Unusual behaviour (or is it?) regarding sleep/hibernate - is it just me........

Having recently upgraded my motherboard for better GPU performance (original machine had GT750m, new board has GTX765m) I decided to play around with Fn & F5, which with the old board installed did nothing but tell me that my machine was already optimised for optimum performance. Now, from what I've read, when there is a 765m under the hood, Fn & F5 allows for a switch call to be made to run solely on Nvidia graphics.

That in itself is perfectly functional - I can switch back and forth, no problem. The things I have noticed that don't seem quite right are as follows:

i) When restarting after a switch call going from Optimus to Nvidia only, the initial screen resolution is very low and it takes a while for it to correct itself. Seems like it's trying to install a display driver every time......

ii) When restarting after a switch call vice-versa, the resolution is fine, but the screen flickers, again like something is trying to install.....

iii) Sleep functionality via power button - when in Nvidia mode, pressing the power button is hibernating the machine because when I hit the power button again, it goes through the bios splash and when it gets to windows, I'm back with my browser open as I left it. I have checked the power settings and they ARE set to sleep, not hibernate, so I'm not sure why that's happening. Pressing sleep via power button on Optimus works as it should....it goes to sleep and wakes to desktop/logon without even seeing the bios splash......

Can anyone confirm this kind of behaviour? - FWIW, I'm on Win 8.1.1 and updated to A09 as my board was on A04 when I installed it.

Thanks in advance, folks!

EDIT: Just made the call to switch from Optimus to Nvidia and BAM! - BSOD with IRQL not less or equal (or something like that) which seems odd....

 

Try using Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) and choose the option to install a new video card. Select NVIDIA if the default option is Intel graphics. This will strip out all registry entries, delete all NVIDIA files and folders, etc.

Be sure to rename the HWiNFO64 folder (temporarily) or the machine may freeze at startup without NVIDIA drivers installed.

Reinstall your NVIDIA drivers from scratch. If you are running the same Windows installation as before the NVIDIA drivers were installed for GT 750M and something old in the registry or other settings may be causing some glitches.

Edit: If the above does not help, you might try flashing back to the previous BIOS to see if A09 introduced new issues. A07 introduced some issues on the Alienware 18, so maybe A09 is causing some of your problems on the Alienware 14.

 

is DDU this one? : Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 12.7.1.0

As for HWiNFO, I've not got it loading at start up, so I presume that shouldn't be causing any grief. I don't know if one can just flash back to an earlier bios version easily....don't know if it requires some kind of blind flash. I guess the current Nvidia drivers could be a cause, though I felt using 337.50 would be no problem as it's the same driver compatibility for GT750m and GTX765m....I thought (maybe stupidly) that the video drivers would not need any tinkering with after my board upgrade.....

 

Well, mini update. Not done a thing since to make any changes. Running on battery and everything is working as it should, sleep via power button in both modes, no flickering, no nothing out of the ordinary. Switching is fine with no weird resolution issues and I've switched a fair few times whilst on battery now.....How bizarre? - I'll test when I'm hooked up to the juice in the morning to see if that makes a difference. Kinda weird how it's all working now flawlessly, hope it stays that way! LOL

 

Yes, that is correct on DDU.

That blind flash thing only applied to the R2 to get rid of the new BIOS garbage Alienware started pushing. Flashing after A05 requires a special technique and downgrading the BIOS to A05 or A03 requires a blind flash.

Blind flashing is not even possible on the new Haswell machines. Unfortunately, they made it to where that awesome recovery option no longer exists for us.

You should be able to flash down from your current BIOS. I have flashed the Alienware 18 from A03>A04>A03>A05>A07>A05>A07 without issue. Once in a while I get an "invalid firmware" issue and the flash process never starts. I re-run the BIOS setup immediately after that and it completes normally. You will get a warning message saying that it is not recommended to flash an older version. They want you to stick with the version you have, but you don't need to, especially if they did something to impair performance intentionally, which appears to be what happened with A07 on the 18.

 

That's good to hear, Bro - I was hoping flashing back would be simple, just in case....and yeah, part of my concern was with regards to A07 and the 18...been keeping an eye on that one - I've been WAY outta touch with things over the last 12 months, what with me being Alien-less.......

I'll test on power tomorrow, just to see if the same crap happens....if it doesn't, well....it's weird, but I'll live with it fixing itself!