Turning Off Display Freezes Every Time

I cant find threads about this, so sorry if it is a duplicate post..

If my computer shuts the display off (the computer is still on, it will just shut the screen off as part of power management), I can not turn it back on. No matter what I do, press my keyboard, click the mouse, hit the alien head, etc.

I have to force down the computer and restart it. This is incredibly fustrating, and I dont understand why it's happening.

Its a m11xR2 - i7 320gb hd.

I am using the NVIDIA DRIVERS 258.96 WHQL.

Can someone please help who has had this issue?

 

What about with the latest Dell drivers?

 

Same thing happens to mine.

I do this as a work around at this time.

My sleep values for all my power settings are lower than the 'display shut off' timers so that my laptop still can take advantage of the sleep power saving features but will not 'hang' due to the screen being shut off.

I hope that someone has a proper solution in future, however, my workaround serves my purpose at this time.

 

You could also set display shut off to never, but that would achieve the same thing.

mobilezila, are you using the dell drivers, or the drivers from the nvidia site?

 

Modifed drivers from the nvidia sites. Works great for everything so far.

 

Same thing happened with my last Dell laptop. Every time it went to sleep, I had to restart it. My solution was to just disable that feature.

Years later after at least 3 factory restores, it just started working like it should. I was never able to figure out why.

 

yeah I did this just to prevent it from freezing, but I dont necessarily want my laptop to sleep. Its very annoying.

I have to lookup what "sleep" really does in windows 7, because many times I download large files and leave my computer be.. the last thing I want it to do is stay on for 3 hours downloading with the screen on, but if it sleeps, I dont want my downloads to be paused/canceled.

If anyone has fixed this problem, please let me know

 

I've never had this problem on battery or plugged in. I can set Turn of monitor to 1 minute and it comes back on instantly. I'm really not sure what to suggest in order to troubleshoot beyond resetting your power plans back to default and making sure you have the latest version of Command Center.

EDIT: It sounds like two different issues are being discussed here. The monitor coming back on after waking from sleep and then the monitor coming back on after being turned off by power plan settings. In any case both of these work on my system.

 

Which drivers are you running for the GPU. I think that the underlying reason may be we are using the NVIDIA gpu drivers that required the modded INF file (needed to do this in order to actually play games).

Let me know if you can.

 

335 -258.96
Intel - 8.15.10.2141

That Intel driver is newer than what shipped on the R2. Try those out. I doubt the 335 or its driver has bearing on the issue since the IGP is always what delivers output to the LCD.

 

I have no clue what Intel driver I have, but I know I haven't updated it. I guess I will try updating that driver. Is there a forum post/directions on where to install/get those drivers?

 

Download it directly from Intel. I don't think Dell has the latest. Just install over what's there. No need to uninstall the current driver.

 

You are the DA man slickie88! Once I updated the intel@HD drivers, I am able to bring back my system after the alienware command center shuts off the display! Yay! Back to a normal full functioning system!

 

Sweet -- I cant wait till tonight to give it a whirl. if this is the case, you da man indeed (slickie).

 

Ok, here is an update.

The ability to bring the systme out of sleep only works if I have no external monitors attached. If I have external monitors attached, I have to disconnect them when the system goes to sleep in order to bring it out of sleep.

At least this is better still as I only want my display to sleep so that I can save power when I am mobile and not connected to any displays.

 

When I tested this earlier today I was testing it while attached to an exteral monitor. Extended mode via HDMI>DVI. Both displays came back on after they were turned off by the power plan. Battery or AC, doesn't matter, it just works.

EDIT: And just to be clear, AlienFusion is just a really ugly front end for the native power plan settings.

 

Were you attaching it to one or two external monitors? I may have to try again later.

 

Just one external extended from the laptop as primary.

 

Yeah. I think if you only have one connected external monitor, it will work fine. But if you connect two external monitors, it seems to 'confuse' the system.

But, your advise to get the latest drivers did help to get back my ability to revive my system when power management shuts down the display when I am on the move(with no connected externals) or when I only connect one external monitor.

Thanks again.