Running Edgy Eft (6.10) with all updates as at Oct 21 2006. Kernel is 2.6.17-10.33.
System is HP Compaq nc6320 notebook. nx6325 is affected too.
To reproduce the problem:
1. Boot Ubuntu either in normal mode or single user mode.
2. Perform a standard clean shutdown.
3. The computer will appear to shutdown and power off normally.
Symptoms:
1. When you next power up the computer the BIOS seems to take approximately twice as long as normal to reach the stage where BIOS password is entered.
2. If you try to enter the password, the BIOS seems as if the it doesn't accept input from the keyboard. Also note that the preceeding F9 (for alternate boot device) or F10 (for setup) are also ignored.
3. If you don't have a BIOS password configured then it will reach the Grub menu, but it does take about twice as long as normal.
4. Also note however that Fn-F9 and Fn-F10 which provide hardware control of screen brightness does still work before the OS has had a chance to start.
4. Powerdown/restart with Power button does not recover problem.
Workaround:
1. Once the problem occurs, the only way I can boot my computer and pass keystrokes to BIOS is to remove plugpack power and to remove the LiIon battery for a few seconds. Restoring power then allows me to boot the computer normally.
Testing for Possible cause:
1. If rather than performing a clean Gnome shutdown or "shutdown - h now", I simply hold the power button down I can restart the computer normally. This would indicate that the shutdown process is leaving something in a state which prevents the BIOS from allowing the computer to restart.
2. When the computer tries to start BIOS after the clean shutdown it takes twice as long as normal. I am wondering whether some soft "firmware" is left in a state that prevents BIOS from properly initialising the hardware.
Security Implications:
1. As I can now not have the computer prompt me for a BIOS password (without the incovenience of having to remove the battery before powering up) it means than my computer is less protected than I would otherwise like.
Other notes:
1. This laptop is new, and does not exhibit the problem when shutting down from running Windows XP.
2. Before trying Edgy, I briefly installed Dapper (with updates). This also exhibited the same issue as Edgy.
I can confirm this problem on my HP compaq nc6320.
Probably related: when I close the lid of my laptop, keyboard and touchpad don't react anymore when trying to resume normal operations. The only solution is to shutdown the system by pushing the power the power button for 5s.
(power management settings are on "When laptop lid is closed: Blank screen")