Thinkpads Forum

My R40 seems to be having some power issues. I have battery maximiser set to dim my display to level 3 when on battery, and it used to work. Now when I disconnect the ac there is minimal dimming of the screen(not appearing different in osd) probably because of the bios. Also, if I run the system on battery and then plug it in, and put it in standby, sometimes it switches over to hibernation after 2 hours, which is what it is set to do when on battery. I have reinstalled battery maximiser and power management drivers, and messed with some settings in the bios.

What exactly is "RediSafe"? I have checked lenovo documentation and google but all I get are vague responses.

Look in BIOS under config/display. If the LCD brightness set for normal of high?

Normal. "Power Mode for AC" is set to Maximum Performance. "Power Mode for Battery" is set to Maximum Battery.

hunterman223 wrote:What exactly is "RediSafe"? I have checked lenovo documentation and google but all I get are vague responses.

My understanding of RediSafe is that the system goes into Standby mode (powered up but in a low power state), but prior to that, writes to the hibernation file. This is done to protect the system in case the battery totally runs out, is removed or the user forces a power off of the system. Since the hibernation file exists, the system will recover from it next time it is booted. In theory, nothing will be lost. As a habit, I always enable RediSafe when receiving a new system but I've never had the opportunity to test out the function.

rkawakami wrote:My understanding of RediSafe is that the system goes into Standby mode (powered up but in a low power state), but prior to that, writes to the hibernation file.

Okay, but this occurs while the system goes into standby? It enters standby very quickly, it takes about ~1 second. I suppose I could always test it out.

IBM documentation states that not all systems support RediSafe:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... yout=print

I was incorrect with my terminology earlier... it appears that "Suspend" mode is what is used with RediSafe, not Standby. The difference is that Suspend requires pressing the Fn key to wake the system while systems placed in the Standby mode can be re-activated by pressing any key or moving the mouse.

Okay, well I have that enabled in the bios.

I am having some more issues. Last night I used my computer and it worked normally, except for the brightness. I shut the lid and set it aside. Next morning I went to turn it on thinking it should have plenty of battery remaining, and it was completely drained at 0%. It wouldn't turn on until I plugged it in. I have it set to standby when the lid shuts, and if it doesn't to hibernate at 3%, and it did neither. Once I turned it on, it showed the IBM bootsplash and turned right off. It has done that twice and I haven't been able to reproduce it.

Update: Having the same problems, but what I worry about the most is the battery drain/startup and shutdown issue. It seems to be happening every time I use the battery now. I get side tracked and leave the laptop unattended, battery drains, and it powers off suddenly at 0%. Then when I turn it on, I get the IBM boot splash. Before I get the power-on-password prompt, it powers off. Then I can turn it on and it runs fine except for the power issues.

What I have done now is disabled redisafe, changed the various power settings in windows and bios, reinstalled windows xp, installed windows 7, and finally, downgraded the bios. Nothing has worked.

Another Update: Maybe this will help put the pieces together as to what is causing this. Last night I didn't plug in the AC before I went to bed, thinking that the battery at ~90% should certainly be able to power it in standby mode through the night. Wrong. I went to bed at 10:30, and at about 6:10 I woke up to ungodly loud beeping erupting from the speakers of my thinkpad. I was still half asleep at this point and without glasses, but I could tell that the orange battery light was flashing, and I think also the moon light on the top. It was on my bedside table, so I leaned down and heard the HDD humming away, so I thought it was making the transition into hibernation. I seem to remember about six beeps total, either in a sequence of two or three. After plugging it in the next morning and turning it on, I realized that it had not hibernated at all. Windows 7 gave me the "Windows was not successfully shutdown prompt" and it booted up normally.

Does anyone know what that is about? I am definitely open to any kind of suggestion at this point.