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Sense Hofstede
Asked: 2010-10-14 03:41:35 +0800 CST

Packard Bell EasyNote MZ35 freezes when AC unplugged and wireless on

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I would like to ask for some help debugging an irritating problem I'm having with my Packard Bell EasyNote MZ35 and Ubuntu 10.10.

Always when the laptop is connected to a wireless network and the AC power lead is unplugged—so it's running on battery power—the system freezes. The screen turns black and shows the error GLib-WARNING **: getpwuid_r(): failed due to unknown user id (0), although this error is completely unrelated to the actual problem.

Previous searches on the internet indicate that this error is unrelated to the bug I'm experiencing. It is suggested that Ubuntu tries to hibernate or suspend and that you're seeing the black screen running 'behind' the X server. That would explain the fact that curiously you still see—but cannot move—the mouse cursor.

I've already set all the values of the GConf keys in /apps/gnome-power-manager/actions/ to 'nothing', disabled all power management actions I could find, but it didn't solve the problem. It is important to note that the freeze doesn't happen immediately after you unplug the AC power lead. The icon in the notification area may have changed already, but the freeze only occurs when the Notify OSD bubble appears that tells you how many time is left with your battery.

Does anyone here have a clue about this problem? A workaround or the cause? If anyone could help me with disabling possible suspend/hibernate behaviour that might be related to this issue, that would be appreciated too.

This issue has been reported as bug #666852.

10.10 wireless laptop

3 Answers

  1. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/656745/comments/37

    I deinstalled the pm-utils 1.4 with synaptic. Download the package pm-utils 1.3.0-1ubuntu1_all_deb from

    "http://packages.ubuntu.com/de/lucid/all/pm-utils/download"

    and installed it.

    Now it workes fine and all functions remain in the best way.

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  2. Possible workaround (disable the hibernate behaviour):

    1. Navigate to 'Power Management Preferences' (Top Menu > System > Preferences > Power Management)
    2. Select the 'On Battery Power' tab
    3. Play around with the options on that tab to prevent your machine putting the display to sleep / going into
      hibernate mode / putting the machine to sleep (suspend) etc.
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  3. I have a similar issue with my HP L2000. When I had XP and I was running on battery the screen would lock up and look like two screens overlayed over each other but slightly off. Nothing would work. Now that I'm running ubuntu it still happens, the same screen look and everything. Obviously a hardware issue. I think it has something to do with the CPU throttling. When its plugged in its running at 100%, but I think when its unplugged its selectively running different process speeds. This I think is the issue, and I do not know how to rid of it.

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