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

Yeah, I too thought of doing this. I havent tried without the TactX stuff but the fact that its all about a conflict between pointing devices suggest that its a driver conflict to me, which is brought about by resume from sleep.

I presume as the TactX stuff is generally just rebranded logitech stuff, drivers may be the same but I wont get the AW CI software (control interface for macros etc) - who knows, might head on over to Logitech and experiment.

I will try the latest Synaptics driver - just incase, but at the moment, I think I have cracked it...not how I would have liked it, but if I remove the tray icon for synaptics from the notification area, it doesnt happen. YET.

Thanks for the advice Foxy....

 

I received a PM from DELLChrisM thanking me for the update, and he said the engineers are reading the thread daily. Thanks, guys. We appreciate you.

OK NBR friends with an M17x R2, we still need at least three more testers. Please jump in so we can get an "official" fix for release on the Dell Support web site. Start the process at post # 104 with a message to DELLChrisM, and begin reading from there forward.

Thanks in advance for the help with testing.

 

I wonder, maybe I could (with Chris' permission) put a link into my first post that would direct people to the test bios download. That way, whom ever wishes to test it, has the resources at hand without having to bother Chris directly.....

Just a thought and it *may* have to stay like it is at the moment - having to email Chris - which is fine.....

BTW - engineering - have any of you guys had problems with the synaptics such as I have? - that would be interesting to know of - thanks!

 

hi all, sorry for the absence lately.

since im still busy, i have spared some time to test out the "new" test BIOS. the reason is because despite being a test bios, the date is actually quite old.

ok, without wasting time, here are my initial test results. all tests are only based on lid closing sleep method. no time to test other sleep method. i'll leave that to Stevie and Mr.FOx if you guys dont mind.

1. CrossFire OFF
-system sleep fine, and resume fine. brightness control retained, prior brightness settings retained, no BSOD or instabilities after 5min.

2. CrossFire ON
-system sleep fine, and resume fine. brightness control retained, prior brightness settings retained, no BSOD or instabilities after 5min.

3. 940XM Overclocking support (5%)
-system sleep fine, and resume fine. brightness control retained, prior brightness settings retained, no BSOD or instabilities after 5min.

-However, any kind of overclocking is no longer applicable after resume. system is now back to default FSB clock, which is 666MHz, rather than 700MHz (5%). not really a big deal for me because system stability is still top priority.

4. 940XM Multiplier support (25X)
-im happy to report that all cores are set at 25X multiplier and TDP is at 62W, which is still the same as A10 BIOS.

5. Initial Bug
-right after i flashed and did the first sleep and resume with Crossfire OFF, my USB mouse stop functioning. trackpad is fine, but no response from mouse at all as if usb port is disabled.

-however, after several sleep and resume, restarts, this bug is no longer observed. probably a one off thing.

6. Conclusion
-Good BIOS fix ChrisM@Dell. Well done. now if you please get this to the engineering team and release a BIOS update with all prior A10 fixes and new sleep fix.

 

Great news Alex - thanks for setting some time aside to implement Chris' test bios ....thats a 3 out of 3 success rate so far so it really is a "top fix" by the engineering team. Thanks again you guys!

Alex - did your OC reset itself before, after resume?

All in all, seems like a very solid result that cures the problems that we reported initially a few months back.

I too noticed the "old" date on the test bios - maybe its kind of a "stock bios" that gets tweaked here and there, you know, like one they "keep in a drawer" and pull out now and again to see if they can fix things...like a base starting point in a way. Not sure, but I would, like you say, like to see an official bios revision at some point that includes this particular fix and all the others up to and including A10 - I guess, in effect, A11.

Im assuming that we still need another 2 willing test guinea pigs before we can even go to the next stage as Chris wanted 5 volunteers - 3 down, 2 to go!

I will post more about my "mouse/trackpad" issue later, I am still testing out some options. I know it may or may not be linked with sleep so apologies if it may be slightly OT, but there is a possibility that it could be linked. I am trying to rule out drivers atm - we shall see.

 

I shall be the 4th or 5th to test when my R2 arrives (hopefully this coming week).
I've been following this thread.

Good luck guys

 

OC reset itself after resume. before sleep resume i had 5% OC on my 940XM, meaning RAM and system QPI speed is at 700MHz. after resume it's down to default 666MHz.

im not sure about the mouse/trackpad issue i had experienced earlier is the same as what you are experiencing, but i definately dont have the trackpad disabled notification after resume, because my trackpad is currently enabled. i'll test and see if i see that notification if my trackpad is disabled. awesome effort u guys. (bloody system! why cant i rep either one of u???)

 

Alex - you must be handin' out "too much luuurve" matey! hahaha

Im not sure, but my situation re: trackpad messing up after resume, may be down to my other external keyboard and mouse which are both Alienware TactX.....thats what makes it even more annoying, I was rather hoping they would work seemelessly with my system but it may be the case that the drivers for the TactX stuff are conflicting with Dell's Synaptics toucpad driver....Im not sure, just know that it has been happening AFTER resume from S3 sleep...otherwise, its fine.

Still testing, dont want to speak too soon but may have sorted it.....fingers crossed.

 

the thing with alienware's synaptics touchpad's is it only works with dell's own driver. yes, u can install other higher version of synaptics driver, but it wont work with alienfx lighting system. ur touchpad's lights will always be on even if u set it to disable if external mouse is plugged in.

 

katalin, thank you very much for jumping in to assist. +1 Rep! We will look forward to seeing what you have to say after your R2 arrives.

Alex, have you tried the latest Synaptics driver? It seems to work with my AlienFX lighting OK. There are a new features with the new driver than I like. The two-fingered scrolling works better for me than using the zones for scrolling.

 

Well guys. I have been testing out the latest Synaptics touchpad driver from Synaptics Drivers | Synaptics by choosing 64bit version.

I have had it installed since last night. Been sleep/resuming for a few hours last night and all day today and it hasnt knocked out my notification icon in the task bar once upon resume! - its also usin the animated icon and not the static one.

Also, it doesnt change anything regards to AlienFX - I can still change colour on the mouse and keypad and internal touchpad independantly. None of this causes any issue.

Seems to me (although I will keep testing just incase) that the Dell Synaptics touchpad driver was conflicting with Dell's own device drivers for their Alienware TactX external keyboard/mouse. Cant explain it or account for it any other way as the Synaptics driver direct from their website seems to not have anny issue with resume after S3.

At the moment, I am a happy camper! - will see how it carries on - if it is the case, then I suggest Dell updates its Synaptics software as soon as possible because if there are other users that have the same TactX stuff as me, chances are, they will have the same problem.

EDIT: It may be something simple like a glitch in OSD....I have noticed that if I uncheck the box for "Disable internal poitning device when USB mouse is connected", if I hit apply, exit and then re-enter...its back as checked, so doesnt seem to save the settings.....which may be causing conflict. (eg. if i have unchecked in synaptics but its checked in OSD then the system doesnt know WHAT to do, does it?)

 

Awesome, steviejones! Man, we're just fixing all kinds of things in the last week, aren't we? This is great. I'm glad to hear the Synaptics driver seems to have cured the touchpad problem for you. I know you want to test a bit longer, but it seems very promising. I'm a happy camper, too.

Dell/Alienware Engineers, please take note of the following comments:
With this EC update, this is the first computer I have owned that does not have a problem of some sort waking from S3, and the problems were fairly significant on my R2 before the update. Now that it works correctly, I am considering leaving the sleep capabilities enabled. An unexpected side benefit for me was that my battery run time has gone from about 53 minutes to slightly more than 1.5 hours on a full charge! For the first time ever on my R2, I was able to watch an entire feature-length movie on a flight this morning without my battery going dead before the end of the show. In addition to that, my battery charge was down to about 10% when the movie ended. That almost always triggered the "plugged in, not charging" condition on my system, (even using the A10 BIOS), and when I arrived at my hotel and plugged into AC power, that did not happen. Whatever got tweaked in the test BIOS was a really good tweak.

 

Yeah!!!!! - Im gunnin' for a job in engineering lol......Im happy atm, if things go belly up again, I will be posting back thats for sure!

Glad you are working well with sleep and, wow, first system with no probs on S3? - you should have a job with me and Alex too hahaha

PS - edited #161 - last paragraph.....maybe something odd was going on with OSD - a glitch/bug? - I may uninstall Synaptics, go back to Dell Synaptics and see if the Aliensense checkbox problem persists.

 

i've tried many synaptics drivers in the past, some official synaptics, some from dell, some hp, non of them ever worked properly with M17xR2. always had problems with alienfx lighting. but i've not tried the most current recent synaptic release. thanks for pointing it out. will update with my findings later.

 

hell yeah Stevie. we ought to be hired by dell for doing their job! not that im particularly proud of, and i dont wanna sound ungrateful because dell's engineering team did somehow create this fixed BIOS internally.

one thing i dont understand, since they already have this fixed BIOS since september last year, why not include this in A09/A10 BIOS release? are there issues with this BIOS that lead to this version being rejected? because so far, apart from overclocking resetting itself upon resume, i dont see any other problems with it. Both you and Mr.Fox have positive feedback, including prolonged battery life. what else could go wrong?

 

@Mr.Fox
Synaptics official 64-bit, unfortunately, still does not work properly with our M17xR2. i've installed it, tested, im afraid it's not working as it should, at least on my system. (v15.2.7)

1. if your external wireless mouse is plugged in, and touchpad disabled when you install synaptics driver, you'll first notice the touchpad wont work anymore, no alienfx lighting as well. the only fix is to shut down the system, take out the batt, perform a power drain. upon reboot, you'll get lighting and touchpad working again.

2. there's no option to disable touchpad if external mouse is plugged in. sure u can disable it manually from synaptics tab, BUT, once u disable it, alienfx lighting remains ON. after restart, you'll notice that the touchpad is working again despite being disabled manually earlier. i believe this is reported by Stevie as well and i can definately confirm the bug is there since earlier synaptics driver releases (synaptics, hp, dell (not meant for m17xr2), etc)

3. conclusion - all those problems are exactly what i've observed during my past experience when attempting to install updated synaptics drivers that werent released by dell. simply put, alienfx wont play nice with other drivers and disabling touchpad is extremely finicky. are these problems present on your system?

 

@alexnvidia
The problems with the lighting are not present on my system, and it sounded as though it is not a problem for steviejones as well. I'm wondering if your AlienFX Control Center software needs to be reinstalled. If you haven't done that recently, now might be a good time to try that. Uninstalling and reinstalling OSD and AlienFX Control Center were two things that I did in troubleshooting the glitches I had as I first began testing this EC update. I see BatBoy recommending that fairly often for a variety of reasons. Nothing to lose if you haven't tried yet.

One thing that would be different for you and me, but not in steviejones's case, is that I am using a Bluetooth mouse, not a USB wireless mouse. So, it's not an exact comparison for you and I, since I have nothing "plugged in" on my system.

 

if you look at Stevie's post no.161, he did put in red the issue i was talking about. a disabled touchpad with the latest driver will re-enable after restart and if you look at alienfx lighting, even after u disable touchpad, the lights are still on.

i will try to uninstall and reinstall OSD and alienfx later. will report back my findings. meanwhile, try and observe if you have similar problems with the new driver.

 

Does this thread apply to the R3?

 

No, dookie. The R2. Hopefully, the R3 will not have any of the issues that started this thread.

 

In a nutshell, was this the problem that was in the MSI GX640 where you had to untick powerplay or something, so that it could wake from sleep(black screen)?

 

No, it turns out it was an issue with the BIOS. When waking from an S3 state, numerous things would happen, including the display brightness adjustment not functioning and loss of wireless networking connectivity. In the extreme, a BSOD would occur a few minutes after waking from sleep. If sleep functions were disabled, there were zero problems.

Dell gave us a test BIOS that seems to have cured the problem for the three people that have tested it. We're all just tweaking other things at this point, hoping for more R2 owners to jump in to help with the testing so we can get an official BIOS release from Dell.

 

Wow. That complicated, eh? Does warranty cover it, if something goes dramatically wrong cuz of this bug?

 

I've just emailed away my request to test the BIOS. I can repro the issue when shutting the lid, but not when hitting the alien head button.

I’m also interested to see if the new BIOS fixes another sleep-related problem I have. The mouse I’m using for gaming (a Steelseries Xai) doesn’t work if I wake my laptop from an overnight sleep. I have to remove and re-insert the mouse for it to work. I can also make the mouse work by re-plugging it before I wake the system, so the issue may be with it and not the laptop.

And thanks to you guys, I've managed to solve an annoying issue I've been having with the touchpad. I think it may have started when I installed some Logitech racing wheel drivers. Whenever the system woke from sleep, the touchpad would be disabled until after I'd got past the user selection/login screen. This occurred whether I had my external mouse plugged in or not. I also turned off the "disable touchpad on external device" setting - no go. Then I installed the latest Synaptics drivers, and suddenly it's working as it should. (Rep given )

The issue here is not quite that bad. The system wakes from sleep just fine, it's just that the hardware brightness controls stop working. Thankfully nowhere near as bad as the issue you mention.

 

Great - thanks for volunteering to test, with Katalin that makes 5 - wooohoo!

Also, your points regarding your mouse problems are like mine in a way. I think they have all been interlinked with the Dell Synaptics touchpad driver. When using that driver, I was having the problems I have documented, you were having more problems...seems that the latest driver DIRECT from Synaptics works much better than Dell's version (something Dell could do with looking into updating, really)

Im still using the non dell synaptics and everything is working fine....EVERYTHING!...sleep....resume....brightness (dimmed before sleep - remains at the same level upon resume - will dim down after resume too no matter what brightness the screen is set at PRIOR to sleep)

Definetly engineering have got the sleep problem NAILED, its just some of the other things that could do with a bit of "love" from Dell to remedy so we dont have to outsource for working drivers.

By this, I dont mean anything to do with the test Bios itself, as that cures sleep issues. What I mean is that Dell could do with releasing some more up to date drivers regarding tactx and synaptics stuff as the current releases available from Dell leave alot to be desired in terms of system compatability - this is taken from my own experiences documented well in this thread already regarding driver conflict between touchpad/external input devices.

Be sure to let us know how you get on with the testing once implemented!

 

Sorry but i was late. but Got the BIOS and tested it a week ago.

BIOS did infact work and is working really good. Now i have some clarifications to make with the M17x Users. coming up in a newer thread.

 

Thats GREAT - thanks for downloading it and testing it out. Doesnt matter that your late with an update, the main thing is that you HAVE updated us with another success.

Thats 4 out of 4 now by my reckoning. 1 more tester and there's the 5 that Chris wanted to test out. Hopefully, nummber 5 tester will report back with the same level of success as the rest of us and maybe Chris can then push through an official fix for this issue in the next official Bios release.

 

Make sure u notify Chris your results and findings, drop him mail or PM so he can get engineering team to push out the fix ASAP. good work there.

 

Just sent my email request to be a tester.
It would be great to have things working correctly.

D.

 

Top man! - things are really gettin' on a roll now! - keep us posted!

 

Just got my email.

Will flash and test when I get home today.

I will keep everyone posted on my results.

D.

 

I'm at work now, but have the BIOS downloaded and ready to take home. I'll post my results in a few hours time.

Has anybody tried to use the WinPhlash64 util that came with the A10 BIOS to do their update? I don't have a free USB stick handy, and would prefer not to have to try and find one, make it bootable, etc. I've emailed Chris about this, but because of time zone differences he's probably already headed home for the day.

 

Sorry fella, I used Chris' directive and created a bootable USB using BB's guide. Was a 4gb stick. Not really sure if winphlash64 would do the job - you would assume it would but as its a test Bios, I would stick to the guide....unless someone can chime in with advice to the contrary.

Thanks for testing out, when you get the opportunity. Repped (and Debaucher too! - great to have such willing volunteers - thanks guys)

 

Well, I flashed and all is good so far.

I will test the sleep (close lid and push alien head) in a moment.
Then I will try hibernate and see what happens.

Back in a bit

D.

edit... OK so at least 2x the close lid for sleep and resume worked fine... (when coming back I had full screen brightness control)
Same with alienhead and hibernate.
Plus, usually when I return from hibernate I loose my mouse settings (ie.. mouse does not move correctly so I have to unplug/replug mouse to fix)... this did not happen this time.

So... more testing to go but looking good so far

 

Great stuff - sounds like another success story regarding the test bios. That's five outta five now guys - Chris's quota fulfilled and all successes - couldnt ask for more than that for a fix eh?

Debaucher, be sure to mail Chris with your results - dont know how often he reads the thread! (unlike me, when its every day lol)

 

Wow! Thanks to everyone that has jumped in to help test this BIOS update. We really appreciate it, and it is exciting to see everyone is having a good result so far. Sorry I was not on the forum last night. I worked late and just had a few minutes this morning to see what I missed. I will be back tonight to see what's going on.

 

I did my test yesterday, and emailed Chris, but didn't post here because I'd almost hit my daily bandwidth cap at home.

All went well for me. It didn't matter if I slept via the lid or the power button, the brightness controls worked when the laptop woke back up.

I can't wait for BIOS A11 to be released .

 

Nice. Glad things are working out well.....+rep for taking part in testing - when it lets me!..... Thanks!

 

Wish I could help out but I only have my m17x atm.. waiting on a desktop gpu rma so if it dies I have nothing .

 

Just a tiny little bit of an update here.

Last night, when I resumed from sleep, my wifi connection had gone completely...notification area - wifi disabled. Tried to re-enable with the touch sensitive button, whilst it turned on, I could not connect.

Thought I would mention it as Mr Fox was having a similar issue as I recall. It may be worth noting, so I thought best to say.

 

I also noted this morning that I got a Bluetooth popup sayin "not discoverable" - yellow exclamation message - Bluetooth Icon remains on, but just not discovereable - took me to a window to enable devices to find this computer - I just left it off.

I too got the "windows" sound just as I was resuming last night, I think it was a single tone and of course, I looked at the notification area and my network was obvioulsy stuffed. Couldnt re-enable it to connect no matter what I did.

My Driver is the Dell Intel 6300 driver (latest, of course) - maybe its a bit buggy, not had the network issue before last night but I have had the Blutooth "not discoverable" one on many random occassions even before the test bios.

 

Bluetooth not discoverable is normal..... (you keep discovery off until you need it for pairing then turn it off again for safety reasons).

There is a way to disable the notification but I forgot how (it is posted on this board somewhere).

As for the wireless, I have the 6300 as well but since I typically use ethernet at home I have not noticed this problem.

I will test it out tonight and see what happens

D.

 

Regards to the wireless, it really does seem very random. Been on all day today and sleeping/resuming ok without issue. Not sure what steps would reproduce it. Guess its something I will have to monitor.

Is everything else working ok for you?

 

As I noted on a prior post, I installed the Intel driver and no longer have that issue. Assuming it has not been updated since I downloaded it from Intel's web site on 03-02-2011, the latest release is version 13.4.0.9, release date 10-18-2010.

This may take care of it for you also.

 

Ahhh - I thought (from recall) that you said you were having problems WITH the Intel version as opposed to Dells 6300 version.

So, you are using the driver direct from Intel for your 6300 atm without any issues? - if so, I will give that a try. Its only happened the once but now that it "has" happened, It will be in the back of my mind nagging me lol

Thanks Foxy.

 

For me, I dont use wireless much but I did notice this issue once.
I will try the intel direct wireless driver and see what happens.

One thing I notice is still prevalent in this bios is the loss of OC when resuming from sleep.
I have a 940xm and if I set the bios oc to 5% (or any percentage) I find that it works until I resume from sleep where the system will be set back to default FSB and speed.

I have sent an email to Chris stating this so hopefully something can be done.

Other than the 1 time wireless issue and the loss of oc issue....... everything else seems to be doing fine.

D.

 

I was using all Dell drivers to begin with, except for the graphics drivers. When I started enabling sleep is when the problems began and going to the newer Intel driver stopped the problem. I had zero problems with Dell's 6300AGN drivers when sleep capabilities were disabled.

 

DELLChrisM, are the engineers planning an official release so all M17x R2 owners can reap the benefits of this much-needed update? My system is still working awesomely with this test BIOS. In addition to being rock-solid, I never dreamed I would get nearly 2 hours of battery run time from a high powered machine like this. This is great.

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steviejones, have you experienced any more Bluetooth problems? On my M17x R2 and the Dell XPS M1730 it replaced, the Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Minicard has given me random fits where it would stop working and in Device Manager it would throw the error code that it could not be started, with the yellow exclamation mark on the icon. A while back (before we began testing this BIOS) I did some Googling and found out that Broadcom driver v6.3.0.3800_7a was working better for some users. I installed it and that cured this problem, and also eliminated having to manually delete and re-pair my Bluetooth devices frequently to get them connected. Now they almost always connect automatically without any special effort.

I had gone back to the Dell Bluetooth driver for this testing and the problem returned earlier this week. I could not get my Bluetooth Dell Travel Mouse to work for 2 days. I had forgotten about finding this driver months ago and updating to this driver fixed the problem this week, the same as it did last time.

While your Bluetooth bug is a bit different, you may want to give this newer driver a shot. You can download it here. The Gateway NV79C uses the same Broadcom BT chip as the Dell 370 and it works flawlessly for me.

 

Hi Foxy

Since my last post, I havent changed anything driver-wise. I am still using the Dell 6300 driver. I havent had any repeat incidents as of yet and wy connections have been fine upon resume.
I know you said you had changed to the Intel latest version - I did have a quick look. Which one is it exactly that you use? - I see about 10 different versions on the Intel page here: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sea...and+Intel®+Centrino®+Advanced-N+6200+products - Am I right in thinking that its the third one from the top?

Did you just grab the driver or the driver & Proset wireless software too for home users on 64bit?

My Bluetooth threw one little wobble a while back....a message about "not being discoverable" with a yellow exclamation. I left it as "undiscoverable" as I dont use any bluetooth devices atm. It hasnt thrown any more hissy fits just yet.

In fact, everything is rock solid, as you say your system is.

One tiny little thing I did note was that after a resume from S3, sometimes if you type your password in the login really quickly, it doesnt recognise it. I know its not my spelling too! - its like the system hangs for a split second while it gets ready to acknowledge a password.

I have since re-enabled facial recognition and no longer manually type a password in on resume. The recognition software is a bit slow to "kick in" to recognising but once its doing its thing, it works fine. I dont think its the very best facial software in the world anyway. I may just disable it all, passwords and facial recognition.....not like I need security really as the system is at home! - different if I were at an office I guess.

So, all in all, still going great....if you want to post up about the Intel 6300 driver, that would be great. I may try out the Bluetooth one too, thanks for the link.

@ChrisM - much like Mr Fox, I too am wondering when an official Bios Revision will be released to the masses? - may be the case that there are a few other "fixes" being worked on and a new revision will have to wait until then.....any update would be very much appreciated. Thanks again...

 

Steviejones, I am using the full package (including the PROset software) from Intel, available for download here. Select the file named ICS_s634.exe for the full package.

I just checked the Intel web site and it appears a newer version has been released since I downloaded the version I am using. I have not tried the new 13.5.0 version.