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

despite already knowing the outcome of your testing (because i did some tests very early back since 10.11/10.12) i still have to give u credit for your effort stevie. at least now there's more than one person showing the same negative results and you went the extra mile to document it. +rep to you and Mr. Fox

(whops, system wont allow me to rep you Stevie. but i'll try again later cos you deserve it)

 

Hmm.. Does this issue comes across specific systems only ? Look at the processors you and i got. Same.

My PC wakes up from Sleep from either Power Button/Lid Close no doubt, but Looses it's brightness. Didn't measure the count when it looses. But this get's worse. I would like an update to the OSD Application. A Normal, good old school will do. Just like HP/Dell ones. Fast and smooth

PS: Gonna try out the reference Drivers and point out the issues caused(Hopefully not )

@offtopic, i have a unique Audio tering issue, even after the Mobo Replacement. Don't the reason yet. The Parts for the replacement take more then 30days to come to India. This is really bad. Having issues from Day 1.

 

Well, at least we now have Dell Engineering working on the sleep issues and it is heavily documnented in this thread. Also, as ChrisM has sent this thread to engineering, we have a good source/liason working on our behalf to try and iron these glitches out.

It really is good to have a Dell rep pop in and out of these forums to pick up on issues. I really cant see that many other manufacturers would even take on board such problems let alone liase between consumer/manufacturer. From that standpoint, having ChrisM relaying for us is absolutely brilliant and we cant take him for granted.

Fixes can take a while to come, patience is a virtue and as long as things are being looked at, I am happy to put up with things until such a time.

Regards you audio problem, that sounds like something other than this and not that closely related. Not to say its not a problem though, as it obviously is for you. As its audio related, have you checked what audio drivers you have installed via device manager??

I posted on another thread that by uninstalling Dell/AMD drivers, you WILL lose a HDMI audio driver. As AMD do not package these when you install the latest CCC set, I have found it beneficial to manually insert the required file so that it DOES get installed.

If you want, take a look at this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/542263-ati-amd-hdmi-audio-driver-5870s-where.html and post #2 by Alex show you what to do to ensure you have an AMD HDMI Driver installed.

May help, it did help another guy the other day who was having problems streaming HD audio so thought I would mention it.

 

My email address is [email protected]
I need 5 guys to test an M17x-R2 EC update to hopefully correct the LCD brightness not working after S3 on AMD configurations. Email me if your up for it.

 

Email sent. Thanks Chris for getting something rolled out quickly to try and rectify. Hope it works. Let me know the details and I will try and implement asap. Obviously, instructions on how to implement would be great (goes without saying lol).

Im sure Alexnvidia and Mr.Fox will be willing to test out, lets see how many others are aslo willing!

HUGE thanks in advance of, hopefully, a positive resolution!

Regards,
Steve.

 

Mine was sent, too...
_____________________________________________
From: Mr. Fox
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 8:46 PM
To: christopher_mixon
Subject: M17x-R2 EC update

Count me in… Glad to help.

Thank you so much!

 

OK, steviejones, I re-enabled sleep capabilities to prepare myself help with the testing. Like the old saying goes, "misery loves company" and I am here to proclaim that to be a self-fulfilled prophecy.

I closed my lid and waited for the lights to go out. I opened the lid, and bigger than heck... BAM... no brightness control. And guess what else... NO NETWORK ACCESS! I have 3 wireless internet SSID's in my residence and all of them have a red "X" and a message stating "The capability of your network adapter does not match the requirements of this network." and the connect button is grayed out. I don't remember seeing this as a problem you identified, but we can add this to the list of sleep issues.

Naturally, I wanted to post what happened and then find that I cannot connect to any of the unsecured networks in the neighborhood as a "war-driving leech" ...so, I mutter to myself a few things which are not suitable for posting in this forum.

So, I went to restart Windows and the system hangs. I have to do a forced shutdown with the Alienhead button. It took several minutes after logging into Windows to regain internet access. The system seems a bit sluggish now, but that may be my imagination. My brightness control works again. I may just be paranoid now, but it also seems my display is not as bright as it used to be on the maximum setting--which I have left it set on since the day it arrived, so I have gotten highly accustomed to that level of brightness.

See attached screen shot. The network connections in my residence are the 3 with the red boxes drawn around them. The 2 SSID's with Fox in the name is a cable internet connection with a 802.11n and 802.11g dual band router. The connection listed as SSID 07B408887041 is a Verizon DSL connection provided by my employer for work, with a router having 802.11g only. Each of the 3 radio signals use a different wireless security protocol.

So, as you can see, for the very first time since the day I received my Alienware M17x R2... I feel your pain. I hope we can help Alienware/Dell fix this. I'll tough it out as long as I can before I disable all of my sleep functions again. It's a sacrifice I am willing to endure for my friends here at NBR.

 

I had not seen that thread, steviejones. Thanks for posting it. I am going to play with the fix Alex provided for that problem once we are done testing for Dell.

Edit: Alex, please take a look over here. I was too curios to wait.

 

Hahaha - Foxy - now you know what the issue was all about! - welcome to the misery club lol.

I am SURE at one point, I too had problems with my network. I seem to recall that I had my options grayed out too. One other annoying thing I find is that when I have the Synaptics touchpad showing on the taskbar, randomly, it will re-appear after sleep with a big red cross through it also and will get a balloon pop-up saying "synatpics disabled - another pointing device detected" (this doesnt actually disable the trackpad, mind...it still stays lit and useable). Dont know if thats sleep/resume related but im guessing it is. Wouldnt have thought it would be my TactX keyboard/mouse drivers conflicting as, well, its all Dell stuff, right?.....

Have you done ChrisM's fix yet, I just got up and got his mail with the file. Will try and do later on but first, I need to investigate "how to make a bootable USB".....im sure i read about it somehwere here on NBR using HPsoftware...i think!

EDIT: I knew I had seen instructions on creating a bootable USB Drive somehwere and here it is: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...sh-drive-flash-aw-bios-updates-under-dos.html on the first page of BB's thread. I presume we just do the same up to the point to where we have created the Bootable USB and then do what Chris has said in his email.

A few questions, mainly for Chris:

Is this a "permanent" fix, like bios flashing? or is it reversible? (I assume its a system bios flash as its F.BAT file to execute as per the linked thread above and aslo the need to be plugged in NOT battery)

Is it possible (or recommended) to carry out this process using CD-r as opposed to Flash Drive?

Also, once booted from the newly created Bootable USB, does that take the system into DOS? - do we then have to navigate to folders as described in the thread below (obviously these files will now pertain to the sleep cure and NOT bios flashing)?? - I ask cos Im a novice when it comes to DOS.....

Does the size of the flash drive play a part? - I recall that some people could only flash the vbios using a 2gb flash drive (wouldnt work with a larger one for some reason) - I ask because I have just one 4gb flash drive atm (currently has all my clean install drivers on it and is up to 4gb) - I suppose I could copy all the files on it over to the laptop and create a folder for them and then copy them back once the process had been done.

 

Hi Stevie. I did not find an email from Chris. I will look again for one. It will be this evening before I can do this, as I have an early morning teleconference.

I believe the problem some people had with the flash drives over 4GB is they were trying to use FAT instead of FAT32, which does not work. I think that is touched on in BatBoy's thread.

 

hei guys, guys im a bit late for the party. a little busy lately and due to new timezone difference, u get the idea.. lol. cheers Mr Fox for notifying me.

i've already emailed ChrisDell to sign up for beta BIOS. im a bit curious if the BIOS is mainly an updated vBIOS or the BIOS for the whole system? because the last time a new vBIOS fixed earlier sleep issues.

@Mr FOX, i've seen your attachments. sadly i have to agree with Stevie here. the package u are installing is for desktop and the only reason i can think of that your installation got through is because you had mobility drivers in your system prior to desktop driver installation. if you click on custom during setup, im sure u wont see any display driver installed.

the only way so far to get HDMI driver in your system is to do it manually like how Stevie described it. my steps are crude, so u better follow Stevie's version. if i get some time, i will try to get HDMI driver setup instructions in the main 11.2 thread.

@Steve, yes, i too am curious if the beta bios can be reverted should we choose to. im sure hp win98 bootable usb is the method to flash it. once u boot it up, it's all command prompt and all we need to do is run the bat or exe file. im just sent the email to Chris, still waiting for "my fix". lol

 

Just received my email from DELLChrisM. I downloaded the file and will start the update and testing after work tonight.

 

Whenever you flash a BIOS - be it test or whatever, yes - you can revert back by flashing another. So, if you flash to the revision Chris is providing and you then decide you want to move back to A10, just re-flash A10. Always be connected to AC when flashing and have the battery in.

Optical or flash media wont impact this. For BIOS flashing, I suggest flash media (USB Stick).

 

That clears one thing up regarding media to use - I will use a flash drive to perform the "fix".

I am, like Alex, curious as to wether this is a gpu vbios update/fix or if it is main system bios - maybe Chris can clear that one up for us later on.

So, In preperation (as I do like to be fully prepared), the steps needed to perform this are:

1. Create bootable flash drive by following the initial steps as described in BB's linked thread.

2. Download Chris' file (my location was desktop)

3. Extract .rar

4. Copy files over to the bootable flash drive created in step 1.

5. Restart and Hit F12 to get to one time boot menu & select boot from USB.

6. Now this is where im kinda new to this stuff....the system will boot into DOS? - right?

7. Assuming I am right in step 6, how do we execute the F.BAT file that Chris has said to execute? - what gets typed to do this?

I know it all sounds kinda "noobish" but I want to be sure it gets executed correctly, so...before I do it, I would like some clarification on the process/how to execute once in DOS - if thats from one of you guys or Chris himself, I dont mind. I just want to know exactly what I should do once I have booted from my USB created earlier with Chris' files on it.

Thanks
Steve.

 

Copy the files over to the USB stick in Windows.
With the USB stick inserted, use F12 @ the BIOS screen to select the BOOT Menu.
Select USB.

NOTE: If using my USB boot stick process, you will need to depress enter 2 times as the system will prompt you for the current date and time. Not necessary to enter anything, just hit enter x2.

Once at the dos prompt, use the following commands -

Whatever the directory name is for the files Chris sent you, type -

CD "Directory Name" (replace the bold with the actual directory name - do not include quotes when typing)

Once the directory has been changed, execute the windows batch file if there is one - with BIOS flashes, AW typically uses F.BAT (again, be sure to check this prior to booting)

Follow the on-screen prompts.

 

OK. got the USB creation sorted in my head now. Thanks.

This is from Chris' mail:

* Use winrar to extract the three files
* Create a USB Boot key
* Copy the files (F.bat, phlash16.exe, W851X314.ROM) to the USB Boot key
* Boot to the USB Boot drive
* Run F.bat
* When done, reboot the M17x-R2 and remove the USB Boot drive

So, when Im in DOS, and have changed to that directory by typing cd ******** for example, how do you run "F.bat" ?

Cant ya tell im not good at this lol

 

Its ok... and questions are fine. Better to be safe and ask.

So, if those are the three files, dont worry about putting them into a directory. Copy them over to the top level of USB stick. Boot up and without the files being in their own directory, just type

F.BAT

at the command prompt. The BIOS update will then flash.

 

Cheers. So, once ive created the bootable drive, stick it in, restart, F12, boot from usb....arrive at command prompt....type F.BAT and let it do its thing eh?

I dont know if the system automatically reboots at this stage or wether or not I have to exit DOS myself. I take it if its the latter, just type "exit" without the "" ? or is there a command to shut down?

Another question, regarding the creation of a bootable USB. I have downloaded and unzipped the HP tool, gone thru BB's steps as per the linked thread. Got to the stage where I see FAT32 but not just FAT (im using a 4gb stick here)....will it work by selecting FAT32 or do I need to do anything else?

EDIT: Ahh, think ive got it sorted, just re-read BB's thread about creating a bootable USB and if your using a 4gb stick, instead of choosing "miniDos", download, extract and the choose "win98boot" instead.....so, choose FAT32? and use Katalins linked file instead of MiniDos?

 

If the system does not automatically reboot, manually power the system after removing the USB stick.

For 4GB+ sticks, see the note in my thread (post #1) - step 7, 8 and 9. For step 8, replace the MiniDOS step with the directory (Win98boot) downloaded via katalin's link.

 

Gotcha. Katalin has confirmed the same.

Thanks guys - just wanted to be sure I knew exactly what I was doing before even thinking of attempting a bios flash from a usb drive. Will try and do ASAP.

 

Ok guys....I managed to flash Chris' test bios....I had a scary few moments whilst it went through its thing and hit any key to restart.....oh holy cack!, rebooted to "missing operating system"...nothing else, nadda, zip.

It was then that I recalled that flashing system bios knocks out raid settings (or can do) so I had to hard shutdown, restart, f2, into bios, chang back to raid and enable it all over again. exit and save. Continued to load windows and, man....I have never been so happy to see a login screen in my life lololol

I havent tested for sleep issues just yet.

I wanted to provide you guys with some more info. It seems that this is a system bios flash as I have checked both hardware bios version in CCC and system bios version in system info.

The CCC vbios remains the same but my system bios now shows as:

Alienware X31 , 08/09/2010.

Now, that seems rather odd to me, like an old bios, maybe used to try and fix the "battery not charging" thing??? - im hoping that its not just something thrown at us like a cast off to see if it works or not. Chris, this isnt a derogatory remark, just strikes me as odd that it shows as almost 6mths old, please dont take it the wrong way, I hope your engineering guys have "tweaked" it somehow in specific relation to this problem.

Chris, can you confirm either way? - do I now have the correct bios version installed as per your test file?

Anyway, will test out. See how things go.

 

Glad you made thru,mate

 

The old brown eye would have been winking

 

Tell, ya...i almost poo'd my pants.....

Foxy & Alex - when you flash to Chris' files, can you post up versions etc? - I am two sleep into testing fellas, I know its early day but looks good to me so far........no problems with brightenss functionality and nothing else has been "knocked out" like wifi/inernet/trackpad....

I will carry on testing it out, will try and run a few benches too such as 3dmark11 and such forth...will post up with results as they come.....

Side note - my sphincter muscle has stopped twitching lol

 

Well guys. Update Time!

Start off with the benches. No change in 3dmark11 which is good! - ran metro 2033 benchmark as i hav before, hitting close to 20fps maxed.

The big thing...has it worked on sleep/lid?....wellll......

Thing is, my lid has been up and down tonight more times than a prostitutes knickers and I am VERY pleased to say that I havent had a single occurence of brightness going squiffy AT ALL.

What I have noticed, upon resume (and this may have something to do with the fix, im not sure) but my trackpad lights "light up" one heck of alot quicker than before...maybe im reading too much into things but it was the first thing i noticed cos I was watching everything like a hawk (after I cleaned up my pants after the flashing exercise!)

All in all, I have done almost a dozen sleep via closing lid and resume's and havent had a problem yet. All my tests have been done "plugged in" so I will continue to test out tomorrow, do a bit on battery and some more on plugged in...

Bottom line? - looking VERY good so far!

@ ChrisM - if this carries on like it is doing so far, cant thank you enough for helping out! - really REALLY appreciated!

@ Alex and Foxy - c'mon guys, post up some results, lets see if we all have the same kinda result!

@ Alex - as you have an xtreme cpu, may wanna check your multipliers eh? - Bios A08?

Oh, and after 12th resume, my trackpad came up with the old infamous red cross through it.....balloon message "touchpad disabled - another pointing device recognised" - erm, YEAH...its an ALIENWARE MOUSE for GODS SAKE!

 

Update time for me too, steviejones. In system setup, the BIOS version is now listed as X31.4 and the EC version is 15.34. (Within Windows System Information BIOS is listed as Alienware X31, 9/8/2010.) I was using BIOS A10 prior to this update. I flashed the BIOS using the resources found on BatBoy's thread.

Prior to testing, I uninstalled all AMD/ATI software, ran Driver Sweeper and CCleaner. I installed Dell's latest version of the video driver. After roughly 7 hours of testing, I removed everything again and installed Catalyst 11.2 from AMD. About an hour was more than enough to know it was not going to be a pretty picture using current drivers, so I have re-disabled everything that allows my system to enter a sleep state while waiting for the next steps from DELLChrisM.

Below is what I sent by email to DELLChrisM. Other than the shutdown issue using Dell's "official" drivers, I was really impressed with the results. Using the AMD reference driver was a completely different story. While the brightness control worked properly, the rest of the situation was not good. So, long story short, this was an awesome first attempt with an impressive outcome. However, more work still needs to be done before this can be considered a fixed problem.

________________________________________
From: Mr. Fox
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 8:33 PM
To: Christopher_Mixon
Subject: RE: M17xR2 test EC for LCD brightness not working after S3 on AMD configurations

Chris,

I was able to install the EC update this morning. I am reporting my experience today, after roughly 8 hours of use. The system went in and out of sleep states for testing a minimum of 10 times with Dell’s driver version installed. Unfortunately, there only seems to be acceptable improvement in the computer’s behavior using Dell’s aging display drivers. However, the problem with the brightness control seems to be resolved with the update regardless of what display driver is installed.

With Dell’s “official” AMD video drivers from package R281215:

A) Using lid close/open action:
....1. Display brightness control works with no problems after resume – update success!
....2. Wireless networking is very slow to find and connect to preferred networks – partial success
B) Using sleep from Start Menu: no problems to report.
C) Using sleep through power profile set to 15 minutes: no problems to report.
D) Using shutdown from Start Menu: shutdown takes an extended period of time after a previous S3 resume. – update fails; still needs to be fixed

Note: If the system has not resumed from a sleep state since the last restart, the shutdown experience is normal.

With AMD’s latest reference drivers (Catalyst Mobility 11.2):

A) Using lid close/open action:
....1. Display brightness control works with no problems after resume – update success!
....2. Wireless network connections were never detected until restart (red x on systray icon) – update fails; still needs to be fixed
B) Using sleep from Start Menu: same as lid; no wireless networking after resume – update fails; still needs to be fixed
C) Using sleep from power profile set to 15 minutes: same as using lid; after about 15 minutes following awakening from S3 state, the system experiences a BSOD. – update fails; still needs to be fixed
D) Using shutdown from Start Menu: after awakening from a sleep state, the system will not shutdown. A forced shutdown is the only way to turn off completely. – update fails; still needs to be fixed

Please let us know what the next steps in testing should be, Chris.

Mr. Fox

 

Might want to re-flash the update Fox. Give that a try and see if you encounter the same behavior.

Also the issues with networking should not show any difference between video driver vers. - video driver would not touch on networking. Might want to check other possibles. Is this with the Dell Wireless driver or the Intel reference driver?

Just a suggestion...

 

Good idea, BatBoy. I'll try re-flashing the update to see if that changes anything. Thanks for the suggestion.

If that does not do the trick, I'll remove and reinstall the Intel 6300AGN drivers. You guys know I'll post an update on what happens, so stay tuned. Probably sometime tomorrow evening, as it's close to midnight now.

I am using the latest Dell drivers for everything except the video cards, and I did drop back to Dell catalyst drivers at first to accommodate the testing Dell wanted to have done for this update. I did a HDD format and clean OS install about 2 weeks ago, so everything should be pretty fresh.

It should be noted that nothing whatsoever goes haywire until after my system is place into sleep and is awakened, and then more so with the AMD 11.2 drivers.

For the most part, it seems like the sleep problems that steviejones and alexnvidia have been hoping to have fixed for a long time are almost whipped with this EC update.

I don't normally use sleep mode, so this may have been a latent issue on my system that I simply never knew about because I had everything related to sleep disabled.

I suppose it is also possible that something with the wireless drivers are causing the problem with failure to shutdown also.

Steviejones - are you running the Dell drivers with this test firmware, or the AMD 11.2 reference drivers?

 

Foxy,

I am using AMD 11.2 Drivers and was previously on A09 system Bios. I think it was fairly safe to say that the sleep problem was resolved IF you used Dell 8.763 drivers (I did not get around to testing them out for this issue - I was just about to when ChrisM posted up with the test bios).

I too used BB's guide to creating a Bootable USB (used a 4gb drive and used Katalin's win98boot file instead of the minDos file).

To be honest, as it was relating to AMD drivers, I wanted to leave them in place and see if the bios cured the issues. I didnt see much point in rolling back and testing out Dell Drivers because I want to use AMD because of the perforamnce and regularity of releases/updates.

Suffice to say, through my short period of testing last night, I didnt have one issue of Brightness losing functionality, nor BSOD, nor any other problemm that I could immediately recognise...(apart from the trackpad icon in the taskbar which still comes up with a red cross through it and a balloon message notifying me that the trackpad has been disabled as their is another pointing device recognised - my TactX mouse!)

I have also not had any noticeable increase or decrease in boot time or shutdown time. I have rather crudely, timed with a stopwatch and my Startup time from pressing "on" to reaching login screen is 43seconds - if anything, maybe a tad faster. The shutdown time from desktop with no apps open timed from clicking shutdown in start menu to all lights going off etc is 23 seconds - doesnt "feel" any slower or faster to shutdown.

My wifi/internet connections all are fine - not experienced anything like you havein that regard, like you say, may be something to do with your driver for that?

All in all, I am happy that this seems to have cured the main problem of sleep (for me) but if it isnt working for others, then obviously its something that needs to be ironed out. Dont know if its your system thats creating problems because of the setup...I can only assume that you MUST have a conflict of something going on for you to be experiencing those anomolies.

I guess we will be able to compare in more detail when Alex posts up with his findings (and anyone lese for that matter) because at the moment, its just You and I comparing a successs with a part-success story isnt it?

I wonder if anyone can comment on what may be causing my rackpad to display these random "device disabled" messages upon resume? - I know I am using a TactX keyboard & Mouse but surely, those drivers should not conflict with anything else, should they? - Chris, any ideas?

Anyway, I will continue to test out a bit more throughout the day and report back.

EDIT: @Foxy, Just a thought, but I recall you saying that you were using the Desktop 11.2's - maybe thats the cause of the problems you are experiencing? - if you DO have them installed, I would remove and clean and put the mobility set in place and see how you go.

 

Steviejones, I totally removed all AMD files, folders, and registry entries and went back to the Dell video drivers prior to testing. So, I do not have the desktop Catalyst package installed any more. I'm going to do as BatBoy suggested with the re-flash and reinstalled my Intel 6300AGN drivers later today to see what transpires.

 

Good luck with it Mr Fox, hope it goes well for you. Im still testing out and still havent lost brightness functionality. 20+ sleeps now via various methods including sleep via lid close, sleep via Fn&F1, via alienhead, via auto sleep from power plan settings and of course, via start menu.

All seem to be working fine for the sleep problem. So far.

The method that I do find odd (and always has been odd) is when using the alienhead button, it takes for an age to go to sleep...I hear a two tone sound like when you unplug a USB, the lights go off on the external keyboard, then come back on again briefly before going off again and then it finally goes to sleep - weird! - gotta be something to do with the external devices/drivers I think.

 

I have edited my first post on this thread with my best way to describe flashing this test bios for those that want to try it out if they are experiencing the sleep problem. Those that want to do so will be able to get the bios from ChrisMDell by emailing him at [email protected] referecning this thread. He should hopefully send you a link to download a .rar file to perform the flash which you will need to extract and follow the process on page 1 for creating a Bootable USB key/drive.

If anyone has any suggestions to improve the quality of the information to do this procedure, hit me up with a PM.

Regards
Steve.

 

Well, I re-flashed the EC update and that immediately stopped the problem with hanging on Windows shutdown after waking from a sleep state. BatBoy's tip was useful for this. Thanks, BatBoy...

After re-flashing, my lost wireless connectivity problem continued after waking from sleep, so I removed Dell's driver and installed Intel's latest driver for the 6300AGN. There was an immediately noticeable improvement with the Intel driver. I am still having wireless connectivity issues after waking from sleep even with the newer driver, just not 100% of the time as I did yesterday. It's behaves exactly like the wireless radio is turned off even though it's not, as the status is "no connections available". There is also a Windows program event sound for device disconnect/reconnect that seems to coincide with the loss of wireless signal. I think steviejones mentioned hearing that Windows event sound on his system, too. Along with the loss of wireless signals, there is sometimes a loss of Bluetooth connectivity, but also not 100% of the time.

I went into Device Manager and added check marks on everything I had previously unchecked to allow Windows to put the device to sleep to save power. That helped nothing whatsoever. When I am done troubleshooting, I will re-disable that feature in all devices again.

A new thing that started today was after opening the lid and waking the system, several times I received a message asking me to confirm I wanted to enable stealth mode. That happened maybe 3 times out of 10. I am going to remove and reinstall OSD to see if maybe this changes anything.

I also continue to have a BSOD problem. I disabled automatic restart so I could record the STOP errors and the issue is a 0x0000009F DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE. Based on past experience, this is generally indicative of a driver that does not place nice with sleep. I Googled the alphanumeric arguments from the BSOD message and found nothing. At this point I no idea what driver is causing the problem. Restarting Windows cures all of these problems and they never return until I put my system to sleep and wake it up again.

The only hardware drivers I am using now that are not from Dell are the AMD video and Intel wifi drivers and using the OEM versions instead of Dell's produced better results. I am not sure what to think now, but I am sure more research can pin it down through the process of elimination. These are not deal breakers for me since I do not use sleep and only jumped in to help the cause. But, now I'm faced with a challenge that I want to resolve out of curiosity and geekness.

I have a hunch that the problem causing the STOP error may be causing the wifi problem also. The BSOD seems to coincide with the times the wifi stops working while I am just letting the system idle while waiting for wireless to find signals and reconnect. It usually takes about 10 or 15 minutes before the BSOD occurs. About the only thing I know for certain at this point is that whatever is going wrong it is related to waking from sleep. As I mentioned earlier, this could be a latent problem that has been present all along, but went undiscovered because of never allowing my system to enter a sleep state until this week for testing.

For the sake of testing, I am going to uninstall VirtualBox, which I use for Linux VMs, as it has some wifi ports for the virtual machine that may be balking about being put to sleep. I also discovered a couple of Nokia phone programs that I do not recognize that were probably bundled with something else. I'm not sure where they came from, but I don't own a Nokia phone and don't have any use for that.

Has anyone else experienced the DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE 0x0000009F BSOD issue with the M17x R2 before?

Sorry for such a long-winded post, guys. Despite all the above, this update from Dell seems to have cured a number of problems it was intended to cure, so that is very good. Still waiting to hear from alexnvidia and some other folks to confirm my partial success and steviejones' apparent total success.

 

Hmmm....I can only say that I have ALL the latest drivers for my hardware from the Dell Drivers and Downloads section for my system (by entering service tag ID)

I have the 6300 Driver from Dell, wifi, LAN, Bluetooth - everything related to connectivity are provided by Dell. Everything is really. The only one thing that is NOT Dell related are the AMD video Drivers.

My system is probably about as near to a clean install state as possible too, I purposely left it that way to carry out testing even before Chris' test bios surfaced.

The only problem that I can identify to at the moment is regarding my trackpad icon in the taskbar after resume. Its not ALL the time, but it will appear with a red cross and message that its been disabled. That was happening before and after the test bios was flashed for me. (It may be something to do with TactX drivers, not sure)

And, Yes Mr Fox - I do get the "two-tone" beep sound like windows is disconnecting a device. The only time I get this (and still do get it) is when I put my system to sleep via pressing the Alienhead on/off button with my external devices attatched (TactX keyboard & mouse and Notepal U3 cooler). The system will take an age to go into sleep state and seems to cycle through a few states before doing so. It is between these states that I will get the "sound" like I have removed a USB, no idea whats going on there!

Other than that, I cant SEE any other issues from my experience - not to say there arent any and I am gutted that it doesnt seem to have had the same result for Mr Fox as it has done for me....still waiting for Alexnvidia to post with his findings...(hope he hasnt had a bad bios flash )

I wonder, and I know you wont really want to do it Mr.Fox, but wether or not a clean install would maybe iron out some of your conflicts? - just a last resort thought.

 

I will not rule out a clean install, but the current installation is less than a month old. That would be a last resort, however. It takes so much time to reinstall all of my games and apps that I would like to avoid that if I can. I did re-image the new installation, but that would not be a true "clean install" for the purpose of troubleshooting.

I've been looking in Event Viewer and not finding much there either. I am pretty sure the STOP error is related to a driver, so I will spend some time tinkering before I go that route. I will try disabling hardware in Device Manager and see if I can pin down the offender that way. I am hoping someone notices this thread who has experienced this particular STOP error before and already knows the fix to save me some time.

For now, I have automatic sleep functions disabled again and having zero problems for the last 4 hours of use. I have not totally disabled the ability to sleep, just have to do it manually for now.

I'll report more soon.

 

You have probably seen this one Mr Fox but I had a quick look and seems that BCcode 9f relates to wireless - which ties in with the problems your having.

BSOD: The bugcheck was: 0x0000009f - Windows 7 Forums


BCCode:9f every time when Windows 7 comes back from suspend mode - Microsoft Answers

The latter of the two seems to be exactly whats happening to you.
Might help out, you may (and probably) have read them already!

Found a "hotfix" for this STOP error from microsoft here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977186 not sure if its useful or not.

Oh, and aslo, from one of BB's threads, a handy tool (i havent used it personally) called "whocrashed" - maybe could help you find the culprit eh?

http://www.resplendence.com/main#

EDIT: If you are using OEM drivers as you said before, may wanna revert back to Dells version to see how that impacts your networking issues?

You stated: The only hardware drivers I am using now that are not from Dell are the AMD video and Intel wifi drivers and using the OEM versions instead of Dell's produced better results

 

sorry guys. im quite busy lately, wont be able to dwelve into this matter for the time being. but i'll come back and check on the progress u (Stevie and Mr Fox) done. i must say, it looks very promising. great effort but i cant rep any one of you because of the way NBR works. i'll come back to this matter once i get more time. and btw, CAP3 is now available exclusively here in catalyst 11.2 thread. cheers

 

Top man for the CAP3 tip....we are counting on you Alex to test out this Bios!! - I think that currently, its only me an Mr Fox that have flashed.....WE NEED YOU lol

 

UPDATE

To save a lot of time with diagnostics, I simply uninstalled all non-native utilities for hardware monitoring from Windows. I also re-enabled my Windows page file, removed Oracle VirtualBox and switched to another antivirus program for testing this BIOS EC update. I figured I could reinstall anything I need and if the problem returns I will know what the culprit is.

So far, I am very happy to report zero problems and my system goes in and out of S3 without a hitch! I am about 6 hours with no BSOD and my wireless network is working flawless after waking from sleep.

I added a brief note and a link here to alex's thread for CAP3 because sleep issues are mentioned there numerous times. I asked for more testers to join us. If anyone runs into the problems I did, maybe my "shotgun" approach will work for them also.

steviejones, I appreciate your extra tips. I downloaded "whocrashed" for future use. My system had no dump files because I have been running with 8GB of RAM and had my page (swap) file disabled for a very long time. There was nothing for the utility to read. Just as an FYI, I am running SP1 for Windows 7 and the hotfix "does not apply" (according to the installation error message). My guess is that SP1 already includes that fix. I did not view the links you provided, but planned to if my approach failed. It was the thought that counts and I appreciate your helpfulness.

So, DELLChrisM, if you are watching you can let the engineer(s) know it appears that we have 2 successfully working machines. With only 2 testers, the success rate is 100%, but we need more people to confirm it for us. Many thanks to you and the Dell engineer(s) for being so responsive to our request for help. I am giving you a +1 Rep, Chris. You rock, dude.

 

Hey Mr Fox! - thats great news that you seem to be running sleep without a hitch now....fantastic. I have been "sleeping" on and off today with no issues at all. Brightness etc is fine, no BSOD's everything as it should be.

Since I posted about my "trackpad" errors, it hasnt happened again so far today....who knows, maybe a few restarts and a bit of time for things to settle in has rectified it. I wont hold my breath on that one but its not a HUGE factor. I will keep an eye on how things go with that too.

Chris...2 outta 2 aint bad is it fella? - if this is proving to be the success that we think it is so far (until we get more testers) , what is the next stage? - will this get released as an official bios eg. A11?...just wondering.

Its SOOO nice to be able to put my system to sleep without worrying!....BIG +rep for you Chris (and rep for the engineers too of course!)

 

Still rock solid! Good fix from Alienware.

 

Well, everything still going well but I spoke to soon about the touchpad issue.

Still getting my trackpad pop up with a disabled notification after resume - very randomly.

 

Is this the Dell touchpad driver and if so, have you changed any of the touchpad driver settings from default - if yes, which ones?
External USB mouse plugged in?
Guessing you have the touchpad notification icon showing in the system tray (next to the clock) and have not removed it.

 

Yep. Synaptics touchpad driver installed - latest one from Dell.

Yep. Touchpad Icon displayed in notification area - didnt think that having it there would make a difference and it shows "what things" are working at a glance. Kinda liked it.

Synaptics settings - All default apart from mouse pointer speed which I HAD to increase as was dreadfully slow. Unchecked "disable internal poitning device when external mouse plugged in" (obvioulsy otherwise the trackpad doesnt light up) also, enabled "enhanced pointer precision" checkbox too. Thats it.

External Mouse & Keyboard plugged in (both TactX) - keyboard to the 2 right hand USB's and mouse to the USB next to the Ethernet port.

Alienware TactX drivers installed along with CI - all software from supplied discs.

Q. Are ALL USB ports on M17x R2 High Speed Powered USB 2.0 ports? - I assume they are - not sure it would make a difference plugging to a different USB port or not - online install manual says to plug into "high powered usb 2.0 ports)

 

I've found the setting to auto-disable the touchpad with the external mouse a bit quirky. If the red x shows while you are using a USB mouse, that may be why you're seeing that in your system tray icon. Perhaps that is what BatBoy is suggesting about your situation with his questions.

I think that behavior may be common with the Dell touchpad driver. Although I had all sleep functions disabled since the day that I first unboxed my new AW until I volunteered to help testing the EC update for Dell earlier this week, I used to get the red x at startup sometimes, and this was with the touchpad auto-disable feature turned off. Even with my Bluetooth mouse the auto-disable setting has always been a little bit flaky for me, so I just turn off that setting and use fn+f12 to accomplish the same thing manually. But, the red x systray icon problem persisted.

Installing the latest Synaptics reference drivers fixed the red x issue at startup for me. It also has a few nice features the Dell touchpad driver does not. Personally, I find the two-finger scrolling to work much better than scroll zones, which never worked well for me with this crummy touchpad on the M17x R2. I was using that before my last OS install and had zero problems. It played nice with Alienware Command Center as well.

I reinstalled the reference driver from Synaptics last night and it's working great. You should see how it works for you, steviejones. I have version 15.1.22.2 dated 11-01-2010 (US date format) installed. It's not digitally signed, but I care more about function than I do Microsoft's driver signature.

 

I dont get a "red X" at start up or at any other time, its just upon resume from sleep.

I dont know if the system gets "confused" as to what input device it should be using and simply disables one (even that DOESNT ACTUALLY disbable the internal device, its just an annoying message that it does! - internal mouse still works after the message "synaptics touchpad has been disabled because another pointing device has been detected" and the tray icon changes from a "normal" state to that of one with the red X through it).

I did try the driver that Synaptics provide for download but that didnt cure the issue either, so I reverted to using Dell's driver for this device.

I dont know if its worth another go of uninstalling my TactX stuff along with the Synaptics stuff too and then re-install them all again.

The thing is, I should be able to use both the internal device AND the TactX stuff without issue. One of the main reasons for using TactX was down to the fact that I thought it would blend seemlessly with the rest of my setup and NOT give me compatability headaches.

I think though, at the moment, because it only occurs AFTER a resume, its STILL something sleep/resume related.

 

Well, if the only thing that happens is the appearance of the system tray icon changes to having an x on it--meaning everything still functions correctly--it may not be something to worry about. I think it may be just a bug with the icon status notification and not the functionality. It may not be a problem with sleep itself, other than waking from sleep causes a manifestation of an icon notification bug that Synaptics needs to fix.

I realize that you're only getting this upon resume. I just pointed out that the symptom was present upon start up for me using Dell drivers so you would know that the symptom was not entirely unique to your situation that manifests itself when you wake from sleep. Also, the driver version I am currently using is the only one that stopped the red x for me. If you were using an earlier version, try 15.1.22.2 and it may help.

One thing I did not try, which may work for you, is changing the Synaptics systray icon to static versus animated. Perhaps that will cure the red x bug.

 

Will try the suggested ^^^^^^ Thanks Mr Fox. - and, yeah, nothing else seems to be affected, just I dont like things not working properly!

 

Well, just an update on my trackpad issue.

I thought, first, I would uninstall all input devices (TactX keyboard & Mouse and Synaptics TouchPad Driver and reinstall them to see how that worked. The uninstaller for the tactx stuff leaves ALOT of crap from Logitech behind so I cleaned up the registry enteries for anything Logitech or Setpoint related.

Uninstalled Synaptics and did the same in the registry for that too.

Re-installed Synaptics (latest Dell Driver) first and then continued to re-install the TactX stuff.

Restart and test. Nope, still the same...didnt change ANY settings for ANY of the input devices - just left them at defaults and still got the red X/message upon resume.

(Another annoying thing is that if you try to change synaptics settings, apply and exit - upon reboot, they have all reset again. The changes do not stick. I have found a workaround to this and it is to disable Setpoint in msconfig - settings then stay after shutdown/reboot)

So, feeling quite unhappy at this point, I moved on to the next thing - tried changing the icon for the touchpad in the notification area. It was, by default, set as an animated icon. I did as recommended and changed it to a static icon.

So far, after a fair few hours of testing, I am pleased to say that this *seems* to have done the trick! - no messages about trackpad being disabled or anything!

I will continue to monitor this - it does seem though that this is either poor or buggy drivers from synaptics/logitech that causes this. It just has been manifesting itself upon resume.

@ Mr Fox - where did you get the latest synaptics driver from? - I see it listed on their website but version shows as 15.2.7 and not as 15.1.22.2 that you say you are using?

Maybe (although I wont hold my breath) Dell could look at the drivers for synaptics/TactX stuff and try and resolve this. I have managed to get it working but its only been by changing an option which *should* be a valid option anyway - and regards to having settings staying applied, this can only be done via disabling setpoint from starting which seems like a poor way of getting that to work right too.

Will see how things go regarding this - sleep/dimming is still flawless!!!

EDIT: ARGGGHHHHHHHHHH! - its done it again...this time was closing the lid to sleep/resume...even though I had changed the icon to a static one, upon resume, its shown up as the animated one with the red cross though it with the infamous balloon message "synaptics has disabled as another pointing device recognised!" - gonna remove it from notification area and see what gives.....damn annoying!

 

Steviejones, apparently they have released a newer driver than what I am using. I looked on their web site and did not see a place to download earlier versions. Go ahead and try that driver software package, as it may fix your problems.

Have you tried downloading a newer driver software package for your TactX devices from Logitech? If not, it probably would not hurt to give that a go also.

Given what you are experiencing, I think you potentially have an issue that is not related to a specific M17x sleep problem. It is manifesting itself when resuming from sleep because of an underlying conflict that waking from the S3 state exacerbates. If you do not connect the external keyboard and mouse, do you have the same problem? I am wondering if it is a software conflict between the touchpad and Logitech software. It would be interesting to know if the problem disappears when none of the Logitech software and drivers are present. The touchpad will work fine with nothing but Windows 7 mouse drivers, except for no ability to customize the features of the touchpad.

If using the newest Logitech and Synaptics driver packages does not cure the problem, I wonder if starting a standalone thread for TactX and Synpatics conflicts is a good idea. The more relevant thread title might attract helpers with useful knowledge.