GX640 Hibernate Display Problem

Hi all,

I've had my gx640 for about 2 months now and use it daily, basically always leaving it in hibernate when it's not in use. Only 3 times have I experienced the problem, but it seems to happen randomly...

When I press power to wake the machine up, everything comes on with the exception of the monitor.

I can not seem to identify what's causing the problem. None of the times has the battery been low.

Twice the solution was to take out the battery and put it back in. once a simple power off worked. One time when the battery reconnect was required, it took two separate battery unplugs before it worked.

I'm pretty sure my VBIOS is up to date. I'd appreciate any help you guys can provide. Thanks!

 

Try this quick workaround:
- Press Power to take it out of hibernate. wait 30secs
- Press Fn+F12 to make it go to sleep
- Press Power to wake it out of sleep. Monitor should be on.

I stopped looking for a permanent fix a long time ago.

 

OK... It happened again and this time I have been unable to find a workaround. I've been researching and trying to get it to turn on for hours now.

Nothing works ;/ Please help!! I can't even get into safe mode or anything to reinstall drivers/cat/vbios etc... Can't get the screen to come on. It lights up slightly when I power on, but nothing but black.

Also, in case it helps. None of the buttons at the top touch panel work. They light up for a second but dim out to not being lit.

 

Yeah, this doesn't work. I've tried powering off and my computer needs a password to become unlocked so no clue how to get it to sleep. I've tried to turn it on, and type in my password 2 minutes later, and then try Fn + F12 but no luck.

Argh.

 

Whats your vbios version? Check with gpuz

 

It'd be nice if I could check but unfortunately my screen won't turn on....

EDIT:

Ok, I finally got it to boot. It LITERALLY took about 50 battery pull outs to get this thing to boot up correctly. Ugh. So I checked GPU-Z:

My VBIOS version is: 012.020.000.032.035701.

At this point, I'm pretty much stuck with only shutting down my pc completely, and no sleep/hibernate. There is literally nothing I have been able to do to consistently work around this problem; basically, when my pc goes into hibernate, I'm screwed. I just basically have to screw around pulling the battery/holding down the power button for 30-60 minutes until it decides it wants to turn on. It's totally random when it decides to work (I think).

Does my VBIOS need updating? If it does, please let me know where I can get the latest version and what the easiest method is for flashing (I've never performed a VBIOS flash).

Do I need to uninstall Powerplay (I haven't been using powerplay while I've experienced these problems- I don't use it at all).

Do I need to revert to an older version of Catalyst Control Center (I read somewhere this might be the problem)? My current Version is 2010.0504.2152.37420

Thanks in advance- I don't mind completely powering off the notebook when I am leaving my workstation for the time being, but I would prefer to be able to use the hibernate function. Also, it sucks that I have to be so worried about using my battery; it goes into Hibernate if it get's critically low on juice, meaning I need to dedicate 30-60 minutes to get my laptop back. This is extremely painful when it happens.

 

Well, you cannot uninstal powerplay separately. You just can disable it for time being. And DON'T change the ECO modes since it turns powerplay on. Also, you can set powerplay to be disabled in advanced preferences of windows power plans.
I remember I used hibernate/sleep properly even with old vbios. You just have to keep powerplay set on max performance AND disabled.

If you worry about your gpu running too hot with full clocks, you can just use AMD GPU Clock tool to lower the clocks while not gaming.

And once again, ECO modes are big pile of BS, because it basically changes screen brightness, and this can be done with fn+f4 or whatsoever. Also it messes with your windows power profiles.

 

Sorry, i'm not really sure I understand what you mean. I only use 'ECO OFF' mode as it is the default mode. I've also changed some of my power settings, which I believe are applied to this default mode. This mode is not powerplay, if I understand correctly. I don't ever change to other powerplay modes since no preference changes are saved within a powerplay mode after reverting out that mode and then back into it.

I will go into advanced preferences and set this up. Simply powerplay set to max but disabled?

Ok. I was already not using them. The only time I use them is to change the auto-hibernate/auto-sleep functions without going into settings to change them. But if it's only going to cause problems, i'll just do stuff manually and leave it in 'ECO-OFF'

However, I still don't think any of these changes will help? I've been having these problems recently but have not been using any of the ECO modes. It still happens. Do you think the change to DISABLED for powerplay will stop my problems?

Still also hoping to get verification on whether my versions for Cat & VBIOS are up to date.

Thanks.

EDIT: Ok, so I think this may be a different problem. Today, this happened after I had completely shut down the machine. When I tried to reboot, nothing. Before I thought it was directly related to hibernate/sleep, but it now seems that that's just not the case.

I can't tell if it's just not posting, or what. I took the battery out a few times and each time held down the power button for 15 seconds (this is what an MSi guy told me would reset the system over the phone, although it doesn't seem to work very often). It finally worked on the 4th or 5th try.

Seriously contemplating sending this in for a replacement, but would really like to try everything else before I get to that.

I appreciate any further suggestions.

 

You see, one of the first issues with this model was immature vbios and clock settings kept within. Then Powerplay was left enabled on max battery, it tried to set the clocks to 100/1000 instead of default 625/1000. And this caused all of the problems with the computer not waking up from hibernate/sleep, because video card just would not turn on. The first workaround was to disable Powerplay completely and for most users it solved this problem. However, after and updated vbios was released and most of the users updated, this issue did not happen for any of them.
Other thing I noticed is those ECO modes. They are not customizable and they change the powerplay settings according to selected mode (f.e. gaming, etc.). And yet some people use those modes and I believed you are one of them. As I see, you aren't
Other question - do you see any view while computer is booting? for example, msi splash screen during POST immediately after switching notebook on? Or it's just plain black screen?
If it's only black screen, then...I'm pretty much out of ideas except of sending it to msi for repair. It's a shame that you can't enjoy your new shiny notebook right away
Also, can you restart computer normally or it's just randomly does not start?
As the last resort, you can try to reflash your vbios using Atiflash after booting your computer from USB thumb drive. This MIGHT help to iniciate graphics card properly during compuetr start. Also, it won't hurt to reflash botherboard bios since it also MIGHT cause problems (Mind that by pressing power button for 15 secs you reset the motherboard BIOS and this can be related to iniciating graphics card).

 

You can always try resetting the CMOS battery

 

OK.

So the plot thickens, and things get worse. I called MSi support and the guy told me about some problems that they had with the motherboard BIOS. He told me to flash the BIOS, and then flash the EC Firmware. I flashed the BIOS, it said it was successful. I then powered off, removed battery/plug, powered back on and boom, nothing. Same problem. I can't even get it to come on now, been trying for probably 3-4 hours.

I didn't even get to the EC Firmware. I followed the guide at

http://www.msi.com/html/pdf/How_to_flash_MSI_Notebook_BIOS_under_DOS_mode.pdf

Everything basically went smoothly until step 10 of the flashing procedure, where it continued to do the same thing that originally caused me to create this thread. At this point, i've re-seated the Hard Drive, re-seated the RAM, checked connectors to the motherboard to ensure they were on correctly (I thought maybe something was lose since it seems to randomly boot sometimes after I flip the lappy/pull the battery).

No Dice.

How do I reset the cmos battery? I've already unplugged/taken out battery for 8+ hours, held down power for 30+ seconds with no power source etc.

Argh. This is very frustrating, thanks to all that have helped so far. Maybe my motherboard is just defective? Or maybe the power supply is not sending power to the motherboard? Does anyone know how to locate the plug for PSU --> MB?



On another note, does anyone know how long I can expect to be without a laptop if I send it in to MSI? Are we talking weeks or months?

 

wait a sec, how did you flash the BIOS? You got to POST? you shouldve just booted to repair from there.

To reset the CMOS battery you need to take off the bottom panel. It's in the bottom left (assuming your battery is on the far end from you) near the wifi card. Just take that out for a while and put it back in.

For RMA, I'd say 2-3 weeks for MSI (including shipping time)

 

What do you mean 'booted to repair'? The problem was intermittent, and to solve it I was told to try flashing the BIOS, in order to repair the problem. Now that I've done that, I can't get anything (for almost a day now of fairly consistent efforts).

Thanks for the cmos battery tip. What does it look like? Is it the 1" x 1" part in the very bottom left? Or is it the little square above the wireless? It seems like the 1x1 square can't be taken out with only the access panel removed. True?

EDIT:

Think I found it. It's a circular battery wrapped in a silicon casing and was actualy under the wireless card. I unplugged the plug. How long do I need to leave it out?

 

just a couple hours should do the trick, so how far can you get with the laptop?
Turn on?
boot to windows?

 

Currently, all I can do is get the screen to flicker to a black, the hd and fans start spinning, but that's it. It just won't POST. The power stays on just fine, but it doesn't make it anywhere ( no bios screen/windows screen - just blank).

Previously, it was the same problem. However, previously, I could eventually get it to post by pulling the battery, powering on/off etc. The amount of time it took to eventually POST has increased exponentially each time this problem has occured. IE the first time it happened, all I needed to do was reboot. The 2nd and 3rd times it took a battery pull, eventually took many battery pulls etc.

This time, no luck yet on getting it to post, period.

Hope this explains. Even if I do get it to POST eventually this time, I'll never want to shut the thing off again which isn't really an option because I need to finish flashing the EC Firmware and maybe a VBIOS flash? Hopefully we can figure out why it's not posting and then get the flashes finished.

Also, do I need to hold the power button down or anything while the CMOS battery is disconnected?

 

im pretty sure you bricked it
just RMA it now

 

Gave the CMOS battery about 2 hours unplugged, still no POST. I think i'm going to get my media off of the HD and send this beast back in. Hopefully my next GX640 will not cause me so much headache.

I agree it might be bricked. But I didn't do anything until after this problem started to happen, and i'm almost positive I didn't flash incorrectly. Maybe the MB was just a brick waiting to happen when I got the machine. The flash may have pushed it over the edge?

If I don't figure it out in the next day or 2 i'm sending it back in. Thanks for all the help.