neither masking sleep nor trying bios update have brought joy, any help?

bought a thinkpad e540 from free geek, mostly works great, 8g ram and 1t hd
for $100 seemed decent even with a missing key, a couple dings on the case,
can't open the optical drive, and when it sleeps it won't wake up.

i thought maybe i might get by without sleeping:
systemctl mask sleep.target suspend.target hibernate.target
hybrid-sleep.target

as a result now when i've closed the cover my incoming ssh sessions survive
and thrive but it kills off my console session and doesn't leave a way to
login again upon reopening the cover.  is there a better approach?

for waking from sleeping to work it probably needs a bios update.  the
lenovo site has this bios iso
<https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/j9uj28wd.iso> and doc
<https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles/j9uj28wd.txt> (tho i gained
nothing from reading it).  inserting a cd is a no go.  but you'd think i
ought to be able to boot via grub, right?

i tried this in grub:
menuentry e540firmwarej9uj28wd.iso {
             search --no-floppy --set=root --fs-uuid
cb3d9931-e086-4632-8216-1f0aab276d73
            linux16        /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk iso
           initrd16  /home/greg/e540firmwarej9uj28wd.iso
}

and got this:
stuff scrolled off screen, screen shows:
MEMDISK:  Image seems to have fractional end cylinder
Disk is hd0, 16694 K, C/H/S = 16/64/32 (MBR/MBR), EDD on, rw
Using safe INT 15 access to high memory
Code 1860, meminfo 384, cmdline 41, stack 512
Total size needed = 2797 bytes, allocating 3K
Old dos memory at 0x9d000 (map says 0x9d000), loading at 0x9c400
1588: 0xffff  15E801: 0x3c00 0x34f3
INT 13 00: Success, count = 1, BPT = 0000:0000
Drive probing gives drive shift limit: 0x82
old: int13 = f0005757  int15 = f000c119  int17 = f000efc7
new: int13 = 9c40000a  int15 = 9c4003fd  int17 = f000efc7
Loading boot sector... booting...
Lenovo Group Limited
Starting PC DOS...

Bad or missing C:\HIMEM.SYS
Error in CONFIG.SYS line 3
Bad or missing C:\RAMDRIVE.SYS
Error in CONFIG.SYS line 4
HMA not available: Loading DOS low
Bad command or file name

looking around for clues:
C:\FLASH>dir..
 Volume in drive C is PCDOS_6
 Volume serial number is 386A-8A21
 Directory of C:\

COMMAND  COM      54,654 12-31-93  12:00a
CONFIG   SYS         123 04-15-09   1:39p
AUTOEXEC BAT          58 04-04-08   6:23p
EFI          <DIR>       04-25-18   8:01p
FLASH        <DIR>       04-25-18   8:01p
        5 file(s)       54,835 bytes
                    1,638,400 bytes free

C:\FLASH>type..\config.sys
FILES=30
BUFFERS=10
DEVICE=C:\HIMEM.SYS /NUMHANDLES=120
DEVICEHIGH=C:\ramdrive.sys /E 1024
DOS=HIGH,UMB
STACKS=9,256

C:\FLASH>type..\autoexec.bat
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $p$g
cd c:\flash
command.com

C:\FLASH>dir..\efi
 Volume in drive C is PCDOS_6
 Volume serial number is 386A-8A21
 Directory of C:\EFI

.            <DIR>       06-20-18  10:51a
..           <DIR>       06-20-18  10:51a
BOOT         <DIR>       04-25-18   8:01p
        3 file(s)            0 bytes
                    1,638,400 bytes free

C:\FLASH>dir..\efi\boot
 Volume in drive C is PCDOS_6
 Volume serial number is 386A-8A21
 Directory of C:\EFI\BOOT

.            <DIR>       06-20-18  10:51a
..           <DIR>       06-20-18  10:51a
BOOTX64  EFI   1,309,016 07-26-13   3:21p
        3 file(s)    1,309,016 bytes
                    1,638,400 bytes free

C:\FLASH>dir
 Volume in drive C is PCDOS_6
 Volume serial number is 386A-8A21
 Directory of C:\FLASH

.            <DIR>       06-20-18  10:51a
..           <DIR>       06-20-18  10:51a
J9ETA2WW     <DIR>       06-20-18  10:50a
        3 file(s)            0 bytes
                    1,638,400 bytes free

C:\FLASH>dir j9eta2ww
 Volume in drive C is PCDOS_6
 Volume serial number is 386A-8A21
 Directory of C:\FLASH\J9ETA2WW

.            <DIR>       06-20-18  10:52a
..           <DIR>       06-20-18  10:52a
$0AJ9000 FL1  13,230,160 06-20-18  10:39a
        3 file(s)   13,230,160 bytes
                    1,638,400 bytes free
C:\FLASH>

i also tried with "raw":
menuentry "e540firmwarej9uj28wd.iso raw" {
             search --no-floppy --set=root --fs-uuid
cb3d9931-e086-4632-8216-1f0aab276d73
            linux16        /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk iso raw
           initrd16  /home/greg/e540firmwarej9uj28wd.iso
}

and got pretty much the same:
stuff scrolled off screen, screen shows:
MEMDISK:  Image seems to have fractional end cylinder
Disk is hd0, 16694 K, C/H/S = 16/64/32 (MBR/MBR), EDD on, rw
Using raw access to high memory
Code 1860, meminfo 384, cmdline 45, stack 512
Total size needed = 2801 bytes, allocating 3K
Old dos memory at 0x9d000 (map says 0x9d000), loading at 0x9c400
1588: 0xffff  15E801: 0x3c00 0x34f3
INT 13 00: Success, count = 1, BPT = 0000:0000
Drive probing gives drive shift limit: 0x82
old: int13 = f0005757  int15 = f000c119  int17 = f000efc7
new: int13 = 9c40000a  int15 = 9c4003fd  int17 = f000efc7
Loading boot sector... booting...
Lenovo Group Limited
Starting PC DOS...

Bad or missing C:\HIMEM.SYS
Error in CONFIG.SYS line 3
Bad or missing C:\RAMDRIVE.SYS
Error in CONFIG.SYS line 4
HMA not available: Loading DOS low
Bad command or file name

C:\FLASH>dir..
...
(same contents)

does anyone see where to go with this?  my dos fu is weak.  what would you
try next?

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