New 6625WD Bios.....forgotten?

Hi,

Remember me? If not you will probably remember this:

End of 2007 was a hot year for 6625WD discussions (particularly FANS and BIOS related) in this forum.

A few people including my self were experiencing a lot of noise from the FANS...to the point that using the laptop at night was unbearable. These complaints at first were not heard, but gained attention when people started asking for implementation of user based fan control either via software or through the BIOS as Zepto has previously done so for its other models. This demand led to new BIOS's which were at first welcomed but soon rejected after trying them out as they introduced stability problems and some even made the problem much more intense.

To this, some of the replies the Zepto team gave were the following; "I can assure you our BIOS team is working on the issue" - Rene S Zepto, "An updated BIOS with fixes will be introduced in January 2008" - Rene S Zepto. I understand these are not exact quotes but many users here will testify that what the team said was along these lines.

Its 2008, January and February have passed, we have seen numerous BIOS's released by Zepto, unfortunately none of them for the 6625WD. Soon March will pass too, yet there is no update on the matter.

I'm not sure avoiding the issue until it gets off the publics radar and then forgetting about it is such a good idea for a company such as Zepto. Now I realize this statement is rather harsh and could be entirely false, Zepto could indeed be busy working on the issue and getting bugs fixed but to the general public this is what we see, as we have not yet received any updates on the issue.

This thread is just a reminder to Zepto in case they forgot and a guideline in case they just have not updated us.

All I know so far is that the problems are still there but the promised fixes are not. For those who say this is mere speculation, well what can I do besides speculate?

Thanks for reading

--BB

PS: You may have noticed I didn't talk about the 8600M GT stutter issue .....Ill let Thomaskc.dk enlighten you on that one

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UPDATE​

A summary of whats been occurring in this thread:

Most of the problems are BIOS related due to bad DCP Latency / Buggy ACPI implementation.

It seems that these problems were introduced with Santa Rosa support.

To check if you are affected read this post.

Newer BIOS's such as 011 have support for SFLM (super low frequency mode) which saves battery life as it puts CPU at 800 mhz when idle or during low usage as opposed to the usual 1200 mhz.

Newer BIOS's also have the worst problems, very high DCP Latency, heat problems according to some and stuttering.

The release BIOS; 004, is currently the best in terms of problems. It has low DCP Latency, more brightness levels, less usage in % of CPU when idle, some say it runs cooler and less/no stuttering.

However 004 BIOS has less features and does not have SFLM.

A new BIOS is in the works, it seems to include all the features and fixes the problems mentioned.

Its release is of high priority according to Zepto but there is still no ETA.

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UPDATE​

NEW BIOS RELEASED​

 

We are working in the BIOS for the 6625WD still. There has been some steps forward and unfortunately also some steps back. The steps back have been the reasons for the delays of the BIOS. There is still a BIOS on the way but we unfortunately do not have a ETA right now.

 

And I can assure you, you dont want the BIOS as its now

(Testing BETA BIOS)

 

I have to say this is a real let down for me. My Laptop has already been
serviced once, and twice if you consider the harddrive had to be swapped
out. The service department wants it back a third time now because of
the random fail boots I'm getting.

Now there's not ETA in sight for a BIOS due last year?

Me thinks I'll be out shopping for a new laptop soon.

 

I still am slightly frustrated by the fact that we have been waiting quite some time for both the BIOS and 8600M GT fixes but hearing updates about the matter makes me less so.

Same here, have my eye on the latest Gateway laptop.

 

The 13,1" LG laptop P-300 is just a small fast beauty if you ask me

 

wow....i remember you were in the market for something like that

 

I'm also testing, and I think the new one is good actually ? Which ver. do you have? PM me, maybe I have a newer ver.

 

I really hope they get the ACPI problems resolved in the next release. I've tested versions Z15N004/08/11/12 and all show really high DPCs except version 04 which doesn't have the ACPI issue, but that one only "enables" one of the cores in windows, so a bit useless! This is for both WinXP-32 and Vista-64. This also proves it's not a hardware issue, just a buggy bios implementation

To check if your machine is affected, run this app. The first time it might complain about about some missing service, just run it again. If you are in the green most of the time, you are not affected - lucky you!
http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml

If you are in the red, you might experience stuttering/weirdness when recording audio, using dvb-t, or some other hardware intensive process...

Other posts about this same issue:
http://www.laptopspirit.fr/forum/index.php?showtopic=364&pid=34110&st=80
http://zeptoforum.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=44&func=view&id=13151&catid=41
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=215572
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=181227
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=603597
http://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ting-a-huge-number-of-acpi-interrupts-597349/
http://linux.developers.dk/ich8m/

I just hope it gets fixed!

 

It seems a lot of the problems are bios bugs, I ran this app and am at a constant 3500, meaning red all the time

 

whoah im at 2000 all the time

 

The Zepto team should really read every single link you have provided....it could help then in the new bios.

Thx for the links

BB

 

I'm mostly in the yellow area with an average of 1000+, but with every fifth bar being either red or green.

Edit: Not using 6625WD but 6224

 

2000 above all the time.

This is not good for a laptop that was advertised as a POWERFULL gaming/multimidia laptop, at the time of purchase.

I'm courious what kind of tesing was done on the 6625 model prior to release, and how come quality assurance , didnt pick up on it.

I bet they knew all along what were the problems.

So does that makes us alpha/beta testers.....?

 

Yeah I hope they do read them too! I complained about this issue a while back and gave them a full report on all three of my current favourite OSes with very detailed screenshot's of all this, but I get the feeling that it's all gone into the big black hole on the side of the desk - but hopefully not.

The 6625WD is a fantastic piece of kit for the price, just a pity that the motherboard manufacturer doesn't seem up to the job when providing a solid bios to match.

There is a way to drastically reduce the ACPI "interrupt storm" (if that is what it is) using Process Explorer, but it will lock up the system if any power management features are accessed (like clicking anywhere near that battery icon in the tray!) so its only useful to prove a point.

Here goes if you're up for a bit of experimenting and willing to do a hard power off if locked up:
1. Get Process Explorer ( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx ).
2. Fire it up.
3. Double click on "System" (the one just below "DPC") in the task tree. This might complain about missing stuff - ignore.
4. You should see the properties panel now. Go to the "Threads" tab.
5. "ACPI.sys" should be permanently at the top. I wonder why
6. Click on it, and then click "Suspend" button.
7. Notice how your DPC drops nicely all of a sudden!
8. Click on something else, and then click back on "ACPI.sys"
9. Click "Resume" to return sanity to the system!
10. Experiment complete. Collect 1000 experience points at the door for system debugging

I would only suggest this on WindowsXP as Vista won't allow you to do something like this - unless you know how to bypass it. I'm amazed you can do it in XP in the first place!

Screenshot of before and after clicking suspend/resume attached...

Come on Zepto! Put the heat on your mobo engineers in the East!!

NB: This doesn't cause the machine to under-perform in any way (which is why I am keeping mine), but it does reduce the battery life and cause randomness to occur...

 

I know what you mean....there are so many things the 6625WD was advertised for but falls short on due to technical flaws (not hardware related but mostly software like bios and acpi related). Sometimes I even think by the lack of support and bug fixes that they have stopped supporting the model.

@ResonantWorks.....just to mention that it is indeed the acpi....in ubuntu using powertop it said that acpi was the reason for the most wakeups, you can force acpi off in linux but i dont like doing that. Also the missing dvd drive also is a result of this...we have to set the ide settings to none in the bios to get the drive to show up in the OS.

 

Btw, just out of interest, this is what the very same machine looks like when using the bios version 04.

Now that's what we'd all like to see right?

 

Defo.....by the way whats the downside to the 004 bios....I never noticed it running only one core ?? maybe i dont quite understand the downside properly or i had applied the dual core fix in xp or was running vista at the time.

 

@blackbird
Only one core is available when I had that running - maybe because of this Penryn? Not really a good solution!
And booting with "acpi=off" might not allow all the hardware to work, maybe. I should try it sometime. When I disabled the ACPI subsystem on XP a whole lot of hardware failed to work - lots of yellow conflict icons! There was no way to manually assign the IRQs either - so a buggered system. I had to do a repair install (which pissed me off to no end since that screwed my tri-boot completely) to get the system back to using ACPI.

 

i did the acpi off in ubuntu....also not a good idea

btw tell me how i can check if both cores are working in 004 bios....i have santa rosa currently on 008 bios, il gladly check tomorrow if both cores are working or not in 004 for santa rosa and vista x64

 

@blackbird
Yeah very easy - just open up windows "Task Manager" (Vista/XP no difference), click the tab that shows the cpu usage graphs. Now in the menu (View I think) there should be an option to "Show one graph per CPU". You should see two seperate "CPU Usage History" graphs, one per core.

If you can't even find that menu option, then windows is not recognising both your cores for some or other reason (like some funky bios issue).


NB!!! WARNING!!!
Others out there that have bios version 12 - DO NOT flash your bios to an older version as Zepto cannot supply V12 to flash back to what you had! I'm stuck at V11 right now because my update wrote a corrupt backup to my usb stick and I only realised this after needing it! But that was most probably my fault - I think I formatted it to FAT32 instead of FAT by mistake....

 

Alright thx, im off now, will try it out tomoz and post back here.

 

Much better than before (before being always at 3000), both cpu's recognized I think, cpu idle is down from 12-18% to 1-5%.



Out of curiosity does anyone know why Vista caches all of my RAM, in the pic it shows this

Total = 2045 ---- which is correct since I have 2GB RAM
Cached = 1456 ---- why this much... I don't have search indexing enabled
Free = 1 ---- seriously wtf? 1456 + 1 does not equal 2045...why do I only have 1 MB free?

Graph shows = 832 ---- im confused here

Any help would be appreciated

 

that might be superfetch
it buffers often used apps to the RAM.

the graph shows the real memory usage i think, but your "1MB free" is quite annoying^^

btw: now you got a 6224W-like graph^^

 

thx, any idea what could be causing the 1 MB


now the graph reads 622
total reads 2045
cached reads 1435
free reads 47

Physical Memory percentage reads 33 %

This is odd or normal?

 

i just checked my znote

cached: 1470
Free: 26
used: 760
kernel: 165
page: 419

just after reboot, indexing and opera active

all in all thats a total use of
2421mb

total usable: 2045+419=2464

quite similar, maybe thats an explanation?

 

could be...i think vista likes to use up all the ram for superfetch or whatever as free ram = wasted...and when app needs more ram it frees it up for it or something like that

anyway happy with 004 bios..temps are down, latency is in the green, cpu idle is 1-5%, both cores working, i have more screen brightness levels than before so i can make it even dimmer at night and fans seem to be a little less noisier.

 

i downgraded to the 004 bios aswell getting the same results as blackbird, seems im sticking with 004 for the moment

 

Same here, 004 is the best bios currently in terms of stability and usability. Really like the low latency, extra brightness levels (which i dont know why were not included in other bios's) and the low cpu idle percentage.

Thanks ResonantWorks and I hope the Zepto team takes the 004 bios as a base to build upon for the new bios

 

@blackbird,

what is the performance on gaming with the 004. also is there a problem with the DVD drive not showing ?

 

and how is the overall performance, some results?
well, 04 won't use SLFM, right?

 

@ adr_vdr optical drive still not showing up in vista 64...have to set the detection of it to OFF in the bios for it to show up.

well im on 174.16 vista 64 bit drivers....I don't have any stuttering. Would you like me to perform any specific tests?

@ keule slfm = super low frequency mode yea?, btw i dont know what it does exactly and how can I check if its being implemented?

 

blackbird, thanks for you reply,

Could you test CSS on 1680x1050 all high , no antialias, please

I have vista 32 ultimate , and i get some shuttering, even with the sleep fix...

If indeed 004 is the best BIOS, why Zepto didn't pointed it out, it was there all along.

I am using 11, that is how it came pre-instaled when boght it.

thx again

 

chose energy saving mode, if rmclock shows 800mhz then SLFM is active, if it shows 1200mhz its not
(or use an older CPU-Z version, the new ones show wrong results)

hm, vista 64bit and problems with the Drive?
i think there's a hotfix on the ftp...
right, here:
ftp://ftp.zepto.dk/Windows_Hot_Fix/6625WD/Vista/64Bit/

 

its at 1200...which is the same for the 008 bios...i think slfm was implemented in the latest bios


that fix doesnt help...you still have to set the ide thing to none in the bios for the odd to show up

@adr_vdr gonna test it now

 

adr_vdr

css on the following settings @ 1680x1050



gives this stress result



playing the actual game the fps are smooth always in the 60's with low being 50 and max being 100. there is no stutter

here is a screenshot....i know its crap but its hard to take shots when playing (and no i didnt take it facing the bomb with no one around to show the better fps lol)

 

Don't forget the bios version changelog! If you decide to use the 04 version, some things might not work...

From: ftp://ftp.zepto.dk/Znote6625WD/BIOS/Changelog.txt
----------------------------------
z15N0011 (5/10-2007)

- Update code to support C3/SLFM
- Added FIR & CIR, enable & disable CMOS menu in BIOS setup
- Improve the fan control
- Fixed that some systems can't power on with MX25L800 flash part
- Fixed that system will write "0" automatically during idle state on some systems
- Fixed that system will shutdown when pressing volume up/down key with NUM Lock enabled.
- Adjust the device boot order.

z15N008 (20/8-2007)

- Fix bug where User password can't be modified under supervisor authority
- Patch S4 fail issue


z15N006 (9/7-2007)

- Update memory code to fix 4GB Zepto RAM issue


z15N004 (25/6-2007)

- Initial release
----------------------------------
The best fan control is version 12 from what I've experienced. Real pity that I'm stuck at V11! With V12 the cpu's contantly showed up as 19-25 degrees C (ambient 25C) when just browsing. So the machine has undeniably one of the best heat dissipation techniques on the market. This would also depend on how well the machine was fitted together though.

 

Fan control is the only thing lacking as my notebook has always been loud....unbearable at night..

 

@blackbird
Very sad to hear that Fortunately my machine's fan is really quiet (even with this V11) compare to my other games notebook. Maybe they have different model fans that they use depending on where they source their components and availablilty, etc?

 

I ordered from ZeptoUK

It could also be that my perception of loud is different.

Lets assume loudness is measured on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the loudest.

My friends macbook pro with same specifications ranks a 1 on that scale, my zepto notebook ranks a 6 and my desktop ranks a 10.

 

thanks for the test blackbird, what drivers you're using?

 

np, using 174.16 vista 64 bit as they are the latest whql ones

 

did you get them fom laptopvideo2go?

the ones i found here are not whql :

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17609


could you post the link

cheers

 

They are stated as the latest whql on the nvidia site if you select your gpu to be a 9 series.

I got mine from laptopvideo2go yes

 

blackbird how do you find the 004 so far? is it stable enough?

Do you still get shuttering after 90 celsius?

 

Bios is very stable, no problems so far.

I don't monitor my temps but my brother had been playing team fortress 2 (all high on 1680 x 1050) for 3 hrs straight and no stuttering what so ever.

 

I had previously tried this test on my 6024W and got results in the 1ms to 2ms range. I've just run it on my Samsung X60plus. Most of the readings are less than 50 micro seconds with a worst value of 662. So that's in indication of what the results should be like.

John

 

I also confirm downgrading the BIOS to 04 lowers the DPC readings to 50 microsecond range. Way to go, Zepto.

 

any one know what works for the 6324W? I'm getting an average of 1-2ms with peaks in the region of 4ms every 60secs or so. By the way I've tried all the bios versions available.

 

I have no clue what this means, but my laptops shows this: