[ale] SuperMicro Power Down

[Christopher Fowler]

I could try disabling the power management all together.  The CPU is a
PIV with HT.  I use a SMP kernel even though there is really only one
processor.  Linux sees 2.

When we sell these boxes we sell them to people that have no clue about
Linux.  I've developed web pages that allow them to config the box. 
Setup IP addresses, do CD-RW backups.  The software on the box is a J2EE
app so it is web based too.  The whole goal is to provide a easy to use
application on a server that can be controlled with a web browser. 

That was fine and dandy until someone wanted to move the box.  I had
forgotten to add a power down web page.  all the could do was either
restart or pull the plug.  I added a power down feature to the web
control panel and it worked fine until I got the same board with a newer
rev of the BIOS.

The manufacturer gave me a newer rev to flash but why in the hell do I
have to boot dos to do it?  I have to find a floppy and find a version
of windows that will make a simply bootable dos floppy.  


On Thu, 2005-04-21 at 22:55, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> What does "shutdown -h now" do?  I'm not entirely clear if it calls halt
> or not.
> 
> APM has to be turned off for SMP machines. It can power down a CPU (I
> think that's one of it's design bugs). APCi is _supposed_ to be a better
> design. Since most of my stuff is servers, I turn off all power
> management other than screen blanking.
> 
> You may need to go digging at SuperMicro and Toms Hardware for more data
> on that. It seems like a BIOS bug to me. Is there a new BIOS version to
> flash over?
> 
> On Thu, 2005-04-21 at 22:37 -0400, Christopher Fowler wrote:
> > I do see this in dmesg:
> > 
> > apm: BIOS version 1.2 Flags 0x07 (Driver version 1.16ac)
> > apm: disabled - APM is not SMP safe.
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, 2005-04-21 at 22:30, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> > > On Thu, 2005-04-21 at 22:16 -0400, Christopher Fowler wrote:
> > > > We just received a new system which contains a SuperMicro.  Normally a
> > > > 'halt -p' will powerdown this board but this new system it actually
> > > > causes a reboot.  I see Linux trying to call the acpi poweroff function
> > > > but a reboot happens.  The only difference between this board and the
> > > > old one is a letter change in the BIOS version.  We run FC2 with a 2.6.5
> > > > kernel.  Did something change with acpi?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Is apm on in the bios? Some boards have both apm and acpi and they cause
> > > conflicts when both are running.
> > > > 
> > > > 
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