Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

I have this problem with an old thinkpad 600x, I thought this was linux related issue but it may be something specific to the thinkpad so I am hoping maybe some of the experts here can shed some light on it.

I want to turn my old 600x into a digital picture frame, putting it into a nice box running family pictures and give it as a present to my grandma. The 600x runs a minimal version of Ubuntu with only the bare necessities - an X server and image viewer which start on boot and run until it is powered off.

The problem is the the screen goes blank after exactly one hour. At first I thought it was an X Server problem so I researched and tweaked any possible setting that can effect this. Then I discovered it happens also when in terminal mode (no X) so I tried any possible Terminal/APM/ACPI setting I could think of. Then I booted it into FreeDos and...you guessed it, it blanks after exactly one hour.

Which leads me to believe this may be something Thinkpad BIOS related and not OS . I was not able to find anything powersaving or screen saver related in the BIOS config. My current theory is that there are some built-in features into 600x BIOS that blank the screen which may/may not have an interface to be controller by the OS (and if there are, my linux and FreeDos don't implement). Does this make sense?

Needless to say that a a digital picture frame that shuts itself down after an hour is out of the question. I must resolve it and it drives me crazy, please help!


Thanks in advance (and my grandma will be eternally grateful too....I guess )
- barduck

Download the ThinkPad Configuration tool for DOS. It will install the PS2 command, which should allow you to tell the BIOS never to turn the screen off.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!


That solved it!

For future reference, if anyone having similar problem and finds this post -

PS2.exe lets you set the customized time before SUSPEND and LCD blank. The thing is that these setting only take effect if the thinkpad is in "Custom" power saving mode (which wasn't in my case). To put it in "Custom" mode, use PS2.exe with the PMODE parameter.

Problem solved.


Thanks again. I can't even start to count how many hours I've spent on this.

- barduck