.\" LP (Laptop Package) .\" .\" Copyright (c) 1994 by HOSOKAWA, Tatsumi .\" .\" This software may be used, modified, copied, and distributed, in .\" both source and binary form provided that the above copyright and .\" these terms are retained. Under no circumstances is the author .\" responsible for the proper functioning of this software, nor does .\" the author assume any responsibility for damages incurred with its .\" use. .\" .\" $FreeBSD: src/share/man/man4/man4.i386/apm.4,v 1.13.2.5 2001/08/17 13:08:45 ru Exp $ .\" $DragonFly: src/share/man/man4/man4.i386/apm.4,v 1.7 2007/12/16 01:26:34 swildner Exp $ .\" .Dd November 1, 1994 .Dt APM 4 i386 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm apm .Nd APM BIOS interface .Sh SYNOPSIS .Cd device apm0 at nexus? .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm is an interface to the Intel / Microsoft APM (Advanced Power Management) BIOS on laptop PCs. .Pp .Nm provides the following power management functions. .Bl -enum -offset indent .It When the system wakes up from suspended mode, .Nm adjusts the system clock to RTC. .It When the system wakes up from suspended mode, .Nm passes a message to .Xr syslogd 8 comprising of system wakeup time and elapsed time during suspended mode. .It .Nm slows CPU clock when there are no system activities (runnable processes, interrupts, etc.). This function is available only on systems whose APM supports CPU idling. .It .Nm exports an application interface as a character device. Applications can control APM, or retrieve APM status information via this interface. .Nm exports the following interfaces. These symbols are defined in .In machine/apm_bios.h . .Bl -tag -width 4n -offset indent .It Dv APMIO_SUSPEND Suspend system. .It Dv APMIO_GETINFO Get power management information. .It Dv APMIO_ENABLE .It Dv APMIO_DISABLE Enable / Disable power management. .It Dv APMIO_HALTCPU .It Dv APMIO_NOTHALTCPU Control execution of HLT in the kernel context switch routine. .It Dv APMIO_GETPWSTATUS Get per battery information. .Pp Some APM implementations execute the HLT (Halt CPU until an interrupt occurs) instruction in the .Dq Em Idle CPU call, while others do not. Thus enabling this may result in redundant HLT executions because .Dq Em Idle CPU is called from the kernel context switch routine that inherently executes HLT. This may reduce peak system performance. .Pp Also the system hangs up if HLT instruction is disabled in the kernel context switch routine, and if the APM implementation of the machine does not execute HLT in .Dq Em Idle CPU . On some implementations that do not support CPU clock slowdown, APM might not execute HLT. .Nm disables .Dv APMIO_NOTHALTCPU operation on such machines. .Pp The current version of .Nm does not call .Dq Em Idle CPU from the kernel context switch routine if clock slowdown is not supported, and it executes HLT instruction by default. Therefore, there is no need to use these two operations in most cases. .El .Pp These interfaces are used by .Xr apm 8 . .It .Nm polls APM events and handles the following events. .Bl -column PMEV_POWERSTATECHANGEXXX "suspend system xxxxx" .It Sy "Name " "Action " "Description" .It Dv "PMEV_STANDBYREQ " No "suspend system " "standby request" .It Dv "PMEV_SUSPENDREQ " No "suspend system " "suspend request" .It Dv "PMEV_USERSUSPENDREQ " No "suspend system " "user suspend request" .It Dv "PMEV_CRITSUSPEND " No "suspend system " "critical suspend request" .It Dv "PMEV_NORMRESUME " No "resume system " "normal resume" .It Dv "PMEV_CRITRESUME " No "resume system " "critical resume" .It Dv "PMEV_STANDBYRESUME " No "resume system " "standby resume" .It Dv "PMEV_BATTERYLOW " No "notify message " "battery low" .It Dv "PMEV_UPDATETIME " No "adjust clock " "update time" .El .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr apm 8 , .Xr zzz 8 .Sh AUTHORS .An Tatsumi Hosokawa Aq hosokawa@jp.FreeBSD.org .Sh BUGS WARNING! Many, if not most, of the implementations of APM-bios in laptops today are buggy. You may be putting your LCD-display and batteries at a risk by using this interface. (The reason this isn't a problem for MS-windows is that they use the real-mode interface.) If you see any weird behavior from your system with this code in use, unplug the power and batteries ASAP, if not immediately, and disable this code. .Pp We are very interested in getting this code working, so please send your observations of any anomalous behavior to us. .Pp When .Nm is active, calling the BIOS setup routine by using hot-keys, may cause serious trouble when resuming the system. BIOS setup programs should be called during bootstrap, or from DOS. .Pp Some APM implementations cannot handle events such as pushing the power button or closing the cover. On such implementations, the system .Ar must be suspended .Ar only by using .Xr apm 8 or .Xr zzz 8 . .Pp Disk spin-down, LCD backlight control, and power on demand have not been supported on the current version.