x121e suspend on lid close - on Ubuntu

[MorrisseyJ]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could help me in getting my suspend-on-lid-close to work on my Thinkpad x121e, running Ubuntu.

When i close the lid, the machine seems to suspend, but when i open it i am met with a blank screen and can do nothing other than hard power down. I have noticed, however, that when i have my machine plugged into an external monitor, i can close the lid, observe the suspend and then open the lid to get a password login screen.

So it seems that the suspend is working but that the monitor doesn't come back to life when i open the lid. Having an external monitor plugged in seems to wake the monitor up and so give me the login screen.

This makes me think that this might not be too hard to solve. i don't really understand a lot of the hardware stuff but think that there might be a simple way to make sure that the screen triggers when i open the lid (or make the machine think that there is an external monitor plugged in). I am guessing that there is just a switch that i need to stick to 'on'.

I also see that this machine can now be shipped with Ubuntu so this must be fixable.

The thinkpad x121e is great as a portable machine. Getting this to work would vastly increase its portability.

Any suggestions?

[tbessie]

I can't remember where I read it, but I believe there's a setting somewhere that sets a given X feature, and it needs to be turned off, that will cure that problem. Either that or a module that should not be loaded. Keep your Googling, there is an answer to it (I just can't remember what it was).

- Tim

[schiesz]

I am running Ubuntu 11.10 on an Edge E120 (which should be equivalent to the X121e with i3) and have no problems resuming from a lid close. If it has been an extended period, it doesn't wake just by opening the screen, but a Fn key press or a quick power key press and it instantly pops up.

What version of ubuntu are you using?

[MorrisseyJ]

Hi,

Thanks for all the responses.

So i tried installing 11.10. Ended up being a failure.

Everything managed to install fine off a live USB, but when i went to start the machine the GRUB seemed to fail and i got the following:

error: invalid arch independent ELF magic
grub rescue >

I wasn't able to anything from there.

As such i reinstalled 11.04, and now suspend and resume work fine. So i think it might have been an update problem or some slight problem with my install.

Anyway, all is working now.

I'm looking around for a way to solve the GRUB error on 11.10, but the internet connection i am on at the moment is horribly slow, and a drops frequently. So i am loath to find myself trying to install, failing and then having to reinstall 11.04 again. The download and update times for this will be massive.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the suggestions.

j

[MorrisseyJ]

p.s. is there a way to mark this as solved?

[schiesz]

BTW, I had the exact same problem with GRUB failing when I tried to install 11.10 for a dual booth with Win7. I fixed it by booting the LiveCD (or USB in my case) and re-installing Grub2 in the terminal. After that, no trouble. I even installed BURG for a graphical boot manager. It is all working great.

PS - You can edit your post subject on the initial post, but I don't know if that will change it in the forum listing or not...

[MorrisseyJ]

schiesz:

Thanks for the advice. Glad to hear everything is working for you.

One question.

When you booted to the live USB, how did you install grub to the hard drive and not simply to the space on the USB? Do you have to mount the partition first, and which partition do you install Grub2 to?

Sorry about the details of these questions, i could use some hand-holding through this. Whenever i ask questions i just get instructions that i don't understand.

Thanks again,

[schiesz]

Actually I found instructions online and followed them exactly. They told you how to look at the various partitions that were there, mount the correct one, and then install GRUB. I'll see if I can find them again and post the link and/or steps.

Here are the instructions I used:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/24479/no ... to-windows

[MorrisseyJ]

Brilliant, thanks so much.

[schiesz]

No problem. I understand the need for hand-holding here. Linux is not a strong area for me either, and almost all the things you find out there assume you know things, at least to some level, and sometimes (usually for me) you just do not.

BTW, you can pull up a terminal with ctrl-alt-t.