W3J random restarts on battery ?

Hi everyone,

I've posted about this problem before, but I just can't seem to find a solution .. Hopefully you guys can help me out

As the title suggests, the problem is that my W3J randomly restarts every now and then .. I'd say once or twice per 3 hrs. Now this problem only occurs when running off the battery, and does not occur on AC power.

The restarts are pretty much random .. They occur while browsing, chatting, checking e-mails .. definitely nothing intensive, so I doubt overheating is the culprit.

Other notes: I am using two batteries (optical bay + primary) at all times; Running Power4 Gear software; and using ATI Radeon 6.10 drivers.

Any theories ? Thanks in advance for your help !

Cheers.

 

Hrmm ... I have heard of reboot issues upon booting the W3J on battery that make it so that you cant ever enter windows and are stuck in a perpetual booting loop while on battery ... but never random restarts while using the W3J on battery ...

Anyways my advice is give Catalyst 6.12 a try (newest catalyst) OR revert to Catalyst 6.8 which is the most stable catalyst while still providing great performance ...

So ... if your lucky catalyst 6.12 will fix your issue but if not, roll back to 6.8 and im certain that will help you ...

If for some reason that dosnt, perhaps remove the optical bay battery and see if maybe its a faulty battery if that at all is having any effect

also, whats ur bat life like with the optical battery as well as the primary?

 

So far from what i've seen a good amount of people have Cataylst 6.12 and there's no infinite reboot. But many use ATI Catalyst 6.8, and that has been stable for all users.

So give that a try.

 

OK, will do. Thanks for the advice guys

On 33% brightness and Wi-Fi, I usually get around 4.5 hrs

EDIT: Ok, 6.12 installed. I will test tomorrow .. hopefully this will solve my problem.

EDIT 2: Well I installed 6.12 .. Everything was running fine until I unplugged my AC. The computer just rebooted, and went entered a reboot cycle .. So that didn't work. I wonder, does it make any difference if I install the Catalyst software ? I usually don't bother.

I'll try out the stock drivers now (from the W3J CD) and let you know if it works ..

Cheers.

 

its the video drivers. its mainly because of powerplay, so just turn off powerplay. i use omegadrivers and it works perfectly =).

 

Hey Mr.Pigeon go give my other thread a read about the VGA out cable while u have 6.12 loaded and see if that works ... I think i might have found something (even if i myself dont know what lol) anyways ... ya mate, revert back to 6.8 id say =/

 

Yeah, the stock drivers seem to be working fine ..

dorkiedoode, which version of omega drivers are you using ?

Cheers.

 

I'm using omega drivers and i've uninstalled the powerplay, but i still have the looping problem, any advice?

 

dragoonel, what version of omega drivers do you use? And how do you uninstall the powerplay? A bit of advice: maybe you better use ATI's own driver version 6.8, or the omega driver that's based on Cat 6.8.

 

I'm using the 3.8.291 version. I went into control panel, add and remove option to remove the powerplay. Was that the wrong way? I couldn't find the omega driver that is based on Cat 6.8, I've only found a 6.7 version.

 

Omega 3.8.291 is based on Cat 6.9. I cannot find an Omega that's based on Cat 6.8 either. If you want to try Cat 6.8 (the real Cat), you can download it from here: http://www.3dnews.ru/download/drivers/ati/
Look at the list below the ATI Catalyst 6.8 title.

 

Ok thanks.

 

Here's some update on my side.

As stated i've uninstalled the power4gear (ASUS) but i still encounter the looping problems with the battery. Therefore i booted it up using AC, when i was in windows i pulled the AC plug out and it ran on batt without reboot!!! yoohoo!!!

It couldn't maintain on batt this morning, that's why i'm jumping with joy now!!!

 

OK now I see what's your problem... you mistaken power4gear with the powerplay... The powerplay meant in this thread is the setting in the ATI's Cat driver... not the ASUS' power4gear.. Powerplay must be disabled, not uninstalled... since it cannot be uninstalled without uninstalling the ATI driver itself.

 

Oh my, silly me. Thanks for clearing it up, my bad to got it mixed up. Thanks alot for your help, i've solved the looping problem and its able to maintain on batt when i pulled out the AC source and able to boot up to windows on batt.

Thanks!!!

 

So you're saying that using your trick above (power up the W3J with AC source and then pulled out the plug), you solve the looping problem? Well this is new... And after that, you can still boot the W3J on battery without looping?

 

Oh no, i untick the powerplay to solve the problem.

 

i have similar problem, and i located the source of the problem.

when my optical battery runs out of power, and is switching to the main battery, it will reboot. anyone know if its cause my w3j is defective or is it the optical battery? i'm using bios 6.10. graphic driver is omega but i tested that it reboots no matter what driver i'm using.

 

I don't believe this is my problem .. But I'll check just to make sure .. Are you able to swap the optical battery in and out without restarts, or does ths occur only when the optical battery runs out ?

Cheers.

 

good question.. i just did it, i can swap my optical battery out while on battery mode and it switches to main.

so it seems to be only when the optical runs out to 0% is where the problem is.

 

That's odd .. I'll test mine possibly tonight, or tomorrow and see what happens .. Has anyone else experienced this problem with the optical battery ??

Cheers.

 

did you find out the problem? anyone else know why my w3j reboots when i switches from optical to battery? i can freely pull out optical and switches to battery but once optical reaches 0%, then it reboots before switching.

 

Yes, it turns out I have the same problem as you. Just as my optical battery ran out, the computer restarted. Is anyone else having this problem ???

Pomme, I noticed you are from Toronto .. where and when did you buy your optical battery ? Could it be a defective batch ?

Cheers.

 

i bought around end of september from milestone pc.

any1 else having this issue? i can swap out optical battery anytime but when it reaches 0% automatically reboots to switch to main.

Danny if you read this can you look into it?

 

Yes, I would appreciate that too.

Is there anyone else out there experiencing this same problem ??

Cheers.

 

I just tried out of curiosity, and discovered that I have the same problem. But because I have disabled "automatically restart" in Startup and Recovery, my W3J just hung when I pulled the AC cord. Ok, I did as you said, meaning I have disabled PowerPlay in Catalyst Control Center, and everything normalized.

I have Catalysts 6.12, somehow right now I'm bit too lazy to try out the 6.10.

 

what? I don't think this is anything do with powerplay / video driver. This isn't the infinite loop reboot problem. This is switching from optical to main battery when the optical battery hits 0%.

 

UPDATE: Ok, after a bit of research, I've found a few other threads about this problem:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=63939
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=65309

Check out the second thread. Seems that deleting the hidden partition will fix the optical battery to main battery switch problem. I'm tempted to try this out .. Any cons to deleting this partition ??

Cheers.

 

EUREKA !! Problem solved Just delete the recovery partition and any other non-primary partitions to fix the problem

Cheers.

 

nice! dumb question, how do you remove a hidden/recovery partition? lol..... i google'd it and they said use Fdisk command, how do I do that? when i go into command line thing, and type Fdisk, doesn't work

 

Congratulations, Mr. Pigeon!

 

so can anyone please tell me how to remove hidden/recovery partition in my w3j? I don't know how to use or find fdisk. thanks

 

I used Partition Magic 8.0 .. Unfortunately it's not freeware, but I know there's a trial version you can get somewhere .. Ah here we go:

http://www.soft32.com/download_151.html

I don't know what the demo restrictions are, hopefully it'll work for you

Cheers.

 

thanks but after installing it, i only see Disk 1. and under disk 1 i only see 1 partition which is my C:. I can't seem to find the recovery partition in partition magic.

 

try using the windows xp cd. there is the ability to delete partitions in there. just pretend as if you're going to reformat and install a new copy of windows xp when you stick in the cd. when you get to the blue page w/ the partitions, however, delete the hidden partition and then restart the computer.

 

yea, i tried that. But even using windows xp cd, it only shows 1 partition which is my C. There isn't a hidden or recovery partition shown in xp cd or partition magic..

 

That's odd .. Have you tried Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management ?

Cheers.

 

yup only 1 partition there too.

I think my problem is more severe than yours hah. I don't have hidden/recovery partitions yet I still restart.

What video card drivers and what version do you use? Is powerplay enabled or disabled?

thanks

 

Try Gparted - It's very powerful and very user-friendly for a free program (especially one based on Linux).

~ Brett

 

I have 6.10 installed without Catalyst .. I guess that means powerplay is disabled (?)

Cheers.

 

I'll guess i'll install 6.8 and try again. Wonder why i don't have recovery partition.. well anyways thanks.

 

Now running 6.12 with PowerPlay disabled.

~ Brett

 

Dammit, looks like I spoke too soon .. My W3J just restarted again when the optical battery hit 0%. That's weird .. it was working fine yesterday, tested it twice .. but not today

I'll keep investigating, see what pops up.

Cheers.

 

****.. keep me updated....

if all fails.. i think we should just contact MilestonePC..

try using 6.8 drivers or stock and have powerplay enabled.. Probably won't make much difference but worth a try.

 

Ok, I've got another hunch. Try disabling "Hibernation" in Windows power options .. let me know how if it works.

Cheers.

 

nope, my hibernation was never enabled from the start

 

Pomme most people have solved their rebooting problem with 6.8 drivers, try them out and then post to let us know if they worked or not. Otherwise you may want to try 6.12...but if 6.8 works first, don't bother with 6.12. "Don't fix what's not broken"

 

Thanks for posting Danny,

The 6.8 drivers did not fix anything for me. I am presently using 6.10. Keep in mind these reboots actually arn't random at all ! They occur when the optical battery reach 0%. IMHO, it has nothing to do with video drivers.

So far, I've deleted all secondary partitions and disabled Hibernation. The problem has not occured since (tested twice).

Cheers.

 

What is an optical battery? Is this something to do with the DVD drive?

 

Yes - you can remove the drive itself and put an optional battery in its place to extend battery life.

On a side note, 6.12 (with PowerPlay disabled) still gave me some issues in BF2 so I'm using the Omega drivers (with PowerPlay disabled) with a bit more success.

~ Brett