Re: Re: uhoh, evil mojo ...

On Tue, 2003-08-05 at 03:17, Jean Delvare wrote:
> I just don't have any idea. LM Sensors was known to possibly break IBM
> Thinkpads, but nothing is known so far with Vaios. I can't reproduce
> what you described on mine. What's more, many people on this list and on
> another one have helped me with my eeprom research, and none ever
> reported anything similar. I wouldn't ask people to install lm_sensors
> on their laptops if it was known to have any dangerous side effect.
> 

Yes, I suspect now that it was just an unhappy coincidence that happened
3 times in a row so "convinced" me it was it -- I retested/rebooted with
LM Sensors and have not had a problem again.

> BTW, spontaneous power-off is what the thread started from. This seems
> to be something you already experienced with this particular laptop.
> Don't you think it could be related? Maybe something lm_sensors does
> generates the event that cause your laptop to power-off, and that has
> been happening seemingly randomly so far. Well, it's a bit different I
> guess, since the lm_sensors thing only disables the battery while the
> previous facts were referring to AC, if I understand it right. Still it
> could be related.
> 

Yes..  I suspected that at first, but after the 3 coincidences in a row
it seemed it was the other.

BUT, I think I just solved my spontaneous poweroff issue.

A) It IS NOT heat related.  I had just checked my temperature and it was
at 37C when poof the power went off.  I stuck my external thermometer on
it and it was 32C externally.

B) IT IS NOT LM Sensors related ;)

C) It appears to be dual battery related.

Which is odd, and even stranger why has it shown up now and wasn't here
before?

How did I figure this out/etc.

1)  My logs show it always happens when either A) I'm on battery power
or B) I've plugged in recently and my batteries are charging.

2)  My laptop cycles which battery it is discharging from/charging to. 
If both are at 100% at start it does:  75% swap to second battery, 65%
swap back to first, 45% swap to second, 40% swap to first, 25% swap to
second, 20% swap to first, 15% swap to second, 10% swap to first, 8%
swap to second, 6% swap to first, 4% swap to second, 3% swap to first,
2% swap to second, 2% swap to first, 1% swap to second, 1% swap to
first.  And well then it dies <g>  Charging up from 1% follows:  25%
swap to second, 25% swap to first, 40% swap to second, 40% swap to
first, 50% swap to second, 50% swap to first, 75% swap to second, 75%
swap to first, 80% swap to second, 85% swap to first, 90% swap to
second, 95% swap to first, 95% swap to second, blah blah blah.
-- these are approximates, it depends on starting voltage/etc. 
Basically every 2/3rds of what was remaning it pulls a swap until it
gets below a certain point and then it's every 50% or so.

3)  It APPEARS that sometimes -- NOT ALWAYS -- when it goes to swap
which battery is currently active (whether charging or discharging) it
loses power.  It is not consistent, there does not seem to be ANYTHING
that causes this, and it's just weird.

oh and 4)  It has not happened yet when I'm running on a single battery.

and 5)  When I try to bootup immediately after it powered off it either
goes to the other battery or won't start until I pull out one battery
(had that happen today).

Personally this is all very odd and I can't seem to get it nailed down
as to why it is happening.  I think I may send this in to Sony for A)
loud buzzy fan, B) back tray which the ethernet cord plugs in under has
broken, and C) this weird battery thing.

But before I get that far, I'm going to run it for the next several
weeks on just one battery at a time.  See if problem shows up while I'm
on a single battery.

I would think I should be able to emulate this by pulling the active
battery when on battery -- but that doesn't seem to work, it appears to
have to be something BIOS initiated.  Maybe I just need a BIOS update,
wonder if Sony would send me a copy of the BIOS and an update tool for
this.

Alright that's all.  Someone please tell me I'm wrong and they know what
to do to fix my laptop :(


J/


> One thing I'd like you to do is try and see which element of lm_sensors
> is responsible for your problem. Could be any of the modules (i2c-core,
> i2c-proc, i2c-i801, eeprom, i2c-dev (unlikely)), sensors-detect or
> sensors (with or without -s). Would be really interesting to know which
> element from this list is the guilty one.