M17xR2 | S3 Resume = Loss of Brightness Control via FN keys and/or BSOD issues

MOD NOTE: M17xR2 BIOS A10 thread is HERE:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ugged-not-charging-fix-discussion-thread.html[/size]
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Hi All,

EDIT 5th May 2011 - Thread created over at Dell Community Forums - Alienware Club for the same topic. Please view and comment accordingly to increase awareness and hopefully remedy this ongoing problem:

http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19377089.aspx

EDIT 2nd March 2011

THIS IS AN UPDATE ON THINGS SINCE MY INITIAL POST ABOUT THIS ISSUE - IT HAS SINCE COME TO LIGHT THAT THE TEST BIOS AVAILABLE FROM CHRIS (DELL) HAS CURED THESE PROBLEMS. BELOW ARE THE STEPS TO IMPLEMENT IF YOU SO DESIRE. THE NEW TEST BIOS APPEARS TO CURE THE SLEEP PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED WHEN RESUMING - THIS IS STILL OPEN TO TESTING UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE FROM CHRIS BUT IT SEEMS TO HAVE RESOLVED THE ISSUE SO FAR - ANY ADDITIONAL ISSUES AFTER FLASHING THE TEST BIOS SHOULD STILL BE POSTED HERE

ChrisM from Dell has submitted a test bios to hopefully cure this issue. For those that are interested in testing out this test bios, He can be emailed at [email protected] you will need to reference this thread and I am sure Chris will gladly email you back with links to download the archived test bios.

A BIG THANKS GO OUT TO CHRIS AND THE ENGINEERING TEAM AT DELL FOR WORKING TOWARDS A PERMANENT FIX FOR THIS ISSUE.

The procedures to execute testing of this bios are detailed below:

You will need to create a bootable USB drive to execute the test bios flash - this can be done by following BatBoy's guide to creating a USB boot drive here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...sh-drive-flash-aw-bios-updates-under-dos.html - NOTE: If you are using a drive larger than 2gb, you will need to follow the instructions in Katalins post on the same here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/7177976-post17.html

Note that you ONLY need to follow the steps to CREATE the flash drive at this stage, you will copy over Chris' test files in a short while from the download link he will send to you after emailing him to request it.

Once the Bootable flash drive has been successfully created using the above link/s, its simply a matter of copying the extracted files from Chris' .rar downloaded file over to the USB and restarting your laptop to begin the flash process.

AS WITH ANY BIOS FLASH, YOU MUST ENSURE THAT YOUR LAPTOP IS PLUGGED IN AT ALL TIMES AND I WOULD RECOMMEND HAVING A FULLY CHARGED BATTERY TOO - ALSO, I CHOSE TO REMOVE ALL EXTERNAL DEVICES SUCH AS KEYBOARDS/MICE/COOLERS AND LEFT SOLELY THE BOOTABLE FLASH DRIVE IN TO PERFORM THIS PROCESS.

Insert the Bootable USB that you have created using BatBoys linked thread above with Chris' files on it.

Restart your laptop and boot from that USB, you will need to hit F12 upon boot (when you see the large Alienhead in Bios). This will take you to the one time boot menu.

Select Boot from USB and hit enter to continue.

Once at the C> prompt, type F BAT to execute the Bios flashing programme (BatBoys thread above states you may have to hit enter a few times to get to this prompt, from my experience, I arrived straight at it.....basically, if you dont get the C> prompt, hit enter until you do)

The process will now begin and may take a few minutes - DO NOT POWER OFF YOUR LAPTOP

Follow on screen instructions to complete.

Reboot and remove the USB drive. Flashing should now be successfully completed.

NOTE: If you experience the message "no operating system found", be sure to go back into system Bios via F2 when booting, you may have to revert the Raid settings for your HDD's (happened to me)

PLEASE - IF YOU ARE UNSURE ABOUT ANY OF THE ABOVE, EITHER ASK HERE OR DONT DO IT - I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY PROBLEMS CAUSED BY THIS GUIDE - IT IS MEANT SOLELY AS A GUIDE TO HELP PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TRY OUT THIS TEST BIOS.


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Original Post:

Recently, I have found a few major concerns regarding the ability to put my system to sleep and resume normally without a problem.

The symptoms would be that I could leave the laptop for half an hour or so only to return to find a critical stop/BSOD had occured and the system had restarted. I also soon discovered that when my laptop resumed from a successful sleep, I had lost the functionality of the brightness controls using Fn & F5 to dim down the display.

Firstly, I tried several clean OS installs , assuming it may cure it - NOPE - I was experiencing random BSOD's when the laptop "tried" to go into sleep. I dodnt know why or waht was causaing it but "event viewer" brought up the bugcheckcode 59 and a message about "sleep in progress - false"

I have also experienced the lack of functionality of the brightness adjustments using the function keys and corresponding keys (up/down F4/5)

This has resulted from a sleep/resume glitch which somehow disables or corrupts the brightness key functionality.

NOW,

What I have found, over the last 24 hours, is that all of the above issues can be avoided by changing a few simple settings. I cant promise that it is a rock solid way of eliminating the problems BUT, since I have applied these changes, I have had no issues with BSOD's caused by sleep/resume OR lack of functionaluty of the brightness control key combo as mentioned above. It seems apparent to me that the "losing of brightness key functionality" is down to closing the lid to put your system to sleep....upon resume, it WILL eventually FUBAR your keys to change the brightness....maybe not right away, you might get a few resumes before it hits BUT it WILL happen. Trust me, I have tried it out constantly.....

Quite simply, what I have found through various testing, is that if you put your laptop to sleep via closing the lid, this seems to instigate a chain reaction of some variety, which will bring about these problems.

THE SOLUTION? - not rocket science or messing with the registry etc....(thank god!)

If you go into "hardware and sound" from control panel, go to "power options" and change "choose what closing the lid does" to "do nothing" whilst plugged in. (you may want to do the same for "on battery" but my system never leaves my desk and is ALWAYS plugged in...)

I have also altered the "high perforamance" power plan to reduce the time between when the display turns off and the laptop goes into sleep mode. The default setting was a massive 15 minutes of time whilst the display is turned of but not in sleep mode....wether this extended period contirbutes in any way to these problems is any ones guess - I thought it was an excessive time and wanted to reduce it.

I dont know if this does contribute to the problems but I wanted to reduce this "dead time space" as I thought that it wasnt needed. The details of my custom power plan are as follows:

Dim display: 3mins
Turn display off: 5mins
Sleep: 10 mins

Obviously, I also have the "closing the lid" option set to "do nothing"

I have been testing this all day long and all the other options to sleep seem to work perfectly well. I have performed around 40 sleep/resumes using the "alienhead sleep/resume" and also "letting the system sleep via power option time-out settings" - havent had ANY issue of BSOD - also, brightness key functionality remains unchanged and works perfectly well.
This includes using the Alienhead button to put your laptop to sleep and to resume from sleep (using one quick, unsustained press to sleep and to resume)

So far, as said, I have not experienced any errors and my brightness functionality is working as it should. My system goes to sleep on the above "auto" times and resumes without issue....it also sleeps and resumes without issue using the power on/off/Alienhead button.

If you wish , try it out....like I said, these settings seem to have cured the issues for me...I hope that if you are having them too, it will do likewise.

If you DO try it out, please let me know if this works for you - also, post any additional findings if this doesnt work for you.

Finally, as a side note, you will obvioulsy lose the ability to sleep via just "closing the lid" as you will have disabled this in "power options" BUT, if you close the lid WHILST the laptop is asleep, opening it up again WILL resume normally for you without any intervention - it will resume automatically when you open the lid up and all things will remain working.

Thanks Guys!

 

thanks for making the effort to test various combinations to identify the root of sleep issue (closing lid sleep problem)

i hope more people will come to notice that sleep issue does still exist with amd reference drivers and collectively report this issue to dell/amd and get it fixed.

 

Thanks - I hope so too....although I think I have found a relatively easy cure for the problem, its a problem that still exists nonetheless and should be ironed out by one or both companies involved.

 

Yes, I have done everything and I'm having the exact same issue... spent over 3 hours on the phone the other day with Costa Rica AW tech support. Everything worked great for a little while... then bam... same crap. I've been tinkering with the settings as well and the only thing I can find that works is simply not putting the PC in sleep mode.

 

Thought I had this one locked down....nope....BAM....hit me again the other day using 10.12's on my cleanly installed OS with no other crap.

It happened (well, when I was away from the desk as per usual) while I was copying some files from flash drive to optical.....I had the laptop to dim after 3, turn off display after 5 and sleep after 10.

Of course, it went into sleep (or tried to) without me closing the lid...(i just left it open transferring files and came back to BAM city!)...... but hang on, I thought that whilst the computer was doing something, it would NOT try and put itself to sleep....fat lot of good it is if im doing some important work, leave the desk for 10 mins and come back and FUBAR....

For god sake, this is getting ridiculous.

I have now done ANOTHER clean install and am trying out 10.10e modded desktop drivers that Asder posted on Guru3d. Sure enough, closing the lid to sleep makes the brightness controls go all funky still.....havent had a critical stop yet but I aint keeping 'owt crossed.....

I must say, ran a few runs of 3dMark 11 using these modded drivers (with MLAA installed option) and ive had the best results so far...around 40 pts better than 10.12 on average....havent gamed on them yet as I am still wanting to see if they BSOD on me....

I REALLY think that AMD and Dell should try and find out what is causing this issue....it surely cant be down to a few of us...I would imagine that others too have it but like ALex said, cant be bothered notifying us....

The only real option to have these AMD drivers installed is to avoid sleep at all costs....bit like those guys in the Freddie Kruger "nightmare on elm st." films....one..two....sleep is comin for you..LOL

 

Just wanted to post an update on this issue for those that care to read or are experiencing problems using "close lid" to sleep.

I have recently done a whole fresh install of my OS along with 11.1 AMD drivers at the outset.....the whole install procedure went fine (using VoiceInTheWilderness' guide) and AMD 11.1 installed just fine.

Same problem when trying to sleep via closing the lid.....brightness functionality goes out the window after a few goes if your lucky...happened to me on my 1st attempt to sleep via closing the lid.

From experience, this can manifest, not right away, but even after a few successful "sleep via lid closes"....you may find that it takes a few goes before you experience problems but you WILL experience them.

Pretty much got it down to the fact that if you leave your system "live" (no shutdown/restart and continue to use as normal) after your brightness keys have gone "all funky".....leave it long enough, you will get a bsod restart....randomly.

The only failsafe way around this that I have at the moment is that the only way to use sleep effectively without any problems is via the start menu.

I have not had any problems so far putting my system to sleep this way.

To some of you, this may seem like overkill but if it doesnt affect you, i understand your lack of interest. It affects me and several other users here on NBR so i would like to see a fix or something for it.....I dont know if its AMD related to drivers or Dell related.

All I can say is that if you find my method works for you - great....if you are experiencing problems, let me know via this thread.

Thanks guys.

 

Well, different strokes for different folks. I am sure that people who like using sleep mode greatly appreciate all of your efforts, Stevie.

+1 rep for all the effort and sharing the results of your efforts.

The first thing I do on any computer I own is totally disable all sleep settings, set everything sleep related to "never" and "do nothing" in all of my power profiles, and disable hibernation using a command prompt. Consequently, I don't experience many computer problems. I cannot even remember the last time I saw a BSOD in Vista or Win7.

 

Thanks - Personally, I like to use it every so often....for example, if im going out the room to cook, I will just sleep instead of turning off or leaving...saves a bit of electricity and also save a little on my latops internal components (I know it wont be much, negligable really, but every little bit helps eh?)

That and the fact that I like to KNOW its working SHOULD I want to use it....it niggles me to death thinking that if i sleep via a method that is supposed to work, it doesnt and WILL end up in bsod or lack of functionality.....god job I have it sorted now.

Lid set to sleep never - everything else the same.
If I want to sleep - best way is to use the Start Menu/Sleep...works every time without fail and without problems.

 

I would like to point out to ALL M17xR2 CF5870M owners not to be complacent with this fix (please dont take this the wrong way Steve, your effort is very much appreciated). while this fix does the job, it certainly does not solve or cure the problem. Since v10.11, the same closing lid sleep issue plauges every single driver release from AMD. this shows that they are not aware of the sleep issue so we still need to DIRECT this matter to AMD/Dell for a proper fix in future driver versions.

 

Agree with you there Alex....there is DEFINETLY some underlying issue with AMD drivers that is causing this....temporary solutions, like mine, are fine BUT it doesnt tackle the root of the problem.

This NEEDS to be rectfied, just like any other issue....SO....if you experience problems with this issue...please help to raise awarness of it.

You can do this by posting here on this thread - or, you can submit direct to AMD surveys to report this issue. You can also inform Dell/Alienware of this too. The more people raise it, the more likely a fix will become available. A few links below for those who would like to submit their issues......

Links:

http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D27E29B0E3 - AMD support

Alienware : The Ultimate Gaming Machine? - Alienware Technical Support

Dell Contact Technical Support - Dell Technical Support

Email AW Technical Support at : [email protected]

Please , if you experience issues - use the above links to report it.

Thanks Guys.

 

Yes, right on, Stevie!

And don't forget about Dell's Unresolved Issues department.

If you decide to call Tech Support rather than email them, be sure to call 1-800-ALIENWARE and not Dell Support. They are two different departments and AW support has been much better to deal with in my past experience. (A phone call to Dell Support puts you into a call center over in India, with people that only know how to read a troubleshooting script, expect an OS reinstall will be a cure to everything, and repeatedly say that they apologize for our inconvenience.)

 

Nice addition Mr. Fox!!! (repped) - lets get this ball rollin'.....

 

We need to sticky this. Hope Batboy can help with this matter. Good work guys. Emails away!

 

Alex, right now fella, I think ANY help from above would be GREAT...I hope BatBoy can jump on this too....right now, it seems such a small number of people that are actually bothered with it...I just hope this issue can be raised to the relevant people who have the power/authority to DO something about it.....

 

Thanks buddy , it works , I tested for 5min , I gonna try longer and see what happen. I can still adjust the brightness after sleep.

 

Just do us ALL a HUGE FAVOUR would you?

FILL IN A COMPLAINT/ISSUE/PROBLEM AND SEND IT TO ONE OR ALL OF THE LINKS I POSTED EARLIER!

If this issue is raised to the right people, we will get a fix and wont have to rely on half-baked workarounds!

Glad you have some temporary reprise from sleep issues though.

 

Okay , I'm back , so far so good. I filled those to dell.

 

Thats brilliant! - keep us all posted on how you are fairing with the sleep issues. If you come up with any problems, no matter how small, please post them so we can all be aware of them.

Thanks very much for your input!

 

We are actively working and investigating this. When I know more, I will post it.

 

Thanks for the update Chris.

 

Thats great news Chris - thanks for stopping by and letting us know - much appreciated.

 

looks like our perseverance finally paid off. Batboy, if you have a hand in Chris's involvement, many thanks. Chris, please keep us updated with the progress. if dell is indeed passing the ball for regular driver updates to amd, at least have amd roll out drivers that is problem free for M17xR2. thank you all

 

I wish I could take credit for it however I had not yet fired off a PM to Chris... Chris is the bomb though - it seems he pops in when we least expect it and lights a candle in the dark.

Thanks for the update Chris - great to hear this is being looked at.

 

Something else that I would like to add to this. I am not sure how relevant it is to this particular sleep issue but as it seems driver related, specific to AMD drivers, i thought I would mention it - didnt experience these issues before using AMD drivers.

Basically, on occasion, I find that upon boot, sometimes the Intel Wifi Adaptor is not recognised and also (again, infrequently) the Synaptics Touchpad Tray Icon will be displayed in the Task Bar with a "red cross" though it (touchpad still works fine though and only a restart will revert it back to normal status - same for the Wifi Adaptor issue)

Like I said, not sure if they are interlinked but because I didnt experience them BEFORE and I really havent added any other programs since my clean install, I thought hmmm....could be related.

Dont know if any one else has found the same???

@ ChrisM - appreciate you probably have "bigger" issues to deal with at the moment with regards to SandyBridge Recalls, any update on this issue would be gratefully received. Thanks for your support and assistance. Will look forward to your next post.

 

for those of you who have performed a clean install, I just noticed this driver update from January 2010 (its the current driver)

I was grabbing the NV driver (messing with INFs today) and I saw this under Network. Since it resolves an issue with S3, wanted to make sure you guys were using this when doing a clean install of W7. Might be contributing to the problem. Anyway, just wanted to pass on in case you didnt see it. Ya never know...

Drivers and Downloads

 

Cheers for the heads-up on that one BB....will check it out and maybe do ANOTHER clean install lol.....

EDIT: Just checked on what I HAD installed re: Gigabit.....I had installed the latest R255936 .exe on my last clean install.....(got my little check list of installed drivers/Rxxxxxx numbers!) - just noticed too that it was an urgent update from Jan 2010....not 2011....lol...(I have to look hard at 'em 'cos they are in US format not UK date format). I have just gone through the whole lot to make sure I am up to date and havent missed anything.....Bang up to date (with exception of A10 Bios as Im quite happy with A09 and no battery/charging issues atm)

Good shout though, just shows, you have to check every now and then to ensure you are up to date eh?

(PS....if it helps find a solution, I can tell whomever EXACTLY what drivers I installed, and in what order etc etc)

 

lol yeah. i should've specified 2010. many stick with the win7 lan driver so i thought i'd post it up anyway.

you might want to list your order along with driver ver (especially if they are non-dell drivers). I'm guessing Chris is watching and it might help him in terms of what is being done here...

 

Not a problem BB...hope it helps Chris...

Ok, here's the full description.

Prior to initiating my clean install, I downloaded all relevant drivers from support - (also latest Catalyst Video Drivers from AMD's site), to a 4gb flash drive. I then transferred these files to a blank DVD (only did that as I did not want Windows installing drivers for my flash drive at the outset - wanted to keep things as clean as possible).

Insert Windows 7 cd and restart / F12 & Boot from CD.
Followed On Screen instructions to install OS. (Kept OEM and Recovery Partitions in tact, deleted remaining space and installed OS to newly unallocated space).

Continued to load OS and once done, started to install the previously downloaded drivers. Put the DVD in, dragged each .exe to my desktop and ejected DVD followed by a restart.

Now, I have all the relevant drivers so I installed each one in the following order - with a restart in between each one. After each driver, I moved the installed .exe to the recycle bin to ensure I didnt miss one or do the same one again - just precautionary really as the Rxxxxxx numbers can get a bit "similar" when looking at a dozen of them!

Ok, the order was as follows: (I should give credit to VoiceInTheWilderness for his great guide on OS install here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...d-your-m17x-r2-full-detailed-description.html which I followed / used - apart from deleting all drive partitions).

All drivers (apart from AMD, were from Dell Support/Drivers and Downloads and are the most up to date available from Dell for my system)

1 - Intel Chipset Driver / R251012.exe
2 - AMD 11.1 Mobility Reference Video Card Drivers (Direct from AMD site here: http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonmob_win7-64.aspx)
3 - IDT Audio Driver / R264124.exe
4 - Lan Networrk Driver / R255936.exe
5 - Wireless Card Driver / R242648.exe
6 - Bluetooth 370 Driver / R246770.exe
7 - Synaptics Touchpad Driver / R270953.exe
8 - OSD Driver / R263892.exe
9 - Intel Rapid Storage Driver / R274363.exe
10 - FreeFall Sensor Driver / R251237.exe
11 - Ricoh Card Reader Driver / R251071.exe
12 - CIR/InfraRed Driver / R251081.exe

At this point, I Installed Eset Smart Security 4 Antivirus / connected to the Internet / performed ALL Windows OS updates / Updated Virus Database.

13 - Command Centre / R272621.exe

Did all of this whilst plugged in and not on battery .... restart between each driver....nothing else installed. So now, I have my brand new "squeaky clean" Windows OS install completed.

First thing I check, obviously, is the Sleep issue....still apparent when closing the lid...in fact, this time around, it happened on the very first attempt to put my laptop to sleep using this method.
Re-opened the lid to find that the brightness Fn&F5 keys did NOT dim down the screen at all.

I did not hesitate to stop using this method as I really did not want to see any more BSOD's or restarts whilst I left my system unattended.

Currently, If I want my system to sleep, I am using Start/Sleep from the shutdown list. My system goes to sleep fine and resumes fine.
I have done it this way multiple times now and haven had an issue with brightness functionality or BSOD/restart.
I have also left the system for some time (not sleeping) and havent returned to a critical stop/restart.

I have left the power settings at their default settings (change when computer sleeps etc) but I have changed "close lid to do nothing".

Thats basically it - in a nutshell - exactly what I have done but still experiencing problems IF i wanted to sleep via lid closing.

Hope that helps - any questions about it, give me a shout.

Steve.

 

Just adding a "me too." I'm seeing the same sleep and brightness issues. I've yet to find a driver that fixes these problems and I've tried virtually every driver I could find over the past 6 months.

 

Thanks for adding yourself to the list Josh, much appreciated. Here's to hoping that ChrisM from Dell and his team of merry men can get a resolution to this, wether its Dell or AMD or a unity of the two.....it needs sorting out.

Cheers.

 

I know I have a completely different machine from you guys but I wanted to add that I have the same problem with the closing the lid>>brightness not working on a fresh install of Win7 Pro.

I have a feeling this might not be graphics driver related since people with nvidia cards have had the same issue on HP and Sony machines (from what I've read so far). But just wanted to pipe in on this.

 

Will not update my current drivers because of this problem. However, I want a solution too. It shouldn't be too hard IMO to figure out what is wrong.

 

Yes, I've had other laptops and desktops with similar problems waking from a sleep state.

 

steviejones, have you tried disabling PowerPlay in Catalyst Control Center to see if that helps with resuming from sleep state? I've discovered that the AMD HD 5870 throttles down the GPU clock to 100Mhz and the memory clock to 150Mhz. The normal speeds are 300 and 400 at idle and loaded at 700 and 1000, respectively.

 

Nah, I havent tried that as simply, disabling powerplay is not a good idea. If it works, then its a poor way to resolve the isssue. Afaik, disabling powerplay is a no-no fullstop.

That said, I may well try it out - just to see what DOES happen although I dont want my gpu's downclocked at all just so I can use sleep correctly.

 

Any chance you found a solution to this? Was it a type of driver problem?

 

It has been a while since I did any troubleshooting on this problem in general terms, but I have found drivers issues and software conflicts to be a prevalent cause of failing to go to sleep or failing to awaken from sleep. I have done the troubleshooting for customers a few times, but it has been quite a while ago. If I remember correctly, it was video drivers in a couple of cases, but just as often the cause was something seemingly unrelated, such as a modem driver. In most cases I asked if they used the sleep mode or hibernation. Usually, their answer was "no" so I just disabled that functionality to solve their problems.

Personally, I don't use the sleep feature or hibernation on any computer, so I have not attempted to find a solution for myself due to lack of interest or need. In fact, I have almost always found sleep mode and hibernation to cause me problems of varying degrees. But, I know some people love using sleep mode and for that reason I hope that a fix is found. I'd be happy for that feature to work for anyone that wants it.

You misunderstood me, Stevie... PowerPlay DOES downclock your GPU to save power when it is enabled. Disabling Powerplay prevents the GPU from downclocking to save on battery power. PowerPlay also lowers the GPU subsystem voltage from 1.05 volts to 0.9 volts. To me, those seem like conditions which could be creating a problem like the one you are trying to fix. My thoughts were that perhaps PowerPlay's power-reduction abilities were causing issues with awakening from a sleep state because the video subsystem is underclocked to save power when PowerPlay is enabled.

Disabling PowerPlay and using the AMD GPU Clock Tool significantly improved my performance in several benchmarks as well as real-world gaming experience. This was very noticeable in Crysis. And, it should also be pointed out that I never overclocked my 5870's... I merely turned off their ability to throttle back whenever processing power is low. Please see the screen shot attachments for a visual explanation.

How would disabling PowerPlay be a poor way to resolve the issue if it were to be found out to be the cause of the issue?

 

Ahhhh...im with you now Mr Fox! - Having PowerPlay set by default as enabled will downclock gpu performance on battery. Default settings for plugged in are to "maximise performance" and "maximise battery" when on battery (obviously lol). Thats how mine is set up atm.

I very very very rarely use my system on battery (if i do, its generally still plugged in but not juicing up, just running the battery down to give it a workout).

That being said, my PowerPlay settings should always "maximise performance" and so, my thinking anyway, shouldnt downclock my gpu's under any circumstance - as thats just how i run my system.

So, logically thinking, with my settings and useage pattern, closing the lid to sleep *shouldnt* do anything to my gpu clocks, should it? - they should never be put in a low power state to conserve energy because the settings within PowerPlay are such that this DOESNT happen, eh?

I will though, try it out a bit later on to see if disabling does anything.

Sorry for the misinterpretation - guess I didnt read it properly! - oops!

 

Just wanted to post back findings on your suggestion Mr.Fox.

I disabled PowerPlay in CCC and applied new savings.....also changed "close lid" to sleep.....

Tried it out....on the very 1st attempt to resume from sleep via this method, I was greeted with lack of functionality of the brightness keys again....(Fn&F5)

Obviously, disabling powerplay has nothing to do with this but it was worth a try anyway. Thanks for your suggestion.

Its ridiculous that a £4000 laptop cant go to sleep via the intended methods without such issues - I for one am not at all happy about it. I strongly urge others with the same symptoms to post their findings here. HOPEFULLY, something will be done about it......cant see me wanting to buy another AW laptop if they cant even sort this minor issue out.

I wonder if ChrisM is gonna be able to give us an update on this....would be nice to know what is being done about this issue.

 

Well Steviejones, I'm sorry that didn't work for your, sir. I know this is really important to you and I had my fingers crossed.

There's one other thing I found myself wondering about. Have you tried running your machine without any video drivers except for the standard Windows VGA driver. It would be interesting to know if the sleep functions worked properly without any video drivers. If the problem goes away without a video driver installed, then the strong indication would be that the video subsystem is what is causing the problem. If there is no change, then perhaps you could scratch that item off your list as being a potential cause.

If I can think of something else, I'll be back with another suggestion.

 

Well, thats probably the next step and I am sure I did run it like that for a while WITHOUT any problems. I aim to try and test out with Dell 8.763 drivers and also Standard VGA too.....that way, maybe I can link it to the Video driver directly.

Its just a PITA because, they way I like to do these kinda tests is to perform a clean install and test from there without anything else to interfere. So, its just getting the time really as it takes a while to do it all!

Regardless, I will post back with findings for ChrisM (Dell) to view.

Cheers - (and its not JUST me that finds this issue extremely annoying - lots of others too!)

 

just want to update you guys on how incredibly incompetent some of the dell outsourced tech supports are in dealing with matters, particularly this one. this is the reply they gave to me regarding the sleep issue.


"thank you for contacting Alienware.


Regarding Your issue, please install the drivers directly from our dell webpage. Dell - Drivers and Downloads

If the problem remains, please contact our technical support directly via phone.

For further questions, please contact our Technical Department under the UK freephone 0800 279 9751 or +353 12044359 (Outside UK).


Kind Regards,
Alienware Technical Support"



and i replied,

"Those drivers are not updated and does not contain fixes and optimisations for the latest games. only the latest amd catalyst driver from amd.com is updated but sleep does not work well with official amd drivers. you need to sort this out with amd, not tell customers to use dell drivers because dell hardly update their graphics drivers, at least not often enough to keep up with games."



this was 5 days ago and they no longer bother to reply me.

im speechless.. dell really need to sort out their outsourced tech supports.

 

I think that this sort of action by Dell over problems is probably fairly standard given the level of knowledge of some of the reps/techs....because the call centres etc are outsourced, you end up getting put through to someone in India or Slovakia or sowehere else.....

They dont understand what you are trying to tell them because English is not their native tongue....if they DO understand, they brush you off with the kind of lame excuse as you have described.

Do they REALLY think that owners of high end systems do not already know how to ensure or check for compatability issues. Being given a link to Dell Drivers and Downloads is a farce. Calling support is also farcical as all you get is someone on the other end of a phone who cant understand you, doesnt really want to anyway and just reiterates blurb off a screen like a parrot!

I really really really hope that ChrisM reports back on this issue soon. I have more or less exhausted things that I can think of to try and test out this....I feel like I am doing what Dell should be doing - thoroughly testing for compatability issues to try and diagnose the source of the problem.

Chances are, Ive done more to investigate this issue than anyone at Dell.

It really annoys me that something that is probably an "easy fix" IF Dell and AMD got their heads together.....yet they drag their feet and provide poor excuses to customers who have paid thousands of pounds/dollars or whatever, only to have a system that cant go to sleep without having major issues as a result.

Get it sorted Dell/AMD.

 

Yes, I'm sure of that and it needs to be fixed for everyone's benefit... even those that don't use the feature. Just knowing something doesn't work right is irritating to me.

Truth be told, the main reason I have grown accustom to not using the feature and always disable it on every machine I own is because I have found it to cause problems for me on many systems. Were it not for that, I probably would use it religiously instead of doing a full shutdown.

 

Thats why I want it to work, instead of a full shutdown every time I wanna leave it for 30mins-an hour....its a great way to get up and running without booting again....IF it worked!

 

I should also state that I am also having other issues with sleep too.....Although I am not putting my system to sleep via the lid atm, I am using "start/sleep" and also "Fn&F1 Suspend".

I have noticed that on several occasions, and excuse me if I have already stated this, but I notice that the Synaptics Touchpad Tray Icon appears randomely with a large red cross though it. (I have all tray icons displayed). Although sleep via my methods doesnt result in brightness functionality going down the toilet, it does seem to play havoc with my Trackpad Tray Icon.

Maybe this whole debacle has something to do with the Synaptics Touchpad Driver????

Any one else notice this?

 

You know, that would be worth trying also. Try uninstalling the Synaptics software altogether and just use the standard Windows mouse driver that installs by default.

I know of several people that have better results that way and never install Synaptics software. In fact, I used to have a Compal HEL80 (white box unbranded Sager NP2080) laptop that totally refused to work properly with the touchpad driver, but worked excellent with the standard Windows mouse driver. Among the issues were shutdown problems.

 

Wow guys I was ready to buy a pimped out M17...R3. but U all are scaring me off. It is the same stuff with ASUS G73 and keyboard lag - Owners have to do the research and testing! Whew.
I know someone with an M17 tried this but my G73 with single Ati5870m is running all stock ATI drivers, and VBIOS and sleep works fine with the proper ASUS bios update.
Thanks I was just about to update both Vbios and Ati drivers, but will hold off (all my games work so far).
BTW I have the latest synaptic driver from their site, but do not use the systray Icon.
Is there a company that makes high end machines that does their own testing? (Rhetorical)

 

Havent tried uninstalling the Synaptics driver yet but another thought crossed my mind....every time I resume, atm, I have Aliensense Facial Recognition working.....a long shot but I wonder if this has anything to do with it.....I may give that a go too.......

C'mon Dell....where are ya lol

 

Good point. I have that disabled on my system also. It should be interesting to see if one of those things is the bug.