odd system 'pausing' issue

pandoraxero · Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:33 am Post subject: odd system 'pausing' issue

I seem to have run into a strange issue where my system, for no reason that i can explain, stops outputting stuff unless there's keyboard/mouse/other peripheral input. It happens predictably when there's no activity. when i'm trying to run ZSNES or something like that,,,, its screen output will just stop until i move the mouse, gamepad, or keyboard.

It also happened when i was running a badblocks on an external hard drive. so i'm sure it's not just a single-program issue. even wget on the VGA console does it.

I tried rebooting the system in question, but no effect.

the system is a 100% stable i686 system with kde4, no ~arch stuff, kernel 2.6.30, I have a LOT of the ACPI stuff in the kernel enabled, as the system is intended to be on the extreme end of low-power (Intel Atom Netbook, with gentoo on SD Card.), so I'm thinking something in that category might be screwing up, but I could be completely off-target.

the Netbook is a Toshiba Mini NB205 Series.

erik258 · Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:53 am Post subject:

I almost wonder if it's trying to blank the screen but the blank is failing and it ends up just interrupting the output process.

pandoraxero · Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 4:09 am Post subject:

err... perhaps i need to put this into perspective... screen output freezes after a number of seconds... if it were a matter of minutes, i'd say probably a failure at blanking, but i don't think that's the case in this instance. when i say i have a lot of ACPI stuff enabled, i mean i have just about everything that'd be likely to save power enabled in the kernel .config. i read somewhere that some toshiba laptops had issues with ACPI in the past... not sure if this is still the case, though... that's why i mentioned it.

erik258 · Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:32 pm Post subject:

hmm... have you checked to see if you can get a bios update? Those can do a world of good sometimes. I see what you mean about acpi; I remember in the olden days, having to disable it often; but things seem to be better on that front now.

I have pretty much the same laptop, except mine's made by MSI. But it's pretty much the same thing from what I can tell (a guy at work has the one you do, so I took a look). I haven't had any acpi related issues and I think they run on the same subsystem (atom 270 is it?) so that's why I think of the bios.
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py-ro · Veteran Joined: 24 Sep 2002 Posts: 1734 Location: Velbert

Got the same Issue on an Asus T91 Netbook. No BIOS Update available.

Py