?
> After running shutdown -h now, the system shuts down and issues a
> message saying
> "Power down."
> However, when I hit the power button, the computer just beeps but
> still stays on. The only thing I can then do is a VERY hard reset:
> take out the batteries (it's a laptop, compaq contura 400c) and unplug
> it. Nothing else responds. This doesn't seem to be the normal way to
> shut off a computer. Just wondering if there is a different way...
> For the moment, I'm just letting it running all the time, however
> there doesn't seem to be a "power saving mode" activated
> automatically, and so the screen stays on all day. Besides, it gets
> rather hot over time - I'm not quite sure if the fan is adequate for
> this. I'm not decided if it's worse for the computer to shut it off
> the "HARD" way or keeping it running all day & night.
> Help would be apreciated.
A couple of things...
First, please don't start a new thread by replying to a message on an
old thread. To me it looked like your message was a part of the thread
entitled "wajig: a simple command line interface to Debian package
mgmt". This is because a lot of email/news readers are threaded and
arrange articles by their subject. If you start a new thread by
replying to an existing article your article may be overlooked, or
annoy people who started the original thread.
Second, as someone else stated in a reply to you, you may need to
recompile your kernel with APM support, and if that doesn't work I
think there's an APM option to use real-mode to power off.
Third, a lot of laptops don't use a real switch for power off. Instead
it's a soft switch. In general, if the machine doesn't shut itself off
you may need to hold the power button down for as much as 8 seconds to
actually get it to turn off. Even that may not work, but 9 times out
of 10 it has worked for me.
Good Luck!
Gary
Reply to: