LCD turns off in Battery Mode

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georg.hauer · #1 Post by **georg.hauer** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 4:12 am

Hi,
i got a major issue with my T60p (2007-93G). If i run the T60p in the Battery Mode the LCD turns off after about 5 minutes regardless off the timing in the energy profil. Even if i override the Thinkpad PowerManagementValues "LCD turn off time" in the XP setting - same problem.
It turns off after 5 minutes. In addition i found no way to get the LCD on again, other than to hibernate and restart him with AC.
If i have a external monitor connected (e.g. a beamer) it's fine - there is no problem - just the LCD turns off, not the external monitor.

If i run him with AC - no problem - the LCD runs without problems.

I run with the preinstalled Vantage Tools (e.g. Power Manager 1.12).

Any ideas, i would really appreciate.
Thanks.

georg.hauer · #2 Post by **georg.hauer** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 8:12 am

Hi,
i forgot to mention, that the LCD turns off after about 5 minutes, regardless whether the system is idle or not. Even if i'm working, typing or moving the mouse - the screen get's black.

I would really appreciate if anybody has any hints how to solve.

Thanks

Greetings from Germany

rvacha · #3 Post by **rvacha** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 9:26 am

I can think of a couple of things to try that might help narrow the problem:

1. Shutdown the machine, unplug AC power and all batteries. Wait about one minute and then put everything back together again. Restart.

2. Start in Safe Mode. Safe mode causes most power management features not to load. See if screen still blanks

3. Try switching to Prentation mode (all timers off)

4. Restart the machine, hit F1 to enter BIOS setup. Hit F9 (I think) restore defaults (or something to that affect), save changes and let it restart

5. Can you tell if only the LCD backlight is turning off, or the entire display?

6. In XP's power management try switching to Home/Office Desk

7. Does the machine go into standby when it should?

tpribors · #4 Post by **tpribors** » Tue Jun 27, 2006 12:33 am

Yep, me too... Fn+F3 won't bring it back. Additionally, I changed Fn+F3 to turn off the monitor and it doesn't work either.

georg.hauer · #5 Post by **georg.hauer** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:26 pm

Thanks to rvacha. I tried several of your hints to narrow the problem.
Therefore i detect the following

1) Only the LCD backlight is turning off, not the entire display.
2) Looks like that there is a mismatch between the energy profiles listed in XP and the one driven and managed by the ThinkVantage Energy Manager.

a) the ThinkVantage Power Manager (V1.12) is only listing some of the XP standard profiles - some are even doubled e.g. presentation

b) If i use one of the ThinkVantage Profiles the problems starts and the LCD is turning off as described. Even with the presentation profile out of the Think Vantage Energy Profile same problem.

c) Looks like all ThinkVantage Profiles have the problem and in addition don't work like intend e.g. no standby etc. etc.

d) If i select a profile in the XP power management menu which is not listed in the ThinkVantage then everything works fine e.g. LCD turns off when it should and turns on again if i press one key.

My problem is that i have to run a lot of presentations (i'm a lecture) and therefore i need the presentation director which is linked with the ThinkVantage Energy Profiles.

Has anyone an idea about the reason for this mismatch of the energy profiles and how i can re - synchronize? Might it helpful to reinstall the TP power manager - do i need to uninstall first?

Thanks in advance.

Scratch · #6 Post by **Scratch** » Thu Jun 29, 2006 1:38 pm

I had this same issue about 6 weeks ago. The 2 Power Mgmt systems don't always stay in sync.

I had to uninstall both power Mgmt apps, reboot and reinstall. I then stuck with the basic profiles and made sure that they stayed synched manually from that point forward. Changes made in TV Power Mgr would synch to XP PM but not the other way.

tpribors · #7 Post by **tpribors** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 11:45 am

It appears as this problem may be fixed by BIOS 1.07...

tpribors · #8 Post by **tpribors** » Sun Jul 02, 2006 4:46 pm

Re-reading this more carefully my symptoms (which were corrected by BIOS 1.7) are slightly different. On my machine, when the power manager "turn off display" timer expired nothing would bring it back except going into standby. it didn't matter if it was on AC or battery -- whenever the timer expired no keystroke or mouse click would bring it back. The new BIOS seems to have fixed this.

georg.hauer · #9 Post by **georg.hauer** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:31 am

Thanks for your hints. The problem only occurs when he is on battary, not on AC. I found a bypass by unplug the battery for 1 minute and then restart by using a "standard energy profil" which is listed in both. But that's not a real solution.
I think i'll try to re-install both power mgt systems. But i'm not sure how to do. Therefore Scratch, would be great if you can help me.

What's the best way to uninstall - via the software manager
There i found 2 applications Thinkpad Energy Manager (with the red symbol of TV) and Thinkpad PowerManagement Driver. On the TV-site i found 2 different power-management systems (Power Manager and ACPI Power Management).
Does this as well cover the XP power management? If not, what's the procedure to uninstall XP PM and where can i found a new setup program to reinstall afterwards.

rvacha · #10 Post by **rvacha** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:28 am

Georg-
Before you reinstall a bunch of stuff, try this:
1. Launch IBM's Power Manager app and write down all the scheme names. Now use Control Panel to open Window's Power Options and write down all the schemes you see there
2. Use Software Installer to uninstall ThinkPad Power Manager (NOT the driver)
3. Restart machine
4. Run regedit and navigate to HK_Current_User\Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies
5. Here you should see numerous "folders", all of them numbered like "0", "1", "2" etc. Select each one at a time. Note that one of the keys in each folder gives the profile name. With any luck most if not all of the IBM created ones are now gone (due uninstall). I suspect one of these remaining profiles, whether created by Windows (unlikely) or IBM (likely), is corrupt. If you once tried to make your own profile(s) find those folders and delete them - you can always make them again later. If there are other profiles you will never use (like Home/Office Desk), delete those too. Definitely keep the ones you think you might use. Definitely delete duplicates.
6. Close regedit and restart machine
7. Reinstall ThinkPad Power Manager using any method
8. With any luck, the list of profiles shown in TP Power Manager are exactly ZERO while the Windows manager will show several of the XP default profiles. This is by IBM design.
9. Open regedit again and go back to those folders. Are there now some duplicates (all you care about is the Name key in each folder for determining duplicates) that appear to be IBM profiles? If so, good. This shows that the TP Power Manager installer installed the default profiles. Now delete EVERY folder that looks like a TP-defined profile EXCEPT Intervideo WinDVD, which was created by Intervideo, not TP. When you get done there should only be 4-6 folders left, all created by Windows
10. (Edit - step deleted)
11. Now use TP to create a test profile, called TP Test or something. Reopen Windows Pwr Controller and see if the profile shows there too. If so, good! Now create a profile using Windows and call it something like XP Test. Use Windows to select/enable the new profile. Open the IBM app and verify that the profile does NOT show up there. Launch TP Power Manager. The listed scheme name should be blank (that's good). We are trying to establish that we have synchronization of the two managers fixed even though they DON'T list the same schemes.
12. If everything is looking good at this stage uninstall the ThinkPad Power Manager a second time, reboot, and reinstall. What this does is reinstall all of the standard IBM profiles into the registry

I hope this works, it worked for me. I didn't have your LCD problem exactly but I can tell you that bad things happen when Windows and TP power apps get out of sync.

If this still doesn't work, I *suspect* that the issue lies in a corrupted GlobalPowerPolicy key, but I do not know a safe way to address that

rvacha · #11 Post by **rvacha** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 8:08 am

I should make a note here about apparent lack of synchronization. In older versions of the TP Manager (i.e. T4X) the IBM manager always showed all profiles, whether created by Windows or by the TP app. The T60 version of the app works differently. No matter how many profiles there are, the only ones it lists are ones that have a string key (Default) with data TPPWRMGR. Creating profiles with Windows creates a string key (Default) whose data is (value not set), so they are not listed by the IBM app. The Windows app always lists all profiles (unless the registry is corrupt). This does not mean that the system is broken. The TP app also looks for a key ProhibitModiifcation set to (7). If it finds this key, it will not allow you to delete the profile (via the TP app). You can still do an end-around by simply deleting the entire folder using regedit if you don't like/will never use the profile.

On older machines it worked differently. The TP app listed all profiles, whether Windows or TP created and Windows likewise did the same. The key ProhibitModication key was not implemented. Instead, it looked for the (Default) key and if it had data such as TPPWR, that indicated to the IBM app that the profile was user-created and deleteable

Using the ProhibitModification key in the newer versions of the IBM software is a smart move, but I personally question the wisdom of not showing ALL profiles.

FYI

Scratch · #12 Post by **Scratch** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 3:27 pm

The profiles created (and maintained) by windows don't have the keys and values of the TPPM profiles. So to prevent trying to edit them inappropriately they put an identifier (app ownership) key of their own to prevent the inevitable mishaps.

As a test I have one profile that I created in TPPM and set the Prohibit value to 0. At this point basic timer changes made by either PM app can modify that profile and the changes stay in synch and timers operate as defined.

With regard to deleting reg keys for the duplicate profiles I've noted the following:

you shouldn't randomly delete duplicates as specific keys are actively linked.

it appears necessary to retain the highest value numbers folder for each desired profile. the 2 basic windows ones Portable/Laptop and Home/Desktop are numbers 0 & 1. My TPPM profiles ended up as 100-105.

don't attempt to sequentially re-number them or newer higher rev ones will be created and your profile list in the app will be empty.

then uninstall Presentation Manager,TPPM and TPPM driver and reboot. then doing the installation in reverse order with req'd reboots has solved the problem for me.

all new profiles need to be created in TPPM if you desire the advanced control of fan, additional timeouts, etc. you can then change the Prohibit key value to 0 if you wish to manipulate the base timers via windows for ease of use.

georg if you have any issues with the process PM me and I'll offer any help I can.

#13 Post by **GomJabbar** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:07 pm

Scratch wrote:With regard to deleting reg keys for the duplicate profiles I've noted the following:

you shouldn't randomly delete duplicates as specific keys are actively linked.

it appears necessary to retain the highest value numbers folder for each desired profile. the 2 basic windows ones Portable/Laptop and Home/Desktop are numbers 0 & 1. My TPPM profiles ended up as 100-105.

don't attempt to sequentially re-number them or newer higher rev ones will be created and your profile list in the app will be empty.

Yeah, I tried that and totally hosed my power settings. I eventually had to reinstall Windows to fix. I suggest anyone trying this to do what I did not. Make a backup copy of your registry first (export), before messing around with the power profile keys.

rvacha · #14 Post by **rvacha** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:10 pm

I did this last night and I had the machine set up as Office/Desk (i.e one of the first keys and an XP profile) and I deleted ALL other keys without incident. It appears that if some of the profiles are duplicates then Windows ignores them all but the first readable key). The TP PM seems to like listing all of the TP-created profile dups. I don't believe the keys are "linked" per se, but I could well be wrong. I think what happens is that whenever you use XP or TP to change a profile the new parameters are are read (once) from the registry and then passed to the PM *driver*, but the driver itself is not linked to the registry. That would be a dangerous thing to do me thinks. Almost by definition if you are able to create duplicates it means that either the PM software is buggy and not well thought out or the registry is *already* hosed (ignoring the bug in the IBM installer that happily adds dups upon installation but doesn't bother to nuke the old ones). I tend to think that of the two possibilities registry corruption is the most likely scenario simply because both XP and TP can get into a funky mode where they don't see that a profile by that name already exists. Based on this line of thought I've always backed up the keys, but have never had the gonads to try to restore them for fear of creating more problems than I started with. Luckily I've never been forced to try. If seems to me that if XP or TP allows you to make a dup, then it must be the first registry instance that is hosed, not the last. I can't prove that because I always nuke them all! I could be really lucky!

PM issues seem to be a recurring theme for me (so I'm not THAT lucky), the last one a situation where my X41T suddenly turned into a desktop with no standby or hibernate functionality (but unlike a real desktop the options were still there, just grayed out). That essentially rendered the machine worthless and I ended up reformatting and starting from scratch. In retrospect I think that reinstalling the processor inf file might have fixed it but never had a chance to try it out

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=27028

renhui · #15 Post by **renhui** » Wed Jul 12, 2006 7:53 pm

Sorry I didn't go through all the posts here, but I seem to have a similiar problem, both in battery mode and AC mode. After a certain time of idling, the LCD will turn off and will not respond to keystrokes or clicks. At first, I had to put the machine into hibernation then turn it back on. Recently, I found out that I can get the LCD back by toggling Fn+F7.
BTW, I am using the latest BIOS (1.07).

hugo · #16 Post by **hugo** » Thu Jul 27, 2006 3:54 pm

renhui wrote:Sorry I didn't go through all the posts here, but I seem to have a similiar problem, both in battery mode and AC mode. After a certain time of idling, the LCD will turn off and will not respond to keystrokes or clicks. At first, I had to put the machine into hibernation then turn it back on. Recently, I found out that I can get the LCD back by toggling Fn+F7.
BTW, I am using the latest BIOS (1.07).

Yes, I have this issue too, I am able to close the cover and re-open it to bring the LCD back. I will try Fn+F7 next time