ps2 synaptics touchpad causing huge amounts of wakeups

[Luis Silva]

powertop reports a huge amoun of wakeups from the touchpad. Notice that this is independent of the synaptics driver being loaded or not. I get the exact same results with an out of the box xorg.conf where the touchpad is recognized as a plain mouse. The screenshot shows the problem.

[linovski (avelinorego)]

Have this bug, some relation with Bug #194493 ?

[Tomas Pospisek (tpo-deb)]

On my system (HP 6710b) when idling, powertop says:

Wakeups-from-idle per second : 589,6 interval: 10,0s
no ACPI power usage estimate available

Top causes for wakeups:
  63,0% (421,7) <interrupt> : PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad
  12,4% ( 83,1) <interrupt> : yenta, HDA Intel, i915@pci:0000:00:02.0
   9,0% ( 60,4) <kernel IPI> : Rescheduling interrupts
   6,2% ( 41,2) <interrupt> : extra timer interrupt
   1,6% ( 11,0) <interrupt> : libata
   1,6% ( 10,6) <interrupt> : iwl3945

sucks

[Tomas Pospisek (tpo-deb)]

there are lots and lots of reports about this on the net, see f.ex. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=719067

[Luis Silva (lacsilva)]

@Tomas: That is the problem. I have been testing since powertop first was released and no changes in the driver. Moving the cursor realy sucks power out of my laptop.

@linovski: No, this has nothing to do with Bug #194493 . The wakeup count stays down as long as I don't touch the pad. Once I touch it the wakeup count skyrockets.

[Luis Silva (lacsilva)]

Does anyone know where "upstream" for this driver might be?

I found the site: http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/synaptics/
but it is not updated since 2005 and the git repo dates back to January 2007.

Is this driver being supported by anyone?

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Luis,

Can you comment if this is still an issue with the Hardy Heron 8.04 release? If the issue still exists, care to confirm this is still an issue with the latest Alpha for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 - http://www.ubuntu.com/testing. Please let us know your results. Thanks.

[Tomas Pospisek (tpo-deb)]

Leann Ogasawara wrote 11 hours ago: (permalink)

> Can you comment if this is still an issue with the Hardy Heron 8.04 release?

$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 8.04.1 \n \l

And then from powertop:

  66,8% (495,6) <interrupt> : PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad

In short: Yes, it's still an issue for the Hardy Heron 8.04 release.

I don't have an Intrepid Ibex 8.10 to test on. If it's a kernel issue then I might install the Ibex kernel only. So, is it a kernel issue?

[Luis Silva (lacsilva)]

Hi!
I tested this on two different laptops:
acer 1692 wlmi
asus eeepc 700

They both show this behavior in Gutsy, Hardy and Intrepid.
To get some perspective I tried to compare to a usb mouse and I must
say an optical low end usb mouse reduces causes about 60 events a
second. Much better than the usual 200/300 a second I am getting with
the synaptics driver.

Does anyone know what is the behavior of other touchpad drivers?

2008/8/16, Tomas Pospisek <email address hidden>:
> Leann Ogasawara wrote 11 hours ago: (permalink)
>
>> Can you comment if this is still an issue with the Hardy Heron 8.04
> release?
>
> $ cat /etc/issue
> Ubuntu 8.04.1 \n \l
>
> And then from powertop:
>
> 66,8% (495,6) <interrupt> : PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad
>
> In short: Yes, it's still an issue for the Hardy Heron 8.04 release.
>
> I don't have an Intrepid Ibex 8.10 to test on. If it's a kernel issue
> then I might install the Ibex kernel only. So, is it a kernel issue?
>
> --
> ps2 synaptics touchpad causing huge amounts of wakeups
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/194489
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Jonathon Fernyhough (jfernyhough)]

This is still present in Intrepid.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[Tomas Pospisek (tpo-deb)]

Leann Ogasawara wrote:

> The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel

Using the package linux-image-2.6.27-1-generic I get:

  72.9% (495.6) <interrupt> : PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad
  15.9% (108.1) <interrupt> : extra timer interrupt
   4.3% ( 29.4) Xorg : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)
   3.8% ( 25.8) <kernel IPI> : Rescheduling interrupts
   0.3% ( 2.0) gnome-netstatus : schedule_timeout (process_timeout)

Thus - even 2.6.27 has the same bad behaveour wrt the synaptics driver: it produces insane amounts of wakeups

[Matteo Collina (matteo-collina)]

I've tried two workaround and in this way I made it a little better.

1) Adding some boot option in grub's menu.lst file: i8042.nomux i8042.reset i8042.noloop
er.
2) adding the following lines to my /etc/rc.local:

for I in `ls /sys/devices/platform/i8042/*/rate` ; do
 echo -n 40 > $I
done

The powertop output is:
  32,5% (264,6) <interrupt> : PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad

If it's necessary to do a more accurate testing please tell me what do to.

[SK (stephantom)]

Confirming. There are lots of reports for this and it does affect me too.

[William Grant (wgrant)]

syndaemon is not the Synaptics driver.

[Luis Silva (lacsilva)]

Also present in jaunty beta 2:
Linux neo 2.6.28-4-generic #10-Ubuntu SMP Mon Jan 12 19:35:29 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

[Jostein Bø Fløystad (lillejostein)]

Using powertop to monitor cpu wakeups on a laptop on battery (my case: thinkpad t400), the number of wakeups rises for the "PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad" from less than five to around 400 hundred or more (resulting in a rise in power consumption of 2-3 Watts in most cases -- quite significant on a laptop) when the touchpad is used.

How to reproduce: Start powertop as root when the machine is idle and wait for it to stablize it's measurements. Then move the pointer around a lot, and wait for powertop to refresh its readings. The same effect is not seen while typing.

The same issue has also been reported elsewhere:

Ubuntu bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-synaptics/+bug/194489

Arch linux forum thread:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=486690

As the same appears on different distributions and kernel versions, it is likely to be caused by the driver, although I can't be sure.

My system specs:
Lenovo Thinkpad T400
Synaptics touchpad (part of an UltraNav)
Arch Linux x86_64
version 0.99.3 of xf86-input-synaptics

[Jostein Bø Fløystad (lillejostein)]

Created an attachment (id=22229)
Output from powerto -d with touchpad movement

[Jostein Bø Fløystad (lillejostein)]

Created an attachment (id=22230)
Output from powerto -d without touchpad movement

[Peter Hutterer (peter-hutterer)]

From the original bugreport:

"powertop reports a huge amoun of wakeups from the touchpad. Notice that this is independent of the synaptics driver being loaded or not. I get the exact same results with an out of the box xorg.conf where the touchpad is recognized as a plain mouse. The screenshot shows the problem."

This is a kernel issue, not one of the X.Org synaptics driver -> NOTOURBUG.

[Kwinz (ldm)]

I can confirm this.

Top causes for wakeups:
39,9% (491,1) <interrupt> : PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad
  16,3% (200,3) <interrupt> : extra timer interrupt
  14,4% (177,7) <kernel IPI> : Rescheduling interrupts
   9,8% (120,1) firefox : futex_wait (hrtimer_wakeup)

~/ uname -a
Linux kwinz-laptop 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:58:03 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Yann Simon (yann-simon-fr)]

Confirm with a 2.6.30 kernel

$ uname -a
Linux yann-desktop 2.6.30-5-generic #6-Ubuntu SMP Mon May 11 19:56:30 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

Top causes for wakeups:
  60.1% (490.0) <interrupt> : PS/2 keyboard/mouse/touchpad

[Nicolò Chieffo (yelo3)]

I want to add that it's happening since jaunty (I didn't try older
versions because I bought the laptop in January)

[Kwinz (ldm)]

Why is this bug invalid?
Why is importance undecided?

This bug is now over a year old with lots of confirmations.

I'm beginning to wonder are any of the maintainers reading this at all?

[William Grant (wgrant)]

It was just automatically marked Invalid because the kernel bug at http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13461 was. As you can see there, a kernel developer has stated that it's a hardware limitation. There's nothing we can do to fix it.

[Kwinz (ldm)]

Thank you for this clarification.

I am not familiar with the synaptics driver source code or device specs, but I know that at least with usb mice there is a mouse polling interval. Most so called gaming mice come with a high polling frequency with 500Hz, while laptop mice usually have a much lower frequency by default. However I remember you can override the polling frequency manually at least in Windows. I doubt that anybody needs such a huge interrupt frequency on a laptop touchpad. Is there now way to adjust the polling interval in the driver?
If it can't be done in software is it perhaps feasible to contact the laptop manufacturer for an updated BIOS? (Lenovo in my case) Or is it really hardwired in the device itself.

[Motin (motin)]

I agree, it seems very unlikely that all laptop touchpads have hard-wired polling frequency that not even the best linus hacker could override. Is this really the case? Can we get some more explanation on the issue, and maybe some confirmation that it is the same on Windows?

[nonexistent account (nonexistentaccount)]

I can confirm this on Thinkpad T400 (Kubuntu 9.04 KDE 4.3), I left the computer on idling with powertop for the night and over 85% of wakeups were caused by the touchpad (trackpoint enabled in bios). I would be happy if the wakeups would *only* skyrocket during actual touchpad use.

[Gurmeet (gurmeet1109)]

Invalid bug because it is marked invalid in upstream. -:(

Still, this affects me and I have no idea how to get this corrected.

# uname -a
Linux ubnode6 2.6.35-23-server #40-Ubuntu SMP Wed Nov 17 23:31:10 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[David Turner (dwt)]

I can confirm that this is still occurring on Ubuntu 11.04. I think this is a pretty important bug, and should get more attention considering it has been around forever, and seems to affect a large number of people, not just Ubuntu users.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I'm reopening the bug. I can reproduce it on natty on my netbook.

Fwiw, I found that I could resolve it by doing:

  echo 40 > /sys/module/psmouse/parameters/rate

it seems to make the touchpad a bit more jittery (which is acceptable for me when in a situation where I want to max out battery life). Perhaps a value of 60 would be a better compromise. The default appears to be 100.

I'm not sure what package exactly is responsible for this sysfs setting; I'm going to go ahead and assume the kernel for now.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I'll try to retest the same hardware on oneiric and precise to see if it's still an issue in development.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

On precise/oneiric it seems not to be as big of an issue.

[Artur Krysiak (ventharin)]

Bryce, it seems that the trouble still exists.

I use Ubuntu 14.04 x64 version. PowerTop indicates that while I wave with the cursor using a trackpoint, the wakeups caused by PS/2 Touchpad / Keyboard / Mouse is about 30% of all wakeups.

The kernel settings for psmuose: options psmouse rate=50 decreased wakeups percentage share to mentioned above 30%. For rate=100 the wakeups share was more than 40%.

I really don't know why there are so many wakeups generated by the mouse driver. The good news is: when you don't use mouse then the wakeups share is lower than 1%.

[Tomas Pospisek (tpo-deb)]

Artur Krysiak (ventharin) wrote 17 hours ago: #34

> Bryce, it seems that the trouble still exists.

Since I have switched to Debian wheezy, I do not have this problem any more. Currently running kernel 3.13-0.bpo.1-amd64 on the same hardware as allready reported here. Neither have I seen the problem on 3.2.0-4-amd64.

[Artur Krysiak (ventharin)]

>> Since I have switched to Debian wheezy, I do not have this problem any more

Perhaps, it could be related to the plasma stuff? I use Kubuntu 14.04. I suspect, that moving mouse causes to spread a lot "on mouse over events" - perhaps they caused the trouble?

[Tomas Pospisek (tpo-deb)]

> Perhaps, it could be related to the plasma stuff?

I don't think so. I been using xfce4 for the last couple of years.
*t

[Daniel Power (grundoko)]

I'm having this issue on Linux Mint 17.2
Touchpad uses 350 wakeups per second when being used.

[Cristian Măgherușan-Stanciu (cristi)]

Still happening with ubuntu 15.10 wily and its linux kernel 4.2

[Kristofer (kbitner)]

I have the same problem with Ubuntu 16.04 on a Thinkpad X260. I have disabled the touchpad and only use the trackpoint but the PS/2 interrupt is still by far the most frequent, in the hundreds of ms.