Odd suspend issue--- can't 'make' it suspend.

Question

Basically suspend and hibernate work, buuuuttt...
They only work when laptop-mode times out and sets the comp to suspend, then later into hibernate. It will not actually suspend when I give it a 'sudo pm-suspend' or hibernate with a 'sudo pm-hibernate'. I have never actually messed with suspend/hibernate, so I really have no idea what I am doing, or where to find the logs for it. Usually I do not use it, but for some reason it's bugging me lately.
Edit: The biggest peeve I have is that it will not suspend when I close the lid. Perhaps I should have stuck to using a GUI for this, I may have messed up my laptop-mode.conf somehow.
# Configuration for Laptop Mode Tools
# There is a "system" to the configuration setting names:
# CONTROL_something=0/1 Determines whether Laptop Mode Tools controls
# something
# LM_something=value Value of "something" when laptop mode is active
# NOLM_something=value Value of "something" when laptop mode is NOT
# active
# AC_something=value Value of "something" when the computer is running
# on AC power
# BATT_something=value Value of "something when the computer is running
# on battery power
# There can be combinations of LM_/NOLM_ and AC_/BATT_ prefixes, but the
# available prefixes are different for each setting. The available ones are
# documented in the manual page, laptop-mode.conf(8). If there is no LM_/
# NOLM_ in a setting name, then the value is used independently of laptop
# mode state, and similarly, if there is no AC_/BATT_, then the value is used
# independently of power state.
# Some options only work on ACPI systems. They are marked ACPI-ONLY.
# Note that this configuration file is a fragment of shell script: you
# can use all the features of the shell scripting language to achieve your
# desired configuration.
# Modules
# Laptop Mode Tools modules have separate configuration files, that can be
# found in /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d. Please look through these configuration
# files as well, there are many useful power saving tools in there!
# Configuration debugging
# Set this to 1 if you want to see a lot of information when you start/stop
# laptop_mode.
VERBOSE_OUTPUT=0
# When to enable laptop mode
# "Laptop mode" is the mode in which laptop mode tools makes the computer
# consume less power. This includes the kernel "laptop_mode" feature, which
# allows your hard drives to spin down, as well as various other settings which
# can be tweaked by laptop mode tools. You can enable or disable all of these
# settings using the CONTROL_... options further down in this config file.
# Enable laptop mode when on battery power.
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_BATTERY=1
# Enable laptop mode when on AC power.
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_AC=0
# Enable laptop mode when the laptop's lid is closed, even when we're on AC
# power? (ACPI-ONLY)
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_WHEN_LID_CLOSED=1
# When to enable data loss sensitive features
# When data loss sensitive features are disabled, laptop mode tools acts as if
# laptop mode were disabled, for those features only.
# Data loss sensitive features include:
# - laptop_mode (i.e., delayed writes)
# - hard drive write cache
# All of the options that follow can be set to 0 in order to prevent laptop
# mode tools from using them to stop data loss sensitive features. Use this
# when you have a battery that reports the wrong information, that confuses
# laptop mode tools.
# Disabling data loss sensitive features is ACPI-ONLY.
# Disable all data loss sensitive features when the battery level (in % of the
# battery capacity) reaches this value.
#MINIMUM_BATTERY_CHARGE_PERCENT=5
# Disable data loss sensitive features when the battery reports its state
# as "critical".
DISABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_CRITICAL_BATTERY_LEVEL=1
# Controlled hard drives and partitions
# For spinning down your hard drives, laptop mode will remount file systems and
# adjust hard drive spindown timeouts. These parameters specify which
# devices and partitions are affected by laptop mode.
# The drives that laptop mode controls.
# Separate them by a space, e.g. HD="/dev/hda /dev/hdb". The default is a
# wildcard, which will get you all your IDE and SCSI/SATA drives.
HD="/dev/sda"
# The partitions (or mount points) that laptop mode controls.
# Separate the values by spaces. Use "auto" to indicate all partitions on drives
# listed in HD. You can add things to "auto", e.g. "auto /dev/hdc3". You can
# also specify mount points, e.g. "/mnt/data".
PARTITIONS="auto /dev/mapper/*"
# If this is enabled, laptop mode tools will assume that SCSI drives are
# really SATA drives that only _look_ like SCSI drives, and will use hdparm
# to control them. Set this to 0 if you have /dev/sd devices and you want
# laptop mode tools to use the "sdparm" command to control them.
ASSUME_SCSI_IS_SATA=1
# Hard drive behaviour settings
# These settings specify how laptop mode tools will adjust the various
# parameters of your hard drives and file systems.
# Maximum time, in seconds, of work that you are prepared to lose when your
# system crashes or power runs out. This is the maximum time that Laptop Mode
# will keep unsaved data waiting in memory before spinning up your hard drive.
LM_BATT_MAX_LOST_WORK_SECONDS=600
LM_AC_MAX_LOST_WORK_SECONDS=360
# Should laptop mode tools control readahead?
CONTROL_READAHEAD=1
# Read-ahead, in kilobytes. You can spin down the disk while playing MP3/OGG
# by setting the disk readahead to a reasonable size, e.g. 3072 (3 MB).
# Effectively, the disk will read a complete MP3 at once, and will then spin
# down while the MP3/OGG is playing. Don't set this too high, because the
# readahead is applied to _all_ files that are read from disk.
LM_READAHEAD=3072
NOLM_READAHEAD=3072
# Should laptop mode tools add the "noatime" option to the mount options when
# laptop mode is enabled?
CONTROL_NOATIME=0
# Should laptop use relatime instead of noatime? The "relatime" mount option has
# more standards-compliant semantics, and allows more applications to work,
# while retaining a low level of atime updates (i.e., disk writes).
USE_RELATIME=1
# Should laptop mode tools control the hard drive idle timeout settings?
CONTROL_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT=1
# Idle timeout values. (hdparm -S)
# Default is 2 hours on AC (NOLM_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=7200) and 20 seconds
# for battery and for AC with laptop mode on.
LM_AC_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=20
LM_BATT_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=20
NOLM_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=7200
# Should laptop mode tools control the hard drive power management settings?
CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=1
# Power management for HD (hdparm -B values)
BATT_HD_POWERMGMT=1
LM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=254
NOLM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=254
# Should laptop mode tools control the hard drive write cache settings?
CONTROL_HD_WRITECACHE=1
# Write cache settings for HD (hdparm -W values)
NOLM_AC_HD_WRITECACHE=1
NOLM_BATT_HD_WRITECACHE=0
LM_HD_WRITECACHE=0
# Settings you probably don't want to touch
# It is usually not necessary to change these parameters. They are included
# for completeness' sake.
# Change mount options on partitions in PARTITIONS? You don't really want to
# disable this. If you do, then your hard drives will probably not spin down
# anymore.
CONTROL_MOUNT_OPTIONS=1
# Dirty synchronous ratio. At this percentage of dirty pages the process
# which calls write() does its own writeback.
LM_DIRTY_RATIO=60
NOLM_DIRTY_RATIO=40
# Allowed dirty background ratio, in percent. Once DIRTY_RATIO has been
# exceeded, the kernel will wake pdflush which will then reduce the amount
# of dirty memory to dirty_background_ratio. Set this nice and low, so once
# some writeout has commenced, we do a lot of it.
LM_DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO=1
NOLM_DIRTY_BACKGROUND_RATIO=10
# kernel default settings -- don't touch these unless you know what you're
# doing.
DEF_UPDATE=5
DEF_XFS_AGE_BUFFER=15
DEF_XFS_SYNC_INTERVAL=30
DEF_XFS_BUFD_INTERVAL=1
DEF_MAX_AGE=30
# This must be adjusted manually to the value of HZ in the running kernel
# on 2.4, until the XFS people change their 2.4 external interfaces to work in
# centisecs. This can be automated, but it's a work in progress that still
# needs some fixes. On 2.6 kernels, XFS uses USER_HZ instead of HZ for
# external interfaces, and that is currently always set to 100. So you don't
# need to change this on 2.6.
XFS_HZ=100
# Seconds laptop mode has to to wait after the disk goes idle before doing
# a sync.
LM_SECONDS_BEFORE_SYNC=2
Edit/Update: After playing with it for a little while, I decided to try without starting laptop-mode-tools with the startup... and low and behold, it functioned perfectly.
Now all I need is to figure out a clean way of setting the CPU freq on and off AC and I am all set.
Last edited by LeoSolaris (2009-02-25 16:42:17)

Answer 1

Hello misslissa:
Welcome to Apple discussions.
Try this:
Boot from your software install DVD and then run repair disk (fsck is not recommended by Apple after OS X 10.4).
A question…. did the problem just start out of the blue, or have there been hardware changes?
Barry