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Date:      Mon, 21 Oct 2002 13:16:46 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Wayne Lubin <wayneclubin@yahoo.com>
To:        Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: So, tell us what happened!
Message-ID:  <20021021201646.22353.qmail@web14703.mail.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <20021021104008.GA27016@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophi>

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--- Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk>
wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 20, 2002 at 01:51:05PM -0700, Wayne
> Lubin wrote:
> 
> > And dmesg indicates that everything is now being
> > detected. Below are the pertinent entries from
> dmesg
> > 
> > apm0: <APM BIOS> on motherboard
> > apm: found APM BIOS v1.2, connected at v1.2
> > viapropm0: SMBus I/O base at 0x5000
> > viapropm0: <VIA VT82C686A Power Management Unit>
> port
> > 0x5000-0x500f at device 7.4 on pci0
> > viapropm0: SMBus revision code 0x40
> > smb0: <SMBus general purpose I/O> on smbus0
> > 
> > I also added apm_enable="YES" to /etc/rc.conf
> > 
> > The VT82c686A Power Management Unit is an ACPI
> Power
> > Management Controler. I also have set my cmos to
> go
> > into standby after 10 mins., shut the hdd after
> ten
> > mins., screen blanking after 10 mins., etc.....
> But I
> > don't think my system is ever going into any such
> > modes. What I know is that after 5 mins. the
> screen
> > saver comes on and I have left it alone for as
> much as
> > an hour and the screen saver was still on, i.e.
> the
> > screen never went to blank mode, and the power fan
> > seemed to still be on at full speed. I think this
> > means that power management is not working as it
> > should. Am I supposed to have enabled it in some
> way
> > beyond just setting it in the bios/cmos?  Any way
> for
> > me to check if all this power management stuff is
> > working as it should? Thanks.
> 
> I'm not sure that a FreeBSD machine would ever go
> into hibernation in
> the way you expect.  Even when the machine seems
> quiescent, there's
> still activity happening behind the scenes.  For
> instance, cron(8)
> will call stat(2) on all of the various crontab
> files on the machine
> once a minute.  Other daemon processes will
> similarly wake up at
> regular intervals, grunt, roll over and go back to
> sleep again.
> 
> What all of that effort to get the right devices
> into the kernel will
> have gained you is the ability to monitor the state
> (temperature, fan
> speed, voltages) of your hardware, and presumably,
> to run 'shutdown
> -p' and have the machine power-off automatically. 
> The ACPI support in
> 4.x is not as comprehensive as it might be: 5.0 has
> some significant
> improvements in the pipeline.
> 
> I've found that installing and running fvcool(8) --
> ports/sysutils/fvcool --- has made the greatest
> difference to power
> consumption: since the heat output of the CPU is now
> significantly
> lower, the power usage must be lower too.
> 
> When you say 'screensaver' are you talking about the
> console screen
> saver or an X based screen saver?  To the best of my
> knowlege, you
> can't power down the console screen, other than by
> using the 'blank'
> screensaver module, which isn't really that
> effective, power-wise.
> 
> In X windows however, you can use the dpms facility
> most modern video
> cards support to turn your monitor to standby mode. 
> These settings in
> /etc/X11/XF86Config should set the default timings
> for closing down
> the display when idle:
> 
>     Section "ServerFlags"
>             Option       "BlankTime" "10"
>             Option       "StandbyTime" "20"
>             Option       "SuspendTime" "30"
>             Option       "OffTime" "30"
>     EndSection
> 
>     [...]
> 
>     Section "Monitor"
>             Identifier   "Monitor0"
>             [...]
>             Option       "DPMS"
>     EndSection
>     
> but they can easily be overriden from a user session
> using xset(1)
> 
> The easiest way to use DPMS however is to install
> ports/x11/xscreensaver or
> ports/x11/xscreensaver-gnome and set the
> timeouts using the xscreensaver-demo program.  If
> you use xdm(1) or
> the like, you can modify the configuration to run
> xscreensaver while
> the system is sitting at the login prompt.  What you
> have to do is
> described in the xscreensaver(1) man page, but with
> xdm(1) it boils
> down to these changes to files in
> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm
> 
>     happy-idiot-talk:...lib/X11/xdm:% diff -u
> Xsession{.orig,}
>     --- Xsession.orig       Fri Mar 22 18:31:44 2002
>     +++ Xsession    Thu Oct 17 22:43:24 2002
>     @@ -18,6 +18,9 @@
>             fi
>      done
>      
>     +# Kill off any stray copies of xscreensaver run
> by xdm
>     +xscreensaver-command -exit
>     +
>      case $# in
>      1)
>             case $1 in
>     
>     happy-idiot-talk:...lib/X11/xdm:% diff -u
> Xsetup_0{.orig,}
>     --- Xsetup_0.orig       Fri Mar 22 18:33:08 2002
>     +++ Xsetup_0    Thu Oct 17 22:43:24 2002
>     @@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
>      #!/bin/sh
>      # $Xorg: Xsetup_0,v 1.3 2000/08/17 19:54:17
> cpqbld Exp $
>     +xhost +local:
>     +xsetroot -solid black
>     +xscreensaver-command -exit
>     +xscreensaver &
>      xconsole -geometry 480x130-0-0 -daemon -notify
> -verbose -fn fixed -exitOnFail
> 
> Remember to keep backup copies of your modifications
> as those files
> will be wiped out the next time you update the
> XFree86-clients
> port. The xsetroot part is entirely optional --- I
> just happen to think
> a black background works better.
> 
> Also you need to set up /root/.xscreensaver with
> appropriate entries,
> probably by running xscreensaver-demo(1) as root. 
> Particularly you
> want to disable the screen locking functionality
> when running over
> xdm(1).
> 
> 	Cheers,
> 
> 	Matthew
> 
> -- 
> Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                     
>  26 The Paddocks
>                                                     
>  Savill Way
>                                                     
>  Marlow
> Tel: +44 1628 476614                                
>  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
> 
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
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How do I monitor the state (temperature, fan speed,
voltages) of my hardware?

Thanks,

Wayne

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