Feature request: do not sleep when lid is closed if external display is attached

[Robert Tupelo-Schneck]

You may laugh, but I am using an Acer C7 Chromebook as a sort of desktop replacement, more or less permanently attached to external keyboard, mouse, and display.  When I close the lid, it goes to sleep.  I wish that it would not.  To make things worse, the notebook screen backlight stays on even when only the external display is being used (perhaps Acer's problem rather than the OS's).

I discovered I could enter into developer mode and "sudo initctl stop powerm", but that has a number of drawbacks.  Among other things it seems to stop the system from sleeping at all... well the external display is eventually blanked, but the fan keeps running for hours.

As a separate feature request, the display settings UI for an external display seem to be lacking something... after plugging in the external display I can get the settings UI to pop up with "stop mirroring" (which is notebook display only) and then "start mirroring" (both displays), but it seems that only Control-FullScreen gives me access to "external display only".  Am I missing a way to do this without Control-FullScreen?

Thanks,

Robert 

[Jonathan Kliegman]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 10:58 PM, Robert Tupelo-Schneck <sch...@gmail.com> wrote:

You may laugh, but I am using an Acer C7 Chromebook as a sort of desktop replacement, more or less permanently attached to external keyboard, mouse, and display.  When I close the lid, it goes to sleep.  I wish that it would not.  To make things worse, the notebook screen backlight stays on even when only the external display is being used (perhaps Acer's problem rather than the OS's).

crosbug.com/10459 is a feature request for this - if you'd like to star it you can see when updates happen.  Unfortunately its not quite as simple as disabling lid suspend when docked and we want to make sure we do the right thing in all cases. 

 

I discovered I could enter into developer mode and "sudo initctl stop powerm", but that has a number of drawbacks.  Among other things it seems to stop the system from sleeping at all... well the external display is eventually blanked, but the fan keeps running for hours.

If you're in dev mode, you can write 0 to the use_lid file ( /usr/share/power_manager/use_lid) which will disable the lid suspend.  

,  

As a separate feature request, the display settings UI for an external display seem to be lacking something... after plugging in the external display I can get the settings UI to pop up with "stop mirroring" (which is notebook display only) and then "start mirroring" (both displays), but it seems that only Control-FullScreen gives me access to "external display only".  Am I missing a way to do this without Control-FullScreen?

Unfortunately I don't know the answer to this.  You may want to check the behavior in dev channel as I think there have been some changes made to how mirroring works, but I haven't paid much attention to it. 

Thanks,

Robert 

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[Andrew Wickham]

I second this.  I have a chromebook in my office for work, and I keep it attached to a monitor & external keyboard/mouse.  I have to keep the chromebook open to use it this way, which puts added use on the screen, and makes the chromebook get in the way.

[Robert Tupelo-Schneck]

For what it's worth, a mid-February auto-update basically fixed this
for me. Now, if I close the lid, it goes to sleep, but a keypress
will wake it up, even while still closed. One remaining oddity is
that it still reserves desktop space for the closed internal display,
so I can move my mouse off the screen into nowhere. It's not such a
problem; I make the 2-display orientation such that the internal
display is in the lower left, and I rarely lose the mouse (and just go
up & right if I do).

Robert

> --

[Andrew Wickham]

I cannot seem to replicate this.  I'm on the beta build of Chrome OS, and when i close the lid on the chromebook, no button press on the attached keyboard nor movement/click of the attached mouse wakes it up.  Thoughts?

[Robert Tupelo-Schneck]

Well, I'm getting stable, and I noticed the ability to wake with
closed lid when "extended desktop" support was rolled out
mid-February. Hopefully there's not something in beta that will break
this for me coming up! I'll let you know if it does.

Robert

[Andrew Wickham]

What button are you pressing to take it out of sleep mode?

[Robert Tupelo-Schneck]

I think any key does it; I've certainly used enter, space, and also letter keys.

In full detail: I take my sleeping Acer C7 Chromebook, hook up power,
an HDMI-to-DVI adapter connected to a Dell 1707FP monitor, and USB to
an Apple keyboard with mouse attached to it. I open the lid. The
Chromebook wakes up, and after a brief wait, the desktop is extended
onto the external monitor. I go to the display settings and click
"Make Primary" on the external monitor. Now I close the lid of the
Chromebook. The monitor goes black, then comes back on for a second
or two, then goes black. The Chromebook is sleeping. Now any
keypress will wake it up, even with the lid closed.

Robert

[and...@youngers.org]

Any one else have any tips on this issue?

I am using a brand new samsung chromebook with and external mouse, keyboard and VewSonic monitor connected via a HDMI cable. All software is up to date. I make the monitor the "primary" in settings but then every time I close the chromebook the monitor goes to sleep and can't be woken but either the mouse or keyboard. Only wakes up when I open the chromebook again. Tried unplugging and turning everything on and off...

Do i need an HDMI to DVI? instead of HDMI to HDMI?

Andrew

[Sonny Rao]

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=218387

It looks to be fixed in R28

[and...@youngers.org]

I appreciate the quick response, however, I'm afraid I'm not sure what to do with this information, I don't get it....

[Sonny Rao]

It means that this feature is now in the chromium-os tree -- we are
currently developing what will become version 28, and assuming there
aren't any problems with the feature (it's not reverted for some
reason) then it will be in the final R28 release and subsequent
releases.

I'm not sure if you're using Chromium OS or Chrome OS; if you're using
Chrome OS then you'll need to wait until version 28 becomes available
on whatever
channel you're on (dev, beta, and then stable), but if Chromium then
you'll need to build (or otherwise obtain from someone else) a version
28 build to get this feature.

[and...@youngers.org]

Excellent, thank you. Looks like I am using version 26 of chrome os at the moment so I'm looking forward to v28!

[Ashton Rodriguez]

I JUST FIGURED IT OUT! Someone correct me if I'm doing something wrong or if
this effects anything else but the power. Here it is:

Press CTRL+ALT+T to open a new crosh (terminal) tab.

Type "shell" without the quotes.

Type "sudo stop powerd" without quotes. NOTE: This is POWERD, not POWERM. No
Developer Switch required. It doesn't have to be on, I mean. If it doesn't
work, I'm sorry I have failed you.

[Mike Frysinger]

that only works when you're in dev mode

-mike

[David Mobley]

OK... This is what I did.

1. Have your connected monitor (I use my TV via HDMI) and your Chromebook mirrored.

2. Close the Chromebook.

3. Move your mouse or press any key on your keyboard (I have a wireless combo; highly recommended ^_^).

This is what I do. I also have all of my TV related devices on a surge protector, so when I'm done with everything I step on the switch and it disconnects the power from everything including the Chromebook. Albeit, it's still running, but it's not using electricity in the house.

Hope this helps,

David

[BuzzSaw]

Pardon my ignorance & newbieness -- I'm no tekkie. Just getting an Acer c7 and am interested in this problem of being able to close the lid while I'm connected to a bigger monitor. Is this available in the regular Chrome OS as of now (8/26/13).

Also as this chromebook is not bluetooth-enabled, is it possible to use a wireless Mac keyboard? -- maybe with a usb dongle?

Thanks for entertaining my questions.

[Simon Arscott]

On Mon, Aug 26, 2013 at 3:06 AM, BuzzSaw <adrian...@gmail.com> wrote:

Pardon my ignorance & newbieness -- I'm no tekkie. Just getting an Acer c7 and am interested in this problem of being able to close the lid while I'm connected to a bigger monitor. Is this available in the regular Chrome OS as of now (8/26/13).

Unfortunately this is not currently possible in the Acer C7, due to some hardware complexities. We don't really have a timeline for a fix either.

 

Also as this chromebook is not bluetooth-enabled, is it possible to use a wireless Mac keyboard? -- maybe with a usb dongle?

A USB dongle should in theory work, but without knowing the specific one it is hard to be certain.

 

Thanks for entertaining my questions.

On Thursday, August 8, 2013 7:54:47 PM UTC-7, David Mobley wrote:

OK... This is what I did.

1. Have your connected monitor (I use my TV via HDMI) and your Chromebook mirrored.

2. Close the Chromebook.

3. Move your mouse or press any key on your keyboard (I have a wireless combo; highly recommended ^_^).

This is what I do. I also have all of my TV related devices on a surge protector, so when I'm done with everything I step on the switch and it disconnects the power from everything including the Chromebook. Albeit, it's still running, but it's not using electricity in the house.

Hope this helps,

David

--

[Robert Tupelo-Schneck]

I can get my Acer C7 working with a closed lid. The process is:
attach external monitor, keyboard, and mouse; wake up Chromebook; set
external monitory as primary display; close lid; wait for Chromebook
to sleep; hit a key on external keyboard. It wakes up. There's the
oddity that you can still mouse onto the invisible internal display,
but it works well enough for my needs.

Robert

[Matt Anderson]

Thank you so much!  It never even crossed my mind to hit a key on the keyboard to see if it would wake up when closed and docked!  Works perfectly for me on my Acer running Beta!

[Derek Matuszewski]

On my new Acer Chromebook C720 i can close the lid while connected to a monitor with hdmi and it stays on the monitor in docked mode.

[Kevin Barnett]

Any ideas on how to fix without opening up the puter  "the fact we cant close the lid and listen to music via internal speakers or watch on an external TV ".. 

[Robert Tupelo-Schneck]

It seems at some point this stopped working on the Acer C7 in particular.  There's this singularly unhelpful page mentioning the issue: https://support.google.com/chromebook/answer/3248030?hl=en

Too bad!  Why was it disabled?  Can it be reenabled?  This used to work well for me.

[Ken and Mary Meyer]

For what it is worth, there is a Keep Awake extension for chrome that
works well.

Ken

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[Adrian]

Keep Awake http://goo.gl/cI0KZ0 does not work on my acer C710 Chromebook with an external display connected via HDMI when the laptop lid is closed (as it's supposed to work).

"Frequently-asked questions:

* Will this extension prevent a Chromebook from suspending when its lid is closed?

No, but if an external display is connected, recent versions of Chrome OS will remain awake when the lid is closed.
​"​

I tried re-booting and several times.  But 5 stars for the fact that it works on many other models, it seems.

​ 

I'm writing the dev to see if it's​ workable in my case...

​Thanks for the tip.​

[Bartosz Fabianowski]

If we disabled stay-awake-with-lid-closed on certain models, it was
probably due to thermal issues. Depending on how the air flows were
designed, a device may need its lid to be open to remain cool.

- Bartosz

[Mike]

Since the last update to the Chromebook it seems I have been unable to wake up the Chromebook with a keyboard or mouse if the lid is closed. This was working fine until I updated the device. I used to be able to just hit a key on the keyboard and the device would wake up. Is there any way to do this? I have tried the Keep Awake extension but it does not work with the lid being closed. My Chromebook is an Acer C7. Thank you. 

[Bartosz Fabianowski]

Acer C7 cannot be kept awake when the lid is closed. This has been the
case since some time in 2013. You said it worked until you updated your
device. Were you on a very old, 2013-or-older, version of Chrome OS before?

- Bartosz

[Nemo]

I'm having the same problem with my Acer C7. Even with the "Keep Awake" extension, docked mode enabled, an external monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse connected, the C7 still goes to sleep when the lid is closed, thus forcing me to keep the lid open even when I'm only using the external monitor, external mouse, and external keyboard.

I wish there was a fix for this...

[Ken and Mary Meyer]

When I was using a laptop as a desktop system, I used a piece of material
to prevent the notebook from closing. I put it right over the slot that would
ordinarily latch. Not a software solution.. but it worked. ;)

Ken

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[Ian Bloss]

The Acer CB3 that we have will remain awake when plugged in via HDMI to an external monitor. I would check to be sure you're running the latest stable chromeos release.