Sony Vaio VGN-TX92S

[Jacques Garrigue]

From: Nate Lawson <nate at root.org>

> >>> Also, see the acpi man page for cpu idling, namely 
> >>> setting hw.acpi.cpu.cx_lowest=C3.
> >> I tried this, with only C2, as C3 does not seem to be available for
> >> this cpu currently. (The Intel docs talk of a "very deep sleep" mode,
> >> so this may be lacking in the FreeBSD support.)
> > 
> > I was wrong. When I tried first the supported modes were only C1 and
> > C2, but using sysctl again later I found that C3 and even C4 were
> > available. I wonder why it changes while running. I tried with C4, but
> > I get no significant change in temperature.
> 
> It changes based on AC line status.  See the acpi man page or 
> /etc/defaults/rc.conf ("cx" lines) to see.

Thanks. With this I can keep it low.
But this does not change the original strange behaviour: if I boot
with AC on, I only get C1 and C2 listed, but if I boot on battery I
get C1 to C4. The supported modes do not seem to change after boot.

> > Since the main problem is hang-up from overheat, is there any progress
> > in having powerd slow the CPU when the temperature is too high?
> 
> Passive cooling is already supported in 6-stable and 7-current.

OK, I've set _PSV to 60.0C, which should have protected me against
overheat. I verified that the CPU slows when over 60.0C.
But just as I was writing this mail (and extracting the Linux kernel
sources, don't ask me why...) I experienced again a strange unexpected
reboot. Just before reboot, the sysctl node dev.cpu.0 had disappeared!
The temperature was over 60C, but not that high.

By the way, the acpi_thermal man page seems to be wrong about setting
temperatures through sysctl: it says that you should use an integer
temperature in celsius, but if I do that I get "Invalid argument".
Actually I had to set in 1/10 of Kelvin (ie 3332), after reading
kernel sources.

Last unrelated points (This is probably not the place to write them):
* if_wpi doesn't seem to work with WEP for me :-(
* I tried the latest snd_hda driver (10/01), but I cannot suspend when
  using it
* (maybe more related) output to external display doesn't seem to
  work, even if I reboot with the display connected (it just succeeds
  in garbling the internal LCD.) There is no option about it in the
  BIOS settings.
* while hot keys do not work, brightness can be controlled through
  acpi_sony sysctl's.

Jacques