Toshiba Satellite A75-S211 hibernation issues

I own a Toshiba Satellite A75-S211 and use it as a desktop replacement. Except for some minor points, it does an excellent job in this role. I've spoiled myself by increasing my RAM to over 1 Gig.

I was also hit by the all too common problem of sudden shut-downs due to overheating (CPU's don't like to run hot so they shut down.) The solution was of course to clean the dust out of the pretty elaborate heatsink assembly after a complete teardown (unfortunately, it's the only way!). Used the excellent instructions found here: http://www.irisvista.com/ Also cleaned the fans for good measure.

Anyway, I've noticed a slight hiccup in the hibernation restart cycle. (Sometimes it works and sometimes it don't.) It appears to be related to the hard drive. I've done a complete disk scan and (for good measure) a defrag, but the problem still shows up from time to time. BTW, my Belarc analyser claims the S.M.A.R.T. Status for this drive is: Healthy

Here's my questions:

1. Has anybody encountered this problem?
2. Is my hard drive trying to tell me something?
3. I might want to replace my hard drive so, can you (temporarily) connect the old hard drive to the laptop using an external harness to transfer data?

Any thoughts?

brunswick

 

Have you installed the Microsoft hibernation patch for >1GB RAM? See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/909095 .

John

 

Hi John,

Thanks for the heads up. Although I've not seen the error message they refer to, I've followed your advice and installed the patch. You're right about the larger RAM.

Anyhoo, we'll see if this solves it. One of my main concerns was having my hard disk crash. Although you always try to back up everything significant, I've learned from past experience you always forget a few things.

Thanks again,

Hank (aka brunswick)

 

OK. Give feedback after a few days. My recollection of the hibernation problem is that it took several cycles for the problem to appear.

Backup onto an external HDD is always prudent. I would recommend getting one of the big (hundreds of GBs) 3.5" external USB units which are now relatively inexpensive. You have then got room for multiple backups. For me, the potential drawback of a single, recent, backup is that when you find that something is missing then it is probably missing from the backup as well.

John

 

Hello John,

I'm a believer in backups and currently use a second HDD on a desktop system to save as many files as possible.

Anyway, back to hibernation. I've tried placing my machine into hibernation a number of times since installing the patch and it worked OK until just now. It did the same thing as before, wouldn't hibernate and left a little message balloon on the right lower corner of my desktop. I'll reproduce it here:


When I googled for this message I found a reference to the HDD, hence my concern. Any further thoughts?

Best,

-Hank

 

This is definitely something obscure. My own Googling with the error message suggest it could be related to the transfer mode of the optical drive or even the keyboard. There's more to I/O than just the HDD. It is possible that the optical drive is slipping into PIO mode for some reason (this will be obvious from a serious drop in performance) and then gets reset when you restart the computer?

However, the HDD remains a possible source of the problem. Does the HDD manufacturer have a utility to test every sector (without destroying the data)? A possible explanation for the intermittent problem is that Windows only writes sufficient data in the hibernation file to save the current amount of RAM being used (Task Manager will give you an indication of this). So, if there is a problem on the HDD towards the end of the hibernation file block, then it will only get accessed after you have been using the computer for a while and filled up all of the RAM. Sensibly, the problem would show up as a write error in the SMART data, but maybe Windows crashing screws up the SMART system updating itself.

John

 

Hi John,

Thanks for your feedback. A couple of items. This only ever shows up when the hibernation doesn't "take", which I think eliminates the optical drive as well as the keyboard. Also the problem is just as likely to occur if I "hibernate" after closing most open programs and files before hand.

BTW sometimes the problem shows up when I restart. Then I get a black DOS like screen telling me the hibernation data can't be retrieved and to "press here" to boot from scratch. Aside from the anxiety factor, it is rarely a big deal since I save everything I work on anyway.

Belarc identifies my HDD as a Hitachi IC25N080ATMR04-0 (80.03 GB). Hitachi does have a Drive Fitness Test (DFT) utility available but unfortunately it only works off a floppy disc in DOS mode. I understand you need an inboard floppy drive for this to work and this laptop only has an optical drive.

On another note, should I decide to replace my HDD on spec, is there some sort of harness that allows you to temporarily connect the old HDD to the laptop itself to transfer data. I suppose the other route would be to connect it to my desktop machine and transfer data via my LAN. At this stage of the game there is no reason to assume the data on my current drive isn't sound.
Besides, I would use my recovery disk to install my operating system and drivers on my new HDD.

Best,

-Hank

P.S. I don't think I'm into an urgent situation... yet.

 

So you also sometimes get errors when resuming. This moves the suspicion towards the HDD. This site http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287 lists a CD image for the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test, so burn it onto a CD and boot from there.

It would be prudent to think about installing a new HDD. Apart from peace of mind, the new HDD would most probably be faster and, if you want, higher capacity. You can buy an external USB HDD enclosure (~S$20?) and connect it to the USB port. Unless you want to rebuild you software installation, you can use the enclosure to clone your existing HDD. For this you will need some software. For the last couple of years I have used Acronis MigrateEasy or you could pay a little more and get TrueImage which includes MigrateEasy and other backup software.

John

 

Just discovered a whole "new" issue. Tried to burn the DFT onto a CD and discovered my Matshita DVD Ram UJ820S drive seems to have some serious problems. First of all it wouldn't burn the CD even with "Enable CD recording" turned on. Then I tried playback using a music CD as well as a program CD. This used to work, but no more! I notice the indicator light on the drive is constantly on. The drive is recognized by the system but it doesn't seem to recognize the inserted CD.

Then it occurred to me. The multi-drive is also an i/o device. Do you suppose?

Additional info: Just tried running with the multi-drive removed but the problem is still there. Sigh!

Anyway, the best way I know of testing whether the multi-drive has gone "west" is by substitution. Unfortunately, don't have another drive to try and hate buy one on spec. Any other way I can confirm this is faulty?

-Hank

 

I had mentioned the optical drive as an I/O device in a previous post. One suggestion is to go to Device Manager then under IDE/ATAPI Controllers, uninstall the Secondary IDE channel (this is usually where the ODD is connected). Then reboot. This will force Windows to redetect the ODD and reset the IDE channel. If this does not clear the problem, then the health of the ODD must come into question.

If you have a flash drive then you may be able to make it bootable using the instructions here and still be able to test the HDD. You may need to set the BIOS to boot from a USB device - the computer will think the flash drive is a bootable floppy.

John

 

You are absolutely right. You did mention the Optical drive. I had forgotten. Sorry about that. This does appear to be a side issue, but of course I do have to get that sucker working as well.

I notice in my device manager there is also a reference to a:
"Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller"
See screen shot:


I this something I can ignore and just uninstall the Secondary IDE channel?

On another note, it does seem rather odd that the only indication of a HDD issue is that (still intermittent) annoying little i/o thing. You'd think I'd notice other little "hiccups" but I haven't notice anything else.

BTW thank you for your patient counsel. I do appreciate it!

Best,

-Hank

 

Don't touch the main IDE controller or Windows might not be able to see the HDD. Before you install the secondary channel, take a look at the advanced settings. Normally, the ODD is on channel 0, for which the transfer should be set to DMA if possible, and the current mode should mention DMA. (If it is DMA then it is unlikely that the transfer mode is the cause of the problem, but it is worth resetting just in case).

We can't exclude the HDD until it is thoroughly tested but if the ODD is misbehaving, then this must become the primary suspect. I understand that the ODD is modular. If so, it should easier to replace (by putting a new ODD into the carrier).

John

 

My sense is that the settings for the ODD are OK. It's a shame were getting off on this tangent but I have a strong suspicion my "superdrive" is toast. The only sure way to find out is to substitute a new one, I fear. I've had a suggestion that it could be a connection but on this laptop the drive socket is right on the motherboard so unless it has a problem...

[BTW I'm not sure if I mentioned this but the indicator light on the drive is constantly on whether it has a disc in it or not.]

I've located a new exact replacement for $179. US which is about as reasonable as I can find. Within the month, I will be within about a seven hour drive from this supplier, so I'm hoping to check it out then and buy the unit if I need it. (I'm sort of in the boondocks here and don't have access to a good supplier locally.) I'd hate to buy it and find out it doesn't solve the ODD issue.

Anyway, if and when I do get this drive working, I should be able to burn a CD with the Hitachi DFT and check out my HDD. Meanwhile, in view of the fact that a) the disc scan turned up nothing; b) the SMART diagnostics pronounce it "healthy" and c) I haven't noticed any other "hiccups"; I'm going to assume I'm not in a panic situation here. This could of course change.

So, I'm going to leave things as they are and get back to you when I know more. Meanwhile thanks for all your help. This forum has a wealth of info on laptops so I think I'll be using it again. I'm looking for an additional unit in the future for example.

 

I don't know if this helps at all but those matsh!ta dvd drives often go west. They're rubbish. Most commonly they die in A100 series laptops. Thank god I have an LG!

Do you have access to an external optical drive at all?

 

There's no need to buy another Matsh*ta ODD as a replacement. I suggest that you look at the Liteon models. Twice in the past I have used these to replace the internal ODDs in notebooks and managed to change the fascia without any problem. The Liteon prices are more reasonable. It may be easier to find one of the external slim drives and then take it out of the case.

John

 

Hello,

Been away from the forum for a few days. Busy with other stuff.

Thank you Jess_Paws for confirming that the Matshita drive is most likely the culprit. It seems to be a pretty universal opinion. However, that's the one Toshiba supplied and other than these little annoyances, this particular laptop serves my purposes pretty well.

[As far as I know, an external drive won't let me boot from the ODD which I would need to do, both for the DFT disk as well as (perish the thought!) reinstalling my Windows O/S.]

I did go ahead and order another one (new, I'm told), under the Toshiba part number, that I found on eBay for $99. Although it's a gamble, the price for the new one was maneageable and it should at least tell me if that's the problem.

Your suggestions, John, to go to a different brand are good advice. However I'm not sure I could identify which substitute models would work or not. I could manage the changes to the case (fascia, etc), but I'm not quite as confident about firmware flashes, etc.

I should be receiving my new drive in a week or so (I hope!). I'll keep you posted to let you know how it went. I've meanwhile used another (desktop) machine to create the DFT cd so I can run that as soon as I have a functioning ODD.

Again, thanks everybody.

-Hank

 

Hello,

Today was my lucky day! After only 4 days, my brand new Matshita UJ-820B arrived by FedEx. Plunked it into my Satellite A75-S211 and anxiously looked to see if it was recognized. Bingo! Noticed indicator light stayed off. Good. Tried a music CD. Ah... music! Tried a commercial DVD. OK! Next, tried a home grown DVD. Nada. :-( Might be an issue with the media... Will have to check further.

At long last was able to run the Hitachi DFT utility. It showed no problems with the Hitachi HDD, which sort of confirmed the other "tests". Also haven't had too many hiccups on the Hibernate function lately so perhaps that's gone away also. (fingers crossed!)

Haven't tested the record functions yet, but am expecting good things. Willl let you know. As to how this one will stand up, we'll have to see. (The old one really looked new and "pretty" and not abused so it really was hard to believe it was bad. Wonder what goes wrong with them.)

Again, thanks for all your help.

-Hank

 

Hi Folks,

Just a quick follow up on the new drive. Sofar everything works including the Sonic software that comes with the laptop. Elsewhere I've seen references to all kinds of problems with this software and all sorts of weird advice like "dump the software" "go to Nero" "don't go to Nero", "install new firmware", etc.

If my experience is any guide, I'd say make sure your drive is good before you lay the blame elsewhere. As to the new drive's reliability, it's too soon to tell but it's beginning to look like the old one never did work too well.

Cheers!