Get your Catalyst 10.7 (non-WHQL) here

To me it locks up only if I wake it up from sleep (while running on battery) and plug in the AC. No blue screen though, it just halts and then restarts normally.
If it's on battery and I plug in the AC it's fine.
Sleep or turn off screen works just fine when on AC or battery.

I hope they fix it on the next release.

 

Well I hope you can fnid a fix for this. Sounds like dell could be the problem here. Hopefully a fix comes out soon. I wont update until then because I need sleep mode.

 

yeah, I said before that disabling crossfire for whatever reason fixes the battery issue, it was a few pages backzies, or it may have been in the closed thread, I can't remember.

Ni, Ni, Ni!!!!

*on a serisous note*
the method I and other's have described is the correct way. Uninstall and delete drivers via device manger, reboot, run driver sweeper or CC clean if you wish, reboot again and make sure that Standard VGA adapter drivers are installed (that's what the graphics cards will show up as in device manager when a clean uninstall of the old drivers has happened) and install new drivers.

 

Do you guys have lock ups just from unplugging and plugging back in the AC? Weird...

 

Yeah it locks up after about 20-30 seconds. The only thing I can do to get around it is turn off Crossfire (but then it locks if you plug the AC adapter back in or reboot) or set the clocks to 700/1000 via RivaTuner. It seems more and more like a Dell vbios issue with powerplay than anything else. They should have just stuck to what Clevo did.

 

Joker to me it plays just fine, only in a very specific situation I experience lock up. (check my previous post)

 

Can you outline what you did to install the drivers? I did a full registry sweep + driver sweep and it still locks when run on battery. Also your power management settings would be helpful.

 

Again, could someone please download radeon bios editor and winflash, and save their bios and attach it here - im at work so I cant use my own laptop right now (its at home)
-Ash

 

First I uninstalled the drivers from the Control Panel/Program Removal.
Then I entered into safe mode and used driver sweeper and then CCleaner.
Restarted and installed the 10.7 official drivers

Change the power plan according to this

Turn off the PowerPlay from CCC and you will be fine.

I am with 3% OC from BIOS

*EDIT*
the only lock up I experience is only if I do this

 

The one you got off the Wiki site is it.

 

Well shutting off the powerplay will disable the GPU from ramping up to 3D clocks. I tried your suggestion above and am on battery right now. So far it's not locking up but I'm going to let it run for a few more minutes and then try plugging it back in. Thanks for the suggestion though, seems to be helping a bit. Hey Ash, if you want a Clevo bios, I think I can find you one and post it here.

 

OK thanks Joker.

One thing I noticed strange is when I disabled powerplay back at home it loaded clocks for 300/400.

Now reading the powerplay values in the bios, I can see it shouldnt be loading these. In fact, its loading entirely the wrong block.


What I am going to have to do is give each of the powerplay values in the bios a DIFFERENT number (eg, 651, 652, 653, 654, etc) and see what powerplay state happens during what event.

Then, remap them correctly to the official drivers.

It would be easier if I had the tables from an OEM bios but havent been able to find one as yet.

-Ash

EDIT:

Wow hot thread. Yeah, if you could post it here it would be helpful.

-Ash

 

Indeed I didn't notice the lower GPU clocks because I didn't play any games, good catch.

 

Well I tried rebooting in battery mode with powerplay off and it didn't fully reboot so I had to do a hard reset. When it was booting on battery, it made it to Windows and then just completely shut down. I think for now I'll just stick to using the system while plugged in and if I have to unplug it I'll do my Rivatuner trick.

 

Yeah that will work for now but it definitely has to be fixed...

 

stamatisx sorry might be a stupid question but where is PCI Express/Link State Power Management, i don't know what you are referring to exactly there so can you please elaborate, Thanks.

 

This is the power plan


The work around on my previous post will only help if you don't plan to play any games since it won't clock to higher frequencies.
I personally will revert back to the Dell drivers till a better work around or fix is found.

 

well i will be playing games for sure, and these graphic drivers are great for games after applying the profiles update, so changing those power settings fixes the sleep problem, does that mean i can play my games on high performance and then after i am done i can change it to moderate and the sleep issue should be gone?

 

wow stamatisx that worked!! finally lol thanks for finding that, so i am going to make 2 profiles, one high performance, and one with your tweak will that give me full performance + sleep functionality as long as i switch between the 2?

 

you need to make a new power plan and a new CCC profile (for the PowerPlay, I don't remember if it needs to reboot everytime you enable/disable it)
but yes if you don't mind the whole procedure switching between profiles... you can do it

 

can you elaborate on the ccc/powerplay settings, currently my powerplay is enabled and i haven't touched anything in ccc but the computer seems to sleep fine with just the powerplan settings, can you also give me more detail about what powerplay does?

also it seems like i don't need to reboot to play around with powerplay

thanks.

 

You wanna hear something funny? I can't make my own tweak play anymore, I lock up no matter what, it seems that the drivers and the power plans got all messed up from those lock ups and I need to reinstall the drivers and try again.

 

lol that sucks man, might i suggest that don't do anything with powerplay just leave it at default which is enabled after the install, all i did was the tweak you suggested, set my balanced profile as the tweak and my high performace as normal, now all i do is switch to balanced before sleeping then come back and it awakes, then just click the power icon and put it on high performance, seems to work like a charm, now that i got it working anyone who has questions or needs help, feel free.

 

just don't try one thing, it will crash for sure, (remove the AC, put it to sleep, wake it up, plug in the AC). I haven't found any way to work around it, that's why I had so many lockups and messed everything up.

 

haha should i risk it, i am guessing that would be occuring because when it is unplugged the power mode automatically switches causing the hangup

 

LOL you jinxed yourself. Well despite the sleep/battery bugs, these drivers are PERFECT in games. No horizontal lines, gaming performance is top notch and no microstuttering that I've noticed. If Dell can get AMD to iron out the two major bugs and add more games to the Crossfire profile, they'll be top notch drivers.

 

After a few tests with the following settings:-

I.

CCC Power Play Enabled. (Max PluggedIn Max Battery).
CCC xFire Enabled.

Power Plan :-
Never Dim The Display /Never Sleep / Turn Off The Display / PCI EXPRESS LINK STATE MANAGEMENT OFF / ATI GRAPHICS POWER SETTINGS MAX PERFORMANCE .

PowerCord PluggedIn.
Let it On For 6 Hours : no black screen / haults.

PowerCord PluggedOut.
System Haults / Black screen within 30 seconds past welcome screen.

II.

CCC Power Play Enabled. (Max PluggedIn Max Battery).
CCC xFire Enabled.

Power Plan :-
Dim The Display 1min / Turn Off The Display 5mins / Sleep 10mins / PCI EXPRESS LINK STATE MANAGEMENT OFF / ATI GRAPHICS POWER SETTINGS MAX PERFORMANCE .

Power Cord PluggedIn.
Dim The Display No Effect
Turn Off The Display No Effect
Sleep Haults.

Power Cord PluggedOut.
System Haults 30seconds past the welcome screen.

III.

CCC Power Play Disabled.
CCC xFire Enabled.

Power Plan :-
Never Dim The Display /Never Sleep / Turn Off The Display / PCI EXPRESS LINK STATE MANAGEMENT OFF / ATI GRAPHICS POWER SETTINGS MAX PERFORMANCE .

PowerCordPluggedIn.
No Problems - Perfectly Alright

PowerCordPluggedOut.
No Problems - Perfectly Alright

IV.

CCC Power Play Disabled.
CCC xFire Enabled.

Power Plan :-
Dim The Display 1min / Turn Off The Display 5mins / Sleep 10mins / PCI EXPRESS LINK STATE MANAGEMENT OFF / ATI GRAPHICS POWER SETTINGS MAX PERFORMANCE .

PowerCordPluggedIn.
Haults only when resuming from sleep mode.

PowerCordPluggedOut.
Haults only when resuming from sleep mode.

_____
BIOS vA06
Windows Version : Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64
GFX :- xFire 5870
GFX Driver v10.7
OSD Setup v1.1.13
Command Center v2.5.54.0

 

Ok what's wrong with this picture?


TIP: that's after removing the drivers and using driver sweeper, CCleaner in safe mode twice.

 

You know I had the same issue before. I had to run driver sweeper in regular windows mode (not safe mode) and manually delete the video cards via device manager AND run CCleaner before it showed the correct version. It's all good now, I'm not messing with the sleep states or unplugging it lol. Since you know how to do my RivaTuner trick, just use that if you need to unplug the system, it works great. I didn't mention it in the OP because people that don't bother to read the M17x Wiki or even other threads here would keep asking how to do it...oh damn now that I posted this I bet they will.

 

Lol stamatixsx that was a horrible idea, everything was working and now after trying the ac adapter thing you suggested, nothing works anymore, can't sleep getting lock ups etc, even system restore is not working..what now lol

 

LOL, yeah the majority don't even bother to read one page back from the last one.
It seems that I should redefine the "completely remove" drivers procedure.
I don't think I will need the riva tuner trick since I never put my laptop to sleep or use it on battery, it's on AC 24/7 and when I don't use it I have only the screen to dim or turn the laptop off.
I am only afraid if the power goes down and I get a BSOD in the worst time ever (Murphy's law)

 

OK guys, need someone who is brave and knows how to blind flash a card if it gets bricked.

Attached is the standard dell hd5870m bios, but I have set all powerplay clocks to 700/1000 and set all voltages to be the same.

I need people to try it and see if it fixes the sleep/unplug issues.

If it DOES fix the issues... then we know is a silly powerplay table lookup error and I can fix it with minimal issues - perhaps even provide some pre-overclocked and pre-underclocked bioses for people (as well as fix the damned workaroundinstall=true requirement).

Let me know - but near in mind I take no responsibility for brickage!

-Ash

 

LOL, that's why I said don't, LOL
Now remove the drivers "completely" and reinstall them, you will be fine. Just keep away from that "don't do it" post of mine

 

Haha lol

 

omg haha wow i just re read your post, i thought you were asking me IF i could try one more thing, i guess i missed the DON'T and just read it over quickly haha, man i have to read more carefully

 

Are you trying it too ?

 

I will when I get home - I finish in about 2 and a half hours.

-Ash

 

Good Luck. Hoping it would solve all our issues

 

Thanks for the effort! Just a FYI, I modified a bios with all the clocks at 700/1000 earlier today and it was causing the system to shut down upon boot via battery. While in Windows battery mode worked fine w/the modified bios. If we could actually change the powerplay tables themselves that would be great but unfortunately we're confined to just clock/volt adjustments. Anyway, if someone gives his bios a try let us know what happens!

 

Thanks for the detailed report.

 

stamatixsx i completely removed the drivers, cleaned the registry and used driver sweeper but now after a complete reinstall the problem is still happening and even with moderate settings in the powerplan i get a hard lock if i try to put it to sleep (ac adapter connected) lol please feel free to suggest any idea or any way to reverse my computer to the way it was before the battery sleep attempt..

 

Another solution is to uninstall the drivers again, install the Dell ones, then uninstall them and install the 10.7
At least now it works with mine

 

Went back to 10.5 Dell drivers.

Couldn't get the machine to not hard lock while booting on battery or waking from sleep/screen dim/etc.

 

Yeah, there is a powerplay entry that is responsible for the cold boot volts/settings.

I think there is also a powerplay entry for battery volts/settings from cold boot (could be the 300/400 entry).

If so, what I think is happening is the alienware bios is only supply a certain maximum voltage to the cards in certain circumstances, and the card is asking for more than is allowed.

After someone gives it a shot, I suppose the next test is to set all the voltages to 0.9 and all the clocks to a lower level and see what happens.

Whaddya think Joker?

-Ash

 

stat how did you revert back to the originals, i am trying but it doesn't show the display driver as a part of the installation.

 

Did you uninstall them completely? (see jokers previous post for complete removal)
I didn't do anything special so I can't think of something extra that I did to have everything back to normal...

 

yea for you guys its showing the incorrect version, i have uninstalled everything properly but when i try to install dells drivers the actual "display driver" component is not showing up as a part of the install and no actual display driver is being installed..

 

Uninstall them and after that try to delete them from the device manager (if there is an option to select to uninstall the drivers as well do it) that's weird man, honestly I am running out of ideas. (With joker's uninstall sequence you should be more than covered)

 

yea i have tried uninstalling the actual vga adapter itself and still there is no actual display driver shown when trying to install the original dell drivers, if you and joker don't mind can you guys tell me step by step how you uninstalled your 10.7s, went back to dell's then once again came back to 10.7s

 

You need to see them as vga devices under the device manager before you proceed with the drivers installation. Let windows first detect them and then proceed with the installation (maybe all you needed to do after deleting them was to just reboot).