disabling the on-board GFX?

Hi, I am having a problem with my machine not resuming from sleep or hibernate. I disabled hibernate as a quick solution but I get a black display when sleep resumes or sometimes during a video display driver install. Sometimes it seems to be hung since hitting the power button will not shut it down. Other times it will. I know optimus does not work in the 120 mhz display model so Anyway, followed a bunch of threads and thought i would take the on-board graphics out of the loop. BAD. I had already installed the unlocked bios (thanks Wide) but when i disabled the on-board it bricked (8 beep loop). Made sense to me since the bios no longer had a display to work with but looking through the modded A08 bios thread, many people have done this so - what did i do wrong?
Got it back with the USB/Esata trick...

 

EDIT: Actually I see you have the 120 hz, the integrated is already disabled, the 3D display actually hooks to a completely different display port and is wired directly to the GPU. There is no need to mess with the bios with the 3D model.

Also, you can undo anything in the bios by taking out the CMOS battery with the laptop unplugged and press the power switch. The CMOS battery is very obvious when you take the bottom cover off.

 

Not everything.

If you play with disabling/enabling the integrated GPU, it can get a bit messy. I remember I had to physically take my dedicated GPU out and then blind flash bios through eSATA.

 

I looked this issue up in the Dell Most Commonly asked questions post the DellChrisM posted. Apparently this is a common issue for the 120Hz screens. Dell's resolution is to turn the 120Hz down to 60Hz. lulz

 

Typical Dell fix

 

Thanks guys, a hardware scan does not show the GFX so it may well be hardware disabled but i even get the black screen and hang at the end of the first benchmark in 3Dmark Advantage, like some sort of reset is sent that has the same effect as a resume from sleep.
I tried dell at first and the tech was obviously reading something he didn't want to get involved with when I said about the beeps. 'hmm, this is an interesting one got a bunch of stuff here, you need to speak to a senior'. Told me that i would need a callback from a senior engineer - never happened but i got it back with the bios flash. Probably going to tell me to drop the 120Hz, bye bye 3D. I guess I got some bad combination in the bios but right now i don't want to screw it again unless anyone has the options that work for them (on a 120Hz model!)?

 

From what I read, there's no mention if your overclocking at all.

Are you overclocking? Because if you set the clocks too high, 3dmark wont even start and will black screen.

 

i have been trying out overclocking the NV card (no real options in the bios for the processor i have) with nvidia inspector and have flashed a vbios file that has 620Hz set for P0 and P1 but in trying to get to the bottom of this prob I flashed both the bios and vbios with the dell release ones (and a nuke and pave - thanks dell -not!) - no change but of course the options for the video are not available then The 3dmark will fully run the first test (running around a water filled cave one) but when it finishes the screen blanks a couple of times before never coming back - just like a resume from sleep.

 

It sounds like your overclocking might be a "TINY" bit unstable.

Try looking into this thread, then let us know later if it works out for you.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...throtting-fix-no-need-modify-system-bios.html

I would generally advise you don't bother overclocking. Just to keep your card alive longer. Also, if you have the A09 bios, i'd suggest you use the A08. It seems much more stable than the A09.

 

Thanks, I have been using that thread and I went back from the A09 to A08. Dropping A09 made my SSD noticeably faster (known SATA 3 bug). I've given up on anything other that a very mild overclock on the GPU for a specific game. Now i'm back to pretty much bog standard (all settings at default but with unlocked A08) but still cant get sleep (or hibernate but don't care about that) to resume. One thing I do notice is that selecting suspend does take far too long before it shuts down - and this is a recent complete reinstall...

This might point to the problem then (i so hope). The bios shows the on-board as enabled, but if the display is hard wired to the GPU then if something (like sleep or the bios startup) tries to hit the on-board then it all falls over??
Checked out the CMOS battery, yes obvious and easy to get to!

 

Overclocking potential is relatively limited using the stock vbios @ .87v. For most cards, 750/1750(875)/1500 is the practical limit, and some cards will struggle at even lower clocks. Overclocking to higher limits requires switching to a .92v vbios. When your overclock exceeds what the voltage can support, it will behave as you describe -- blacking out and/or crashing to the desktop. Back down the o/c or flash a vbios which provides the higher voltage.

 

Thanks, I only went to 700 on the stock voltage and did try a .92 bios but had throttling issues at anything over 72C. Card kept dropping to P8 for around a minute or so. I tried all the fixes i found in the threads here but all i managed was to raise the throttle limit a bit and stop the drop to P1 being a lower clock - ive basically given up on that at the moment thinking the first thing I need to do is a repaste before I try anything else.
The problem that is bugging the hell out of me is that it refuses to resume from a sleep and so far I have put everything back to stock except the umlocked bios (and i have tried a stock 08 one). Maybe I'll start a new thread if i cant get to the bottom of this - dell support are not much fun once they examine my machine and start checking my crash logs

 

You can't remove the 77c throttle right now (however, Dell is involved, and with luck we will get it removed soon). I would personally recommend using a modified vBios with voltages set at .87, you should be able to safely OC into the 740ish range at stock voltage.

Sadly I don't have any idea about the resume, you should just make a thread with that in the title, and hopefully someone else who has had and overcome the issue can help you.