Mandriva Linux hangs

I wish I could offer you a solution, but all I can offer is corroboration. I am having the same problem. Actually, I am having this problem and another one --- when I either plug or unplug the AC adapter, Mandriva hangs in exactly the same way. I don't think this is purely a Mandriva problem --- there's a guy named "Nandu" I have seen commenting on some M1210 linux blogs who's having the same problem. If I recall correctly, he's using Ubuntu, but I couldn't swear to it. I assume that this is some ACPI-related bug, since everything works fine for me with Windows XP (my laptop dual-boots).

This caught my interest, because I can unplug and replug the AC adapter without any problems! I am running Bios revison A05 which one is on your computer?
So with that we can pretty much assume it is indeed a problematic BIOS and with that we should raise the issue with dell in a more formal way. I also dual boot xp and xp seems to be working fine (can't tell for sure, since I run Mandriva far more than xp on this machine).

I don't believe that it is the BIOS --- I am running A05 as you do. Someone else has claimed that the problem might be trying to shut this down with Amarok running (which it does by default for me). The problem may be display related --- I find that by fiddling with the screen brightness control I am able to cause the machine to lock in the same way. Indeed, perhaps it is not the power change, per se, but changing the display brightness (triggered by power change) that causes the problem. I have the intel display, rather than the nvidia one...

Yes it seems display related. While I had no problem changing brightness of the screen, trying to switch between lcd and crt seems to hang the computer with the same symptoms. (I tried with both a monitor pluged in and without one same result). What I notice though is that when I boot with an external monitor plugged in the startup screen is on my laptop screen, but when X starts it comes up on the external monitor, always. I will try to configure X to use two monitors during the day and see if that makes a difference.
When I click the

Yes it seems display related. While I had no problem changing brightness of the screen, trying to switch between lcd and crt seems to hang the computer with the same symptoms. (I tried with both a monitor pluged in and without one same result). What I notice though is that when I boot with an external monitor plugged in the startup screen is on my laptop screen, but when X starts it comes up on the external monitor, always. I will try to configure X to use two monitors during the day and see if that makes a difference.

When I click the lcd/crt switch the screen goes black for a second and then returns but frozen. I wonder if it is so that X tries to output to "the other screen" and what is displayed on the old screen is just an image, and since X is not set up to use two displays nothing comes out on the now active screen but it is the active one from the graphics gards point of view. As I said I will try to configure two monitors during the day and post the results here.

I tried to configure dual screens on the laptop. It did not solve the problem with the laptop freezing. But I did discover something interesting, I have not used dual screens much before on Linux so i do not know if this is related to X or our current problem.

If I have only one screen configured and start to runlevel 3 and startx it starts up to the external screen. everything seems to work (except the usual lid down problem, and crt/lcd button). If I shut down x, I never get any display back. BUT if I type reboot at the console I know I should have the computer restarts.

If I have two screens configured in X I can start and shut down x as I like. It did not fix any of the problems we have encountred though.

I agree with you, this seems to be more related to X than bios. I wonder if just being patient and trying a later version of X when it comes out may address this problem.

I was wondering --- which display do you have? My understanding is that there are two possible video adapters. One is the NVIDIA and one is not (Intel on board?). I do NOT have the NVIDIA..... I have switched to using kpowersave from klaptop, and to powersaved, but I'm not at all sure that I have succeeded in removing whatever was the OLD powersave event handler.

I have the nvidia display. And I run the nVidia drivers as well. I have commented everything out the script that is supposed to be executed when the lid closes. But as far as I can tell that script never gets called, maybe X freezes the laptop before. I have managed to my my computer "suspend" from the menu, so i do not think that that would be the problem. I have noticed there is a later bios available from dell, maybe could be worth trying it.

Update: I have now managed to fix this issue. with instructions from Holli on https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.17/+bug/65027 To summarize: Add "blacklist video" to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist (I had to create the file) Add nmi_watchdog=0 to your boot params With that it works fine!

I think I have this mostly working now, using powersave and kpowersave instead of klaptop. BUT I have a new, really dumb problem. I can get the laptop, apparently successfully, into "suspend to RAM" state. But I can't get it out! There is supposed to be a key I can press to restart, but I don't have the foggiest idea what that key is, and none of my random experiments have revealed the answer. Can anyone tell me what that key is? There's a flurry of activity when I press the power key, but the system does not wake up, nor does it print anything useful to the screen so that I can diagnose things. I just end up having to shut the machine down with the power switch and restart. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.