Re: tlug: Sony Vaio

["Manuel M. T. Chakravarty" <chak@example.com>]

Frank Bennett <bennett@example.com> wrote,

> I have a Sony Vaio 731 (A4 size, with internal CD-ROM/Floppy
> slot), so this is strictly speaking off the topic of this
> thread.  I had some trouble with interrupts to get the modem to
> work also, but that's been covered already.
> 
> I do have a couple of remaining niggles, though, that someone
> might be able to help with.
> 
> First, (generic notepad PC problem here), the mousepad is right
> under my thumbs with my typing position, and I keep accidentally
> tapping it, which proxies for a single click of the left mouse
> button.  This has nice effects like ripping the cursor to a new
> position while I'm typing at full speed, or jerking the focus to
> a new window, where the text I'm typing takes hold as a series of
> keystroke commands ...

Actually, they improved that in the 505.  It's keypad is
rather insensitive (which is strange in the beginning, but
after some practice, I find it more accurate than the
standard ones).  Furthermore, the borders of the keypad are
slightly raised.  Therefore, I nearly never have that
problem on the 505, whereas I used to have it on other
machines (including a VAIO 731).

> Second, "hibernation" does not function on the Vaio the way it
> did on the Toshiba Libretto that I used before this machine.  On
> the Libretto, the last 20 megs of the hard disk were left free
> (i.e. there was no partition in that space).  Hibernation caused
> hardwired code in the Libretto itself to write the content of
> memory into that space.
> 
> I forgot to leave this space free when I set up the Vaio.  This
> _should_ give me a corrupted filesystem every time the machine
> goes down in hibernation mode.  But instead, everything spins
> down and I get a flashing red power light.  Hitting "return" once
> or twice will wake the machine back up quite quickly, without
> accessing the disk.  But (here's the problem) this "deep
> suspension" relies on a battery somewhere in the machine; if it's
> left on battery too long, the machine shuts down and the content
> of memory is lost --- so you have to restart a system that was
> shut down abruptly, possibly leading to filesystem corruption.
> 
> Does anyone have a Vaio that hibernates properly to disk?  If so,
> have you left the tail end of the disk free?  It occurs to me
> that the Vaio might be saving me from my own stupidity by
> refraining from doing a "proper" hibernate, because it sees a
> partition in the way ... ?

That is what I suspect.  The machine seems to handle
suspend-to-disk like suspend-to-memory when their is no
space reserved for suspending to disk.  I made the same
mistake as you when I partitioned the harddisk :-(

Manuel
---------------------------------------------------------------
Next Meeting: 10 October, 12:30 Tokyo Station Yaesu central gate
Next Nomikai: 20 November, 19:30  Tengu TokyoEkiMae 03-3275-3691
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor: PHT, makers of TurboLinux http://www.pht.co.jp