power on/off

Every time I rebuild my current system (about once a month these days)
I get a different set of behavious related to shutting down.

sometimes it worked. Sometime 'halt' works, but 'halt -p' does not.
Last time "halt" suddenly started actually powering the machine down, as 
if I had used -p

Now, after the last rebuild, it doesn't reboot or power off, buit stos 
just after puting out the
uptime.  Also, the power button, which used to force a 'halt -p' effect,
now just print some message about "failing to suspend" and nothing more,
and the suspend button seemd to suspend hte system but waking hte system 
up seemd to leave the
screen in an odd state.. I could shot it down by typing blind but 
couldn't see what I was doing.

Anyone have a Dell inspiron 7500 doing the right thing under -current?
care to share your secrets if you do?


Julian