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

So has anyone that owns an R3 come in and post in this thread yet? Anyone with an R3 affected by this issue?

 

I have not noticed any R3 owners on this thread, dookie. I haven't heard that this issue is present on the R3, but the fix posted on this thread makes it an non-issue for R2 owners.

 

Great to hear. Thanks for the quick response!

 

No problem. Have a good week!

 

Hope so. I didn't read much of this thread. Is there something I can check if the R3 has this problem? Is it just a matter of putting the computer to sleep while on battery, and then turning it back on and the screen being black or not? Does the computer even turn back on in the case of the R2s? Or is it still off = black screen?

Please advise.

 

There were a litany of issues relating to sleep, but the most common was the brightness control not working after waking from the S3 sleep state. I think some folks did have a black screen and some (me included) would experience a BSOD shortly after waking from S3. It was happening regardless of whether running on AC or DC power.

Any R2 owner's that need the updated test BIOS, click here, read the post, and then send an email to DELLChrisM.

If you want all the gory details on the issues, start reading from post #104 (linked above) and read from there forward.

 

Man, what a bummer. I really wonder how it'll be on the R3, cuz there's switchable graphics. For example, if I go to "sleep" on the discrete gpu, will it wake up on the discrete or the IGP? (I'll be able to answer this hopefully this week teehee). And of course, will I get black screen on either one.

Man, the anxiety continues with these beasts.

 

Dont worry.

The R3 is fine. This issue has nothing to do with it or switchable graphics.

 

Woohoo! Thanks for the "voice of reason."

 

Thanks Mr Fox for clarifying - yes, I thought they were a slightly newer release than what you are using, hence my question to confirm. Cheers.

 

Thanks. Great thread for this issue. I am going to try and get this BIOS and test it out.

Does anyone know if this will also fix another issue with sleep? I dont know if this was mentioned or not, but for some reason, whenever I resume from sleep mode, my GPU clocks will never go to full speed. They will get stuck at 300/400 no matter what I do.

Does this test BIOS also fix this issue?

 

Thanks for testing out when you get the beta bios from Chris.

Regards gpu clocks, I havent noticed this so cant comment on wether it fixes or not. Maybe someone else can answer it hopefully.

When you say they wont go to full speed, is this just at idle after resume or is it whilst gaming after resume? - I can probably test out and see how mine fair clock-wise using gpu-z whilst idle after resume and during gaming after resume....may help to eliminate your issue as being sleep related or not.

 

Only when I resume from Sleep, this happens.

On idle, the clocks are normal, at 100/150. I try to load up Vantage or any game, while GPUZ is running in the background, and it only goes up to 300/400, even with Furmark. Its really weird.

I thought my cards were bad, but when I restarted, they were acting fine again, ramping up to 700/1000 when i load Vantage or any game.

So I definitely think its a sleep issue, or maybe an issue with the VBIOS + Sleep? The VBIOS is up to date already, and I am on A10 currently. Waiting to hear from Chris to get the test BIOS.

EDIT - I also asked Chris about it in my email about the test BIOS to see if engineering is aware of the issue, and/if they have a fix for it. In which case they dont, they can hopefully look into it.

If any other R2 users with 5870s can try going to sleep, and resume and see if your clocks go back to normal or get stuck at 300/400, that would be great.

 

Ok.

Done a bit of testing regarding the above problem. Here's what I did:

Booted up as normal to achieve a "not been put to sleep" state.
Opened up x2 gpu-z windows (one for each card) and enabled refresh in background.
Closed any open apps/browsers.
Let the system idle.

Clocks according to gpu-z stayed at 100/150 for both cards.

I then ran a run of mark'11 and the clocks ramped up to 700/100 on both cards.

Safe to say at this point that all is working well and gpu clocks are acting normally.

So, put the system into S3 via Fn&F1 and left for a good 10 mins. Came back, resumed and checked clocks. Still sat at normal 100/150 as expected.

Re-ran mark'11 and clocks on both gpu's ramped up to 700/1000 respectively indicating that on this occasion, sleep/resume did not affect my gpu clocks.

I have since performed this same procedure almost half a dozen times. Each time with the same results. Clocks remain constant before and after sleep.

The only thing to note and its probably down to gpu-z software is that the fan speed upon resume is a solid red bar as if the fans are at full pelt. This was not the case in reality, fans were idling as normal. Presuming, a glitch a bit like Martin Mumak has with getting Hwinfo32 to recognise fan speeds on his software.

So, all in all, and in my conclusions, sleep/resume doesnt affect my gpu core clocks at all.
It may be the case that its caused by another issue totally seperate to this, unless its something that I did not notice prior to flashing the test bios and it has cured a possible problem. Personally, I dont recall ever seeing my gpu clocks "stuck" or "throttled" on any prior bios revision so I cannot comment on wether its a problem that *was* fixed in this test bios or not....chances are this issue is not direclty related and lies somewhere else, unfortunately.

Hope it was of some help.

Maybe other fellow testers can check their gpu-z before and after sleep/resume to rule out a potential problem??? - guys, I know you will!!!!!

 

Yea I just did some more testing and I did not get the problem again.

When it first happened to me though, the laptop was asleep for almost 3 hours. Maybe it was the prolonged period of sleep? I am going to keep on testing and see what happens. Maybe it was just a one time weird thing. IDK.

Ill let you guys know though. I still havent heard from Chris, so I am still waiting on the test BIOS.

 

No worries. I am sure he will send it out soon. I did have an odd issue myself when my clocks were reading 500/1000 but it hasnt happened since. I didnt have gpu-z d/l then, I just did it today as I have been running my system pretty bare. Maybe it was due to the recent download/initialisation, im not sure but it happened just the once and has been fine since. Clocks remaining constant but, like you, will monitor for any changes upon resume.

Thanks for bringing it to attention anyway - could easily have been something that was overlooked so GOOD CALL!

 

Bump!

Did you hear from DELLChrisM and get the link to download the test BIOS? If so, have you applied it, and how is it working for you? If you still haven't gotten a response, send me a PM and I will provide the link for you.

Everything is still working swell for me. I'm actually using sleep mode. It's the first time in my life that I have had a computer that actually wakes up from sleep without a goofy problem of some kind.

 

Just thought I would reply too....its seems that my thread here has gone a bit "dormant" doesnt it?

TBH, I was kinda expecting Chris from Dell to post back here with some kind of update as he has now had at least 5 people who have tested the bios and the success rate has been 100%.

Obviously, I dont want to stay on a test bios forever and a day.....it would be good if this particular fix was incorporated into an offical bios revision by Dell and listed on support & downloads.

I am still "sleeping" and "resuming" on quite a regular basis - havent had ANY more issues. Even my network and bluetooth havent thrown up any more messages and brightness remains solid as a rock after resume.

Just keen to hear what the next step is gonna be from Dell. I havent emailed Chris as I dont want to pester but will leave it another few weeks.

Suffice to say, its been a great fix and well worth the wait for it. Still, unfinished work needs finishing in my book.

 

I still havent heard from Chris. I emailed him a few times.....still no response. Maybe he is a bit busy. I didnt want to keep bothering him about it, so ill give it a bit of time.


If anyone else has already gotten the link from Chris that would not mind posting a link or something that would be great, so I can test it out.

 

Just sent you a PM with the info.

 

Received. Much appreciated buddy.

 

Update:

The test BIOS is installed and working great. It definitely fixed the brightness problem for me. Also, I havent had that 5870 clock issue after resuming from sleep mode......so it looks like a winner to me....so far.

Anything else I should keep an eye out for to check on in this BIOS?

 

M3TH0D1C4L - thanks for the rep point! I'm glad to hear it went well and sounds like another success. This keeps our rate at 100% thus far. +1 Rep for jumping in to assist.

Nothing specific to look out for other than what you have already found to be fixed. Just keep using your system normally, going into and out of S3 (sleep). Post back in a few days to confirm everything is still working smoothly.

If you find anything not working correctly, go back in the thread a ways and you'll see where I had some issues with a couple of drivers that needed to be updated to stop some sleep related problems that this BIOS update was never intended to fix.

 

Awesome. Will do buddy. Thanks.

 

great, another positive result. make sure u inform ChrisM@dell and let him know your findings. PM or email will do. +rep for the effort

 

Email sent off to Chris via DCF. I am sure he will forward all his info to the engineering dept.

And thanks for the +rep. Much appreciated. I will gladly do what I can to help out around here.

 

as per Stevie's request, im reposting this quick update. the test bios x31 we are using right now has issue with battery not charging when plugged in. i have encountered this on more than one occassion, and there is nothing that can be done to restore charging ability. i have both A01 and A02 power adapters and they behave the same. after 30min or so, the system automatically starts charging again. i normally keep my laptop plugged in all the time, but i accidentally bumped into this issue last few days when i ran the laptop on battery until it was quite low, plugged in and it wont charge. system says plugged in, not charging.

judging from the bios release date (which is quite old, older than A10 or even A09), it's clear that not charging fix which is implemented in A10 is not included in X31 test bios. so if we could get a new bios release incorperating both S3 sleep/resume fix and battery not charging fix, that would be great.

ChrisM@Dell, if you are following this thread, can you please forward this to your engineering team? thanks

 

Thanks for the update Alex +rep.

Totally agree. If this issue is prevalent, we need to get an official Dell bios revision out and in place via downloads that not only incorporates the fix for the sleep & resume problems (S3) but incorporates the fix for the battery not charging issue.

As I see, it, basically the latest official bios but with the added fix for the issue discussed right here in this thread.

Would be great if we could get some news Chris.

TIA

 

Guys, with respect to the "plugged in, not charging" issue, the A10 BIOS did not cure that 100%. I still had it occasionally, but dropping and reinserting the battery while in use always corrected it with the A10 BIOS without a need for doing a power discharge/reset.

I have not found it to be more frequent with this test BIOS than I did running A10. This has occurred on my machine twice since I applied the test BIOS, under the same conditions alexnvidia mentioned. I did not wait to see if the problem would correct itself as alexnvidia did. Dropping and reinserting the battery worked immediately for me, just as it did running the A10 BIOS.

I agree that any changes with the A10 should be incorporated with the next official BIOS update. If the test BIOS we are currently using does not include the changes found in A10, then I would ask Dell to provide us with another revision so we can test it and be certain the sleep problem stays fixed and doesn't resurface.

So, Dell engineers and DELLChrisM, if you are watching and reading, I am volunteering to test another version for you if the current test BIOS does not include the changes present in A10.

Edit: I just sent a PM to DELLChrisM with today's quotes from Alex, Stevie, and my latest response (above). I asked Chris to run this by the engineers and let us know something.

 

To be honest, I agree with you Foxy - I still read that people were experiencing the "not charging" problem even with A10 implemented. I have my own doubts as to wether or not it is a problem that can be resolved via bios updates - I feel that the hardware is probably to blame.

My understanding of it is that the "fix" that was supposed to cure this simply increased the amount of time it took for the laptop and the psu to "handshake" and allow charging to begin. I think before, Dell thought that this time was too short and thus not allowing proper recognition before dislpaying the messages.

Fixes and Enhancements
1. Modify EC code to get PSID delay 1 second.
2. Modify the bad battery stop charge reason ID code for debug.

Seems that increasing this allotted time has not made much difference. Best thing Dell could do is just to scrap the proprietory technology behind it full stop. Its ludicrous that Dell (I believe) is the only manufacturer to employ such technology and it is of NO BENEFIT to the owner....the only thing it does is NOT ALLOW us to use a NON DELL psu and causes ALOT of problems even if we do use proprietory Dell psu's.

Personally, I think I have only seen the "not recognised" messages once or twice on my current system. On my other "Flextronics" powered systems, it was a regularity. I didnt update to A10 so i cant comment on wether it worked or not - didnt see the point in updating as my system (touch wood) didnt have this problem.

I will test it out though.

 

Steviejones - Dell is not the OEM that uses proprietary charging systems in laptops. I know that HP does on some of their systems and I have heard that Apple does. (It would certainly come as no surprise that Apple does, since they are the masters of propriety.) But, I agree this does not benefit customers and they should stop it. It's just a ploy to force customers into purchasing parts from them instead of an aftermarket competitor. This seems to be something employed on more expensive systems, rather than budget models... maybe because it adds cost to deploy and they cannot be competitive on pricing of the budget models.

Now, to put things into perspective, my experience with the "plugged in, not charging" issue can be summed up as being an annoyance rather than a serious problem. By no means was it as significant as the sleep problems and it's not severe enough to make me regret owning an Alienware. Ultimately, there should be a near flawless user experience on a system that sells for $4,000.

 

Agreed. I have just experimented with mine. Ran the battery down until got the warning meassage to connect to a/c......flicked the switch on the wall socket....bingo, charging began as normal and no warning messages.......this time around lol. - on/off button glowing as usual as is the alienhead on the lid. Fn&F2 disables battery from charging as usual. Everything else working fine upon resume.

 

finally able to rep you Mr. Fox. this one is long due, yours and Stevie's effort are greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks, alexnvidia. We appreciate you also.

 

Hi

I have decided to help out in testing this BIOS as I firmly believe this is the way forward for DELL if they want to continue selling such expensive laptops.


Can somebody PM me the test BIOS sent out by Chris ?

I have some queries before I do this hopefully someone can answer them for me.

1) I am currently on A09 "Plugged in, not charging" was never a big issue for me so did not upgrade to A10. Do I have to upgrade to A10 before this?

2) Does Stealth Mode work after this update (I use this when I am downloading stuff)

3) Downloaded reference drivers and profiles from link
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...st-11-2-mobility-released-get-yours-here.html

Currently I am on Dell drivers 8.763

4) Can I upgrade to A10 if there are frequent BSOD's after the test BIOS update.

5) Should I first install the test BIOS then install reference drivers and profiles or the opposite.

Cheers
Sid

 

In answer yo your questions Sid...

1. No. I was on A09 before I flashed this test bios. A10 was available but like you, wasnt causing me an issue so I remained on A09.

2. Yes. Stealth mode works as it did for me prior to the test bios.

3 & 4. To use AMD reference drivers, you would want to check that you have the latest vbios on your gpu's. This can be done by right click on desktop - select CCC. Go to information....select hardware and you will see a window which you can scroll up and down. Within this window, you will see a vbios number. If you have the latest installed, it will look as follows:

BIOS Version 012.020.000.027

Assuming you have the latest vbios on BOTH your gpu's, you are good to go with regards to using AMD reference drivers.

Regarding changing main system bios versions, you should be able to use whatever bios you want to. If you are not happy with the test bios, I cannot see any reason why you cannot simply decide to flash the official A10 Dell bios available via downloads/support.

5. It doesnt really make much difference really. I had AMD drivers installed when I flashed the test bios. I think other testers may have been on 8.763 drivers. It shouldnt make any difference at all. As you are on 8.763 at the moment, it may be a good opportunity to see how you get on with them AND the test bios - if all is good, you can swap to the AMD ones using the guide in the thread you linked to.

6. I have sent you a PM with the link to download the test bios!

Thanks for being willing to test out. +rep to you!!

Let us know how you get on.

Steve.

 

Thanks Steve for sharing the file.

Okay I have finished installing the test BIOS and below are my test results.

Before Update: My system was on A09 and I also had on my system all the DELL recommended drivers which includes the VBIOS and 10.873 display drivers along with 10.10 App profiles. Windows 7 Service pack 1 was also installed.

Took a complete image backup using Acronis True Image 2011.

The BIOS update was done using the method shown on the first page of this thread. Everything was done without any problems.

Test Methods

Not much difference in 1 & 2 but what the hell just felt like trying it out.

1) After the BIOS update used the Windows 7 DVD and went for a clean install (Formatted the drive). Faced the biggest problem here damn Windows Setup!!. During Setup..... after loading the RAID drivers the Setup does not allow one to install on the primary partition (error 0x80300001). Its the most stupid error I have ever seen and a lot of people are facing this one when installing RAID and most of them are stumped on this one. Since this would be an OT will not explain how one needs to go around this one (involves a lot of DOS commands) if someone wants to know this I will explain later but COME ON...... Microsoft its 2011 fix this .

After Clean Windows Installation I installed all DELL drivers from the site (display driver 10.873)
Checked the following
- All Fn keys were working fine.
- Sleep/WakeUp works fine after being triggered by pressing on alien head, fn key + F1 key, and the normal sleep mode triggered after 10 mins of stand by.
- Stealth mode works fine
- Black Ops...... played the first level (settings all set to high) works just fine.

2) Used Acronis to recover Windows as it was before the test BIOS update. Carried out all the above tests, everything works fine.

3) Downloaded AMD reference drivers and App profiles from the below link
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...st-11-2-mobility-released-get-yours-here.html

To install used the method shown in the above thread on page 1
All tests carried out in Step 1 work just fine. Also Disconnected the AC power, immediately the system went into power saver mode (maximize battery setting) stealth mode was also activated immediately. I drained the battery to about 45% and then connected the AC power, the system started re-charging.

I don't see many issues with this for now. I have also attached Before and After pics of system information (Steve please verify if this is accurate).


Thanks to Chris and Team !!!

Cheers
Sid

 

be sure to let Chris know your findings and results through either email or PM so we can get a "A" revision bios release as soon as possible. +rep for effort. cheers

 

Just Installed Hot Pursuit 2. Before this update I use to see micro stuttering during the videos (especially on vehicle tires). NO MORE !! I don't know if its the drivers or just the app profiles or BOTH.

Just happy things are working better than before

 

Just to confirm for you, yes. Indeed those are the correct "before and after" screenshots for CCC. Exactly the same as my current CCC as I have not bothered to update to 11.4 drivers yet.

Glad to see things went smoothly on the whole. Thanks for testing out. Looks like another success story.

Interesting to hear you havent had an issue so far with battery not charging as Alex has expereinced. Did you have this before I wonder? - I know I didnt, and I have been running my system off battery just recently. I havent had an issue so far regarding "plugged in not charging"

@ Alex - obviously this test bios is based on an older Dell bios pre-A10....were you on A10 prior to testing?? - if so, did it cure your not charging messages? - I guess we will have to wait for Dell to permanantly tackle that issue seperatly to this I imagine

 

@Stevie, i was on A10 before flashing test bios X31. like you, i kept my laptop plugged in most if not all of the time, never moving it. it's only recently when i moved i had the opportunity to use battery more aggresively compared to before. i cant be 100% sure if the not charging issue affected my laptop when i was on A10. but if i remember correctly, there's a few times i do noticed that even when plugged in, the alien head would sometimes change colour, which means it's charging. that means at some point, the laptop must have lost power from the power adaptor and used battery instead, otherwise why would it be charging a battery that's already 100%? i have no idea how to explain this issue.

 

Putting it like you have Alex - I can say that I too have had that experience.

Basically, In situations where I know that the battery is 100% charged as its been run plugged in and charging. Turned off at the end of an evening. Turned back on in the morning (I always flick the wall socket on before doing so) and yes, for a split second or so whilst the system is booting, I have also seen my on/off Alienhead "glowing" like its charging.

As soon as it gets to the desktop, the Alienhead will revert to a constant non-flashing colour. I havent had a "drop-out" whilst the system is running (when the alienhead starts glowing like i think you have seen whilst system is up and running) but I ALWAYS disable the battery as soon as I hit the desktop (force of habit now I guess as I dont want the battery even trying to accept a charge when its 100%)

So, yeah, bit odd. I havent had any messages from the notification area about this.

 

Just wanted to post back and let everyone know about the test BIOS on my system....

So far, all is good. Sleep issues are no longer present with the brightness, etc.

The only one odd thing I experienced was last night, when i shut down my system, Windows shut down, but the system was still on......it was weird. I had to hold the power button down to shut it off. Only happened once.

I dont know if that is related to the test bios or not, but just thought I would list it anyways.

 

I had that once too. Just after flashing the test bios. Hasnt happened since. Touch wood.

 

Yea I just wasnt sure if it was from the test BIOS or not. But I guess it is. But I am sure they will fix that with the actual release of the new BIOS.

 

I haven't experienced that issue. It may have just been some soft of anomaly if it was only once. If it does not occur again, it's probably nothing to be concerned about. But, it's good that you mentioned it just in case others are experiencing this more frequently. +1 rep for your help here.

 

I've recently noticed an issue, but I haven't tested yet if it's present on the A10 BIOS or not. It's to do with the headphone jacks.

I used to plug my headset into the closest (headphones) and farthest (mic) sockets for audio. When the heaphones are plugged in, the system speakers are supposed to be muted and sound redirected to the headphones.

I'm now finding that this isn't happening properly. If I plug into the closest headphone jack, the IDT audio software picks up that the headphones are plugged in, but audio is still put through the system speakers. If I use the next headphone jack back, everything works as expected.

I'll try flashing the A10 BIOS tonight and see if the issue goes away. If it does, I'll let ChrisM know about the issue, in case it was introduced with the sleep code. (It may also be a bug in the X-series BIOSes that isn't present in the A-series.)

 

I actually just noticed that as well.

It did not happen to me though until I launched Dirt 2......I noticed my speakers playing the sound and nothing through the headphones.

But after I went into Sound properties, I checked that jack to be the default playback device and it worked fine.

I will try this out too...

 

One thing I have noticed.

Upon resume, if you have facial recognition activated...sometimes it wakes and doesnt respond...the window will be there but it the cam light doesnt come on and it doesnt recognise. I have to uncheck the facial recog box and then reenable it and it works.....

It would be nice to have some news from Chris as to when we can expect an official A** Bios release with these fixes implemented.

EDIT: something i have just noticed - i ran my battery down today and then started to recharge....it reached 100% a while ago but the alienhead is still glowing like its charging - it has been on a/c for a few hours at 100% and i just noticed that it was "winking" at me ( i thought, that cant be - its been plugged in for a few hours so cant be charging!).......cycling through the Fn/F2 battery options stops this.

Seems like for a split few seconds, the battery thinks it needs to charge.....maybe this is linked to what Alex posted earlier. Maybe power was lost temporarily from a/c and the system ran very shortly on battery, hence the recharging? - either that or another software glitch with OSD/PSU.

 

I noticed that too Steve, about the alienhead.

Also, for some reason, I got the plugged in, not charging on my notebook. I ran the battery down to 6% today, and when I plugged it in, it would not charge.

Idk.......gotta keep testing. LOL.