IBM ThinkPad T42 problems with ACPI

[Tim Hull]

I installed Ubuntu on an IBM ThinkPad T42.
Just about everything works great (including wi-fi!), and the
whole system is very stable.  However, I am having one nagging problem 
with ACPI.  I set up a basic script to put the laptop into suspend when
I close the lid that removes ehci_hcd (which prevents a suspend) removes 
my hsf winmodem drivers, and then puts the laptop into suspend with a 
echo 3 > /proc/acpi/sleep.
While this works, my laptop gobbles HUGE amounts of battery while in 
suspend (about 10% of the battery per hour!) and I can't figure out 
why.  I know it is suspended (the suspend light is on, and all the 
drives/fans were off) but something is wrong.  In Windows, suspend works 
fine.  If I use APM, I can suspend fine  without gobbling battery but my 
laptop is much more hot (as speedstep is incompatible with APM), and 
gets worse battery life.  Does anyone have a solution to this?  It has 
happened with every distribution I've tried.