Hardware lag after 1min idle

[tufkal]

After about 1 minute of idle on my Heron install, my hardware lags.

Here is a repeatable example.

I can open a terminal and type 'ping google.com'

And watch the replies, but after about 1 minute the replies stop. Then I go to move my mouse to click something to figure out what is going on, and my mouse lags hugely from one side of the screen to the other. Then after 5 seconds, my mouse works again, the pings restart, and im fine. Note, I do not get failed ping messages, as the screen itself seems to just freeze at that point.

If I repeat this example with WiFi, i have to reconnect to the AP each time I have a 'hardware lag'.

Default install using alternate desktop CD on a Compal JFL92 laptop. 1 ext3 / partition, and 1 swap partition. No restricted drivers installed.

NOTE: Repeatable problem confirmed to be repeatable on first boot from install.

NOTE: This was first noticed doing apt-get installs of lots of data. Ping is just a easily repeatable example.

NOTE: The mouse lag doesnt always happen, but the freeze always happens. During top, watch date, or pings.

The odd part is the pings take up where they left off, with no large response time. icmp_seq145, wait 5 minutes of freeze, and icmp_seq146 goes right off with normal response.

[tufkal]

Shameful self-bump.

[Stefan Stryjecki]

What is a "self-bump"?

I don't know what can be the cause of this. It makes me a little worried actually, b/c I planned on buying a Compal JFL-92.

[tufkal]

Are there any other JFL92 laptop users that can chime in on this? I mean, it is such an obvious problem, and can be seen on first boot from install, just doing a apt-get upgrade.

[zolushka]

I have a Dell Latitude D600 that had been acting in a similar way since installing Hardy. (Before that it ran Debian etch with no such problem.)

About an hour ago, after discovering that the GNOME panel's "Laptop Brightness Applet" causes the laptop to lag like crazy, I tried the following things:

1) In the "Power Management Preferences" dialog, I disabled the "Dim display when idle" settings.

2) Using gconf-editor, I disabled the "ambient" and "backlight" settings under /apps/gnome-power-manager

I wasn't scientific about it, so I don't know which of those changes did the trick (the gconf tweak probably wasn't useful at all).

But so far, so good...

There, I suppose I'll jinx it now by posting this message ;^)

[tufkal]

I'll give that a try right now and let you know the results.

[zolushka]

So far everything's still running smoothly for me, and it's been almost a day...

[tufkal]

Havent had a chance to test this yet, but in some quick tests last night it appears a newly pushed update might have fixed it for me.

I'll have more tomorow.

[tufkal]

Yeah that doesnt help. Those settings under power managemanet are all turned off by default when plugged into AC anyways, so changing them would make no difference.

I guess it could be the gconf changes you made, I will test some more.

[tufkal]

I am beginning to think it is the kernel itself...

I found this....

http://groups.google.com/group/linux...b680f555065eda

It looks like some commits to the kernel were made very recently to add support for acpi and other things for the IFT00 boards from Compal, including the JFL92. (Can someone confirm this? Havent read a diff file in a long time, and never from the linux kernel)

If this is the case, looks like to use Heron on a Compal JFL92 im going to need to recompile my kernel?