Zepto won't start. Tpm problem.

I've bought a zepto 6224 some months ago and from the very beginning it has been haunted by problems.

It has always had problems starting. 1/3 of the times when I try to start it, it get stuck on a "bright" black screen. This problem can most of the times be solves by simply restarting, although it is rather annoying to do so that often.

Another problem I have with is standby problems. Whenever I enter standby and resume it again, my cpu works with +50% usage all the time, and the computer is very laggy.

Now the other day I was trying to solve theese problems once again. I had already installed all drivers, including bios, in the correct order on a clean windows xp install. Only thing I was missing was activating the trusted platform module (tmp).
So wen't ahead and did that, figuering that then I would have done everything I could do, and set a tpm password. Wen't into bios to activate the device and it restarted... When it started the screen displayed the zepto intro screen. I then waited. Then I realised it was stuck there, so I tried to press the f2 button to enter the bios... My keyboard did not respond. I realised I had to enter a password somehow, but how is that possible with no keyboard responce? Now I am stuck with a malfunctioned computer, I am not even able to reinstall windows.

I am beginning to get tired of zepto. I have already written to them, but I figure a response will come muuuch faster here.

Please help if you can.

 

I have always avoided the TPM in case it decided to lock me out of my own computer.

You may be able to clear the newest problem by removing the main battery and the coin cell in the memory compartment and then leaving the computer for a while (I'm not sure how long). There's also the possibility that reflashing the BIOS (if you can boot to CD) will also reset the settings.

John

 

same happened to me. i just fiddled around with tpm settings, i did what john ramsey said, turn off, remove battery and cmos battery and wait for about half an hour. then after reinstalling all batteries my notebook worked again.

i have the the standby problem too. i am using hibernate mode, this works perfectly for me.

 

These days the only significant bug I have is that often (but always) the Ethernet adaptor disappears on a reboot. If I shut down, count to ten and then restart then it is fine.

Originally I had a problem with my 6024W bouncing out of hibernation. This went away when I installed the newest Intel matrix storage driver. It seems the Turbo Memory software installed an older and buggy driver. I've now pulled my Turbo Memory module. If you have got one then try disabling it in the BIOS. Maybe your problems with sleep will be reduced.

I presume that you have applied the latest Service Pack (SP1 for Vista, SP3 for XP).

John

 

Thanks for your replies.

I removed both my batteries, the main and the little one inside the laptop. I waited for half an hour and reinserted both batteries and started the computer. Now I open on the same zepto screen as before, the only difference is the "press f2 for setup" message in the lower left corner is replaced by "System Resuming...", and it's stuck there. So I'm still unable to start the computer.

 

A different message is progress. It now seems to be trying to resume. Did you kill that by pushing down the power button until the computer goes off?

What happens if you try to start the computer while holding down one of Esc / F2 / F12?

John

 

How much RAM is in the system?

 

Hi Andreas,

Since your problems are mostly software issues regarding XP inside your 6224Ws.
Zepto generally doesn't support XP when you couple your configs with a Penryn processor. I am not an European rep for Zepto so whatever I tell you might not be good for you.

In Singapore, we support people who buy Zeptos with XP.

Here are the things we normally do when our customers purchase 6224Ws with XP.

In the BIOS

Advanced->Disable ACPI _Sx is set to S3 - This effectively disables standby mode and bypasses the Penryn bug.

Advanced-> PXE OPROM is set to Disabled - Minor Annoyance of the LAN boot comes up. It helps the machine to boot up faster.

Intel->ICH Control->Integrated Device Control->ICH Sata Pata Control->DFOROM(Robson) Support is set to disabled to help solve any incompatible problems with XP. In case you have an exclamation mark in Device Manager, you can just disable the driver there.

You can set SATA to compatible mode if you don't have an XP CD with Intel SATA drivers "slipstreamed" into its installation.

Security->TPM Support is normally disabled. You can enable it if you are using the TPM features but that is only if encrypted hard disks are important to you. Vista support for TPM is better than XP.

We also slipstream XP DVDs with the 6224W and 3415W drivers for people who just want to easily install their systems without hassle.

Our "Recovery Discs" also include Dual Core fixes/WPA2 fixes etc to ensure the smooth operation of the Zeptos. They only include the Intel Wireless drivers though.

You can find the Recovery DVDs in ftp://ftp.mucro.asia/Recovery_DVDs_SantaRosa/ The only bug of the Recovery Discs is you have to reinstall QLButton after everything is installed into the system. Vista Recovery DVDs require you to double click "postinstall" because the Slipstreaming software was not as mature as the XP software.

Please bear in mind the Server is in Singapore and if you are downloading something, please use a Download Manager that is capable of resuming. If you can limit your download speed, please do so as this could affect our web server as they are sharing the same slow connection.

 

My computer has apromately 4 gb ram and nothing different happends when i push down the keys you mentioned, Ratsey.
I don't think I killed the resume cause I left it for quite a while (10 min).
I'm currently trying to download the recovery disk, while waiting for zepto responce.

 

Turn off the machine and take off the 6 cell battery.
Try and take one RAM module out and fire up the machine.
If it fires up go into the BIOS and disable TPM.
Afterwards put the RAM back in and forget about TPM. It's not important and what i've seen across systems is that it gives more problems that what good is.

You also mentioned the system sometimes doesn't power on. Try and run a RAM test to see if one of the RAM modules should be defective.

 

i had the same issue with "resuming...." - all i did was take out the hd and boot your pc. then put the hd back to its place and do another bootup. this will do the job. at least it did for me.

 

Andreas,

Did you enable the TPM inside from the Infineon TPM application? If you did, the application might have enabled "encryption" leaving the BIOS to think you are on Hibernation when you have encrypted it with TPM. See if you could press the arrow keys and F2 keys to go into the BIOS when you can. That works sometimes. Try taking out the batteries again and make sure your power supply is not connected.

I don't see you downloading anything from the server now.

 

I tried to download the recovery file from your server but it failed. And I'm not able to try to download it again at the moment, cause I only have limited access to a computer.

I'm not to keen on trying to fiddle with the computers harddisk and ram, cause I might accedently damage something.

At the moment (monday) I was hoping to get an answer from zepto (dk), but they just send me an email telling me they needed more time to answer. So I'm hoping for an answer tomorrow.

Thank you for all your replies and tips.

 

Andreas, have you tried what i recommended on the first page? That is what i have seen has worked with other machines on the market locking up with TPM enabled.

 

Thank you very much Kadett
It's working now. I was a bit uneasy about touching the ram, but I finaly got to it.

So now my computer is up and running and ready for school. Problem solved. Although, I still have the standby problem and opening black screen problem. If you have any other suggestions than the ones already posted, I will try them out one by one. You have all been very helpfull and I was surprised at the fast responses. Thank you!

 

I would recommend you try and test the machine with Memtest to see if ther should be any defective RAM in the machine.

About standby problems that can be everything from a driver in the system making the system make problems in standby to some software you have installed on the machine making problems regarding the standby function.

 

thank you thank you you saved my comp its was also brand new i used lots of lots of hours to find out

 

I have the exact same problem, which is why I am going to 'bump' this thread with two (rather) quick questions:

If I remove some of the RAM, will it void the warranty?

How exactly, do I go about removing it? My Zepto is a Znote 6324w. I've looked at it, and noticed there are two 'pins' in the side holding the ram down, but I'm not really sure how to remove the ram.

Thank you for your help!

Edit: One note, this is with windows vista, not xp.

 

@Craze:
Push the "two pins" out away from the memory modules and the module should just pop up. Then carefully slide the module out from the socket.

 

@craze: if you remove the RAM you will void the warranty, it says so on the RAM-modules. But i don't think they are glued there so noone will find out

 

Edit:

I followed the advice given earlier, and now my computer works. Thanks for the help people!

 

Megatron, it just means that if the stickers are removed from the RAM you will void the warranty on the RAM.

 

And I don't think anyone here is going to be removing the actual IC's that make up the ram module.