Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.

[Trax]

Ok heres whats going on. when i close my laptop i currently have it set to suspend to disk. I have also tried suspend to ram with the same results.

whenever i close the lid to the laptop it will refuse to come back from a suspend. all i get is a blank screen with the back lighting still on. i have tired to wait for it, pushed every key combination i can think of to get some kind of response and nothing.

I always have to force shutdown the system when this happens. then a whole slew of problems when i fire it back up from an unclean shutdown.

the computer specs are
HP dv5224nr
Microprocessor 2.0GHz AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile Technology ML-37
Microprocessor Cache 1MB L2 Cache
Memory 1024MB 333MHz DDR System Memory (2 Dimm)
Memory Max 2048MB
Video Graphics ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M IGP
Video Memory 128MB DDR (dedicated)
Hard Drive 80GB 5400RPM
Multimedia Drive LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
Display 15.4” WXGA High-Definition BrightView Widescreen (1280 x 800) Display
Fax/Modem High speed 56k modem
Network Card Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
Wireless Connectivity 54g™ 802.11b/g WLAN with 125HSM / SpeedBooster support
Sound Altec Lansing
OS: Kubuntu 10.04

all of that is a copy from the HP website. no modifications to the original system specs other then the os

I am seriously starting to worry that this may damage some of my hardware if it keeps up. I had no problems with many other OS's (Namely winXP and a few other Linux distros i tried out for a short period of time)

ETA: I had my system set to also suspend when it was idle for over an hour. The same thing happened as when i closed the laptop, so i have a feeling its not when the lid is closed so much as when the system suspends this happens.

[Trax]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.


bit of an update I Still havn't been able to find an awnser for this.

Now i also am getting random shutdowns. normally sometimes seems when i'm talking on skype. it will always happen within a few minutes of me powering on the laptop. normally enough time for me to power up get on a call with someone and be talking for 5 minutes or so say around 5-10 minutes goes by.

now i have suspend turned off completely. but after my computer has been idle for a while the same thing where the screen goes blank and i can't wake it up. the LCD backlighting is on but not the LCD itself. i don't know if i have anything going on at all when the screen is blank.

should i try connecting this up to an external monitor to see if my inputs are doing anything?

(ETA: Ok well i take that back Its doing it every time now the only thing that was On was skype and firefox. i hope this can be repaired as my laptop is pretty much useless as it is. I'm not sure if i could even have enough time to back everything up before it would crash now. Its no longer throwing it into shutdown mode its just shutting off completely)

[The Liquidator]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.

This sounds rather like a video card issue. What driver are you using for it?

[Trax]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.

here is the relevant spit out from the lspci

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon XPRESS 200M 5955 (PCIE)

also noted that when i powered it on today i didn't have the shutdown problem happen again. i have closed skype, and also made sure there was not any flash video in the web browser.

if this is the wrong spit-out please let me know what is needed.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.


I know enough about ATI cards to make it a very dangerous thing i.e very little. There are numerous posts here about getting these cards working optimally so I think I'll leave that to the experts

However, on re-reading your posts, you might find it worth taking a look at system settings/power management to see whether there are inappropriate settings. For example, if you have got it set to suspend when idle for so long then that might be part of your problem. If for example idle equates to no keyboard or mouse activity then it's quite feasible that it could suspend or switch the screen off during a call. See what happens if you set those to "do nothing".

[Trax]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.

well the shutdown problems are whats happening when i'm in a call. these are happening even when i am active on the laptop. suspend has nothing to do with that problem (I think).

I have gone through the power settings many times now. how i normally use my laptop is i like it to suspend to disk when i close the lid so i can just pack it around ready to go in low power mode(IE unplug it and toss it in my bag)

but every time it suspends i have the issue's talked about.

I am completely lost with the shutdown thing the only clue i have with that is skype.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.

I have gone through the power settings many times now. how i normally use my laptop is i like it to suspend to disk when i close the lid so i can just pack it around ready to go in low power mode(IE unplug it and toss it in my bag)

but every time it suspends i have the issue's talked about.

That's what I do with mine (it's an old dell 630m). Just a thought here, my belief is that when suspending to disk, Linux will save to the swap partition. Do you have one and, if so, is it at least as big as your RAM?

On suspend to Ram - I have never been able to get that to work - I've given up on it, although as my battery is well and truly knackered it wouldn't be of much use anyway

[Trax]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.

Yes i have a swap partition its 2.85GB vs my 1GB of ram

[The Liquidator]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.

Then I confess to running out of ideas I'm afraid.

[Trax]

Re: Laptop screen goes blank and locks up when opened.

Well thanks for lending a hand it checked quite a few things off the list i hope.