Outlet R2, SSD install/Windows/Driver install problems...

So I picked up an R2 from the outlet, entered the service tag on the Dell website and installed every single driver listed for my machine. The problem is, device manager is listing 3 unknown devices.

Two are "Base System Devices" PCI bus 8, function one and two.

The other is just "unknown device" and the code is SMO8800.

Can anyone give me a hand with this? I have no idea why, after installing every driver Dell lists, these three things are popping up.

Thanks.

 

Did you start the process with a clean wipe and install of Win-7? If you started fresh and followed a proper install sequence, you should have no such problem.

EDIT: There are a few different threads here on NBR related to this procedure on an R2. BatBoy has one, and I have a (long) one explaining it here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...r2-full-detailed-description.html#post6978195

By unrecognized devices, I assume that you mean you have looked in the device manager application and seen yellow exclamation point markers next to a few things, right? BTW, you probably already know this, but when obtaining drivers, be sure to get them at the Dell download site, not from any "resource disk", which will be outdated.

 

I did not follow any specific sequence of drive installations...

I did use the website as I mentioned above. I am missing the Ricoh driver, as it is for some reason not on the website. That probably takes care of the SMO8800, but what about the two "unknown base devices"

That worries me.

Also, I did not know you need to install drivers in a specific order. I've done clean installs on computers probably on the order of a hundred times, and I've never had a problem not doing things in a "set order."

 

Somehow I managed to download the Ricoh driver through Windows, but the system is not recognizing it (SMO8800 which I believe is the card reader is still listed as unknown device).

This is beyond frustrating.

EDIT:

I think both "unknown base devices" are linked to the card readers. The problem I am having is the Dell Ricoh driver is not working. It installs, I reboot, then the devices are still listed as "unknown" in device manager.

 

Ricoh Driver is the Card reader, try the St Micro accelorometer driver.

 

you need to install the free fall sensor driver to get rid of the unknown device SMO8800.

 

Also, I checked and stock vantage scores for the GPUs should be around 17k. My system's 3D score was 14900!! That's with stock drivers.

I'm not usually one to use drivers other than from the Dell site (I'd rather stable drivers than better performing ones), but that seems like my system is definitely off the mark.

I tried downloading the latest ATI drivers, but they did that thing where they install everything but the actual drivers. My version is still the same, in other words.

Is it just a driver issue you think that is making my stock score so low?

920XM, 8GB RAM, Xfire 5870m, Intel SSD.

I know this information is in the owners lounge somewhere, but I simply don't have time to read through hundreds of pages, so anyone who can take the time to help me through these few problems I'm having I will gladly give rep and my thanks.

Edit: Thanks for the info above, it worked.

 

Man, now I'm having another weird issue:

When I turn the system off, sometimes I can't turn it back on. What I mean is, I shutdown the laptop, press the power button and NOTHING HAPPENS.

Like, the fans and lights come on but the screen stays blank. The only way I'm able to get the laptop back on is the hold the power button for 30 seconds and then repress.

That doesn't seem too good. I'm gonna be running a few tests (prime95 and whatnot) and see if my system is stable.

I have horrible luck with R2's.....................


EDIT:

The ST Microelectronics got rid of the unknown device, but device manager is still showing "Unknown Base Device" x2 in "Other Devices."

I've installed every driver, so I'm confused as to why that's there.

 

Bump.

Let me clarify the problems I have:

1) System seems to be underperforming - 14900 stock vantage score against 17000 ish standard stock score for xfire 5870m.

2) Sometimes on boot, nothing happens requiring me to hold the power button down for at least 30 seconds to get the computer to come on

3) "Unknown base system device" X2 in device manager after installing every driver I could find

According to Prime95, the system is stable. No detectable problems in CPU or Memory.

I'm unsure if the low Vantage score is driver related.

This is the area of PC ownership I fail the hardest at (troubleshooting random issues and checking/maintaining performance).

 

Another shameless bump. If you help me, you'll get Rep. I'm struggling to figure this out myself.

 

Does the machine have the latest BIOS flashed? That would be A10 for an R2. Sometimes boot problems are BIOS-related. You can get the BIOS version by hitting F2 right at the first moment of screen life during startup. If you miss, go around again. Right in the opening page of the BIOS utility will be its version listing.

EDIT: Also, I'm wondering if you installed your Intel Ibex chipset first when the system was rebuilt. I asked you earlier about the OS job and if you did that, and you did not give a clear response. You did say that you don't follow any particular sequence when installing drivers; that is a mistake. The chipset is something that must be installed first, always. Many of the other drivers are not so cranky about this, but chipset first, definitely. Sometimes if critical updates are not in place, later driver installs will not work properly.

 

I can't comment on your Graphics performance as I've got the dual Nvidia 285's. However - here's a screen snip of the list of Dell Drivers installed & your's should be a match except for the graphics.

Maybe this will help you figure out which one you're missing (high lighted the Blue tooth as my shot at a guess). Good Luck.

 

Check to see if the 5870's have the updated VBIOS should be like this


Also what Driver are you using? Can you run HWinfo 32 to see if both GPU's are being utilized when running vantage and see if GPU-z says enabled under crossfire. Also the black screen thing at start up has happened to me a couple times I just do a power drain unplug battery and AC and hold power button down for 1 minute then it will start up fine. This sounds like a crossfire problem honestly may need to reinstall your Drivers using CCleaner and Driver Sweeeper. Install 11.4 or 11.5 and the new CAP's.

 

VBios have been flashed to latest version, as well as main system bios.

Driver is the Dell Driver 8.7xxx.

Crossfire is being utilized.

I think I'm going to do another fresh install and rebuild the system over again. I think following the proper sequence of installs will fix some of the issues (I'm hoping).

Also, last minor issue I'm having is, CCC is not allowing me to change the color settings for the monitor. I cannot alter colors or digital vibrance or anything through CCC as when moving the sliders, nothing changes or happens. I think the windows profile is somehow overriding CCC.

Any tips?

Thanks for the info guys, will post if a clean install and updated video drivers solves some of these issues.

 

On to the next problem as I'm rebuilding my system!

I placed an OCZ Vertex 2 120GB into the secondary HDD slot and Windows is not recognizing it. Where do I go from here? First time I've ever seen an SSD not be recognized.

 

Hmmm try refreshing the drive page in the windows install if that doesn't work try restarting the installation. If all else fails put in HDD 0 bay.

 

Let me clarify:

The operating system is installed on my primary Intel 120GB SSD. I added a second SSD (The Vertex 2) that I intend to use to store and play games into the secondary slot. The Intel is and has always been detected, but the Vertex is not showing up in My Computer.

 

Can you see your 2nd SSD if you go to "Disk Management" ( I hope to not insult you - but if you type in Disk Management in Search you'll get there if you're not familiar with it). I had that problem with an HDD once - I could see it in Disk Management - but it wasn't assigned a drive letter. If it's there, right click on it & select change drive letter or path - the problem may be that simple.

 

You did the farthest thing from insult me, as I'm learning something new every day on these boards my friend.

I went to disk management, the drive does not show up on top, but shows up on the bottom part as "unallocated."

Right clicking gives the options "Convert to Dynamic Disc, Convert to GPT disk, properties, and help."

Two options are grayed at the top, "NEw Spanned Volume and New Striped Volume."

 

It almost sounds like the Bios is in Raid mode as opposed AHCI is that possible? Can you see the 2nd SSD when in the Bios? The other more fundamental cause can be a poorly seated drive - but I'd guess you've reseated it. If it shows up in the bios okay and you're in AHCI mode - I'm not sure why you're not being given the option to format the drive.

THe other thing I would look at is again in disk management, click on the unallocated drive - but then go up to the Action (next to file) and then all tasks to see if you have the option to Format from that list.

 

Thanks for the help! The drive just had to be formatted in disk management, which I did not realize (don't recall having to do that for any other SSD installs, but it might be because it's always been installed as the primary drive when installing windows).

I also did a clean reinstall following the recommended install sequence and my Vantage score (that I just retested) climbed over 1,500 points for a p score of 15,875!!!

Very impressed and happy with my system. With the 11.5 Catalyst drivers I saw an increase of about 15-20 FPS in Rift, which is the primary game I've been playing. Fantastic.

The clean and proper reinstall also solved the unknown device issues I was having. It seems me not following the proper driver install sequence initially either corrupted or damaged some of the installs. So I definitely learned something from this experience.

Thanks everyone.

 

I can also state that, as far as gaming, my R2 is faster than my R3. I thought the 6970m would fair a bit better against the Xfire 5870's, but in the games I play I seem to be getting about 10-20% more performance with my R2.

EDIT: However I do only use the Dell drivers on my R3, may make a bit of difference.

 

This may be a stupid question (and a little neurotic on my part), but I'm really stressing about whether or not I have the RGB on my system.

When I ordered it from the Outlet, it listed the system as having the RGB. However the dell purchase id shows "17inch WUXGA LCD" and nothing about RGB, which I remember the original R2 I had listed the RGB in the order info.

When I received the system I can clearly tell a difference between my current R2 and the one I had last year. I thought there's a chance I didn't get the RGB, but I dug deeper and found out that supposedly Dell started using an RGB with a different hardware ID on the latter part of the R2's lifespan.

Can anyone confirm this? My hardware ID on the R2 starts with J2CY---whereas the old R2 I had was K1N---.

This new display seems a little less bright and bit less intense on the colors than the old R2 I had, but it could also be because the newer panel was a bit toned down in colors from the factory as the old RGB screen on the R2 was very oversaturated by default.

Can anyone shed some light on this and put my mind at ease?

HWINFO32 reports my display is 8-bit color, that means it's RGB by default right? Because most laptops are 6-bit color?

EDIT:

As you can see from my sig, all my systems have very good displays so it's hard for me to tell just by comparing. (My R3, only system without advanced display is at my office at work, so I can't directly compare).

To make me a bit more paranoid, I heard the dual CCFL 1920x1200 is also pretty good quality, so I just want to make sure I have the right screen while I'm still in my return period.

 

Great to hear you got sorted out!

As far as your screen, I have the RGB and my Dell m1730, which I happen to be typing on this moment, has a standard CCFL-lit screen, though both are 1920 x 1200 in resolution. The "WUXGA LCD" refers to the resolution of the LCD panel, but doesn't tell you the type of backlighting system it has, which is really what you are asking. RGB screens are backlit by Red, Green, and Blue LEDs operating simultaneously to make very clean white light.

Note that you have probably already seen so-called white LEDs before, in flashlights and other places... Why don't they just use white LEDs? Because they aren't white! If you look at one carefully, it is very bluish light, right? That's because white LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a yellow phosphor coating on their internal reflector. The diode emits high energy blue light, and its radiation fires up the phosphor to glow with extremely bright white light. There is obviously a lot of blue light coming out along with the white from the glowing phosphor, so that is unsuitable if you need really well-regulated true white light. Next time you are looking at a "white" LED, look through its clear plastic while it is off and you will see the yellow-colored reflector underneath the diode.

Anyway, I have HWinfo32 installed on both of my machines, and my Alien, like yours, has a "JCY..." (whatever) number in the serial designation. My 1730 says something different of course, but also that it is "RGB color" but NOT 8 bits per color like the Alien. That may be the clue, though I didn't compare them in this way until your post. Also, so as not to act like I'm some knowledge god or something, I don't actually know for sure if an "8 bits per color" indication is the definitive answer for having an RGB backlit screen. Remember, RGB is about the backlight, not actually the LCD panel.

Another little thing: Since you did rebuild (excellent...I figured that would clean you up a lot) when you installed the ATI video driver, it should default to the color value for the panel (and that is located in the "configure" section in the portion of the control center where you can investigate the displays connected) being at 100, dead in the middle of the range. You should see very saturated reds on an RGB screen immediately after a new install, and the ATI control center just happens to contain a lot of red. I ended up dialing mine down a little to tone down the hot reds. There are some other great posts around here for adjusting your screen colors if you want to.

 

Here's a screen snip with my display info that shows RGB: (Used HWinfo32 ver 373-1220):

 

San Diego,

The RGB color you are showing in your monitor post is always there, regardless of the type of backlight. Like I said above, my CCFL-backlit 1730 has it too. That "RGB color" indication is saying that the LCD panel is a color LCD, but says nothing about the backlight of the panel.

Saosin is wondering about the screen being RGB-backlit. The 8 bits per color indication *might* be the answer, but I don't know for sure.

 

My first reply was perhaps too brief - I have an RGB screen (to be precise: LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY..., 17WUXGA, RED/GREEN/BLUE..., LIGHT EMITTING DIODE..., AG, SAMSUNG..) and the HW ID starts with J2CY (see screen snip) which SaosinEngaged was asking about. Don't worry about the other arrow (it was there before for a different exercise).

In the Dell parts list it has a K1NFP part number (different than the HW ID).

 

Ah, so the "J2CY..." is what ensures it's an RGB-backlit screen? I didn't know that. You learn something new every day!

 

Okay, yeah, thanks for reassuring me. It gets confusing primarily because Dell doesn't keep the part numbers uniform and it's very difficult to get accurate information from their site.

What I was referring to was that typical laptop displays (I'd say 95% of the ones I've seen) are 6-bit color displays. I know the RGB LED on the R2 is an 8 bit display, so seeing that in my HWINFO is what made me somewhat relaxed, because it's difficult to get any sort of hardware confirmation that your display is RGB outside of the model number (J2CY----), which incidentally, also doesn't show up anywhere on the Dell site (at least for me).

Dell Outlet is known to make mistakes (apparently I purchased an R2 with the i7-920 desktop processor clocked at 2.6GHZ >_>), so I just wanted to verify as best I could.

Thanks to both of you.

 

So yeah, this has been a very helpful topic because, while I understand computer hardware and specs very well, I am somewhat noobish with my level of troubleshooting/problem solving ability. Also given how fragile computers can be, I want to make sure the problems I'm having I correct properly.

If anyone has anything else to share about the RGB and its associated part numbers, please share.