Restart under Windows = 50% chance to be forced to hold down power button 5 secs.

So this problem has been going on for a while now even before I installed Win 8 and was running Win 7.

Basically when I do a system Restart the computer goes through the process of turning off but towards the end hangs with the display turned off, but the computer keeps running indefinitely. At this point just pressing the power button does nothing and I am forced to hold it down 5 secs and do a hard shut down.

Also about the same time this problem started happening I get random black screens while gaming (very frustrating) and the only way to stop them is to lower clocks below stock and run at a lower resolution than native (lower than 1920x1200 or insta black screen).

My laptop is the one in my Sig, please let me know what I can do to solve these problems.

 

A clean install is the first thing I'd try before doing anything else.

 

Sounds like a clean-install was already performed? If not, you'll want to do a clean (not upgrade) install. Have you tried doing a reset of the system (take out battery, unplug, hold down power button for 30 seconds)? Also, is there any noticeable correlation between temperature and whether the shutdown hangs?

 

Yes a clean install was already performed and problem persisted. Temperatures were monitored when the problem occurred on the CPU and GPU and they are quite stable. Shutdown hangs randomly about 50% of the time I do a restart. Black screens happen during gaming when gpu is not underclock, and even then if I raise my resolution to 1920x1200 I get black screens within 5-10 min (only while gaming).

 

i think both the shutdown hangs and the black screens are caused by a GPU hardware/driver issue, with the former being more particularly caused by the nvidia service (nvsvc). try stopping the service and shutting down a couple times to see if you still experience any hang. what driver version are you using? you may want to try 196.62.

 

Have you scanned your hard drive for errors? If the OS is fine, then you could have installation files in bad sectors that may be causing the hangup. Otherwise, I think mattcheau's advice is the most pertinent to the problem.

 

Hi, with the P78xx you need with windows 7 to use the firewire legacy drivers for windows 7 and I believe for windows 8 as well..............

 

Go to power options and turn off "Quick turn on" option.

Report back.

 

I am using the latest drivers 310.90, tried using older drivers and same problems came up.

Hard drives have been checked and came out fine.

I have installed the drivers off the Gateway support page. I don't know if those are "firewire" but the laptop never had the black screens for the 2 years that I had windows 7 installed until the last couple of months before I upgraded to Windows 8. The problem persisted after a fresh install of Windows 8.

Will try it right now and report.

EDIT--With the setting turned off the problem persists.

 

Remove your battery and all devices (including charger), leave disconnected for a minute and press power button a few times. Reconnect the battery and adapter, and boot it back up. If refreshing it this way doesn't help with the components hanging on shut down, try updating or resetting the BIOS.

Feel free to poke around here as well: Microsoft Fix it Solution Center: troubleshooting software issues

 

Thanks for the advice, I've already tried the above and changed to many different BIOS versions supported for my Laptop. Problem persists :/

I thought it was a PSU problem and bought a new adapter, and still got the black screens of death while gaming.

 

for the 1394 in windows 7 you can't use the gateway drivers, I imagine this is for windows 8 as well. The firewire microsoft drivers have a version (legacy). This will fix the reboot issue. The problem appears when you sleep the system in windows 7. Since windows 8 does a few on these tricks on its own for fast boot it most likely is causing the specific power down for reboot. I hope they kept the (legacy) drivers when they ported them to Windows 8.........

Edit; the need for legacy drivers for 1394 was fixed in bios 9c.20.00 and above but there is the GPU heat issue. The 9c.20.00 and above are the windows 7 copliant bios's but also incorperaqte the nvidia GPU life extension for the solder issue. This is why they run the gpu hot.............

 

Hmm interesting I went ahead and disabled the 1394 device from the device manager and will test if it the hangup still happens. I would prefer not to change to .20 bios but I will if the problem persists. Now what about the black screens, could this have been affecting them?

 

I am not suer disabling it will stop the hang up, something to do with the bios. actually the fix is in 9c.20.00, 9c.23.00 and 9c.25.00.............

 

You had mentioned that reducing GPU frequency below stock helps. I can't help but wonder if your card is faulty. Do you know what your temps are? What they've peaked at?

 

He has a seperate issue with the GPU. This is becoming common for the Gateway P78 series systems. There are many thoughts as to why, IMHO they are electronically wearing out from being overclocked and cheap components regulating power both on board and the power bricks themselves.

The 1394 port in bios is an issue well known in the P78 series. It is an issue with windows 7 and beyond. With the old bios if the system sleeps at any time it will not let you shutdown or restart as it hangs. The problem mwith the newer bios is it utilizes the nvidia solder issue patch. This is where nvidia had the oem's keep the GPU's running hot to slow down the media degrdation in the GPU chips. When there is greater fluctuation of temps this causes the oxidation (cold solder joints) faster and eventual failure of the chips. This only (possibly) extends life, if the issue with the chip exists it will eventually fail.

It is amazing, nvidia said they were setting aside tons of money for this issue but I do not remember seeing anywhere a dime of it making it to end consumers just a few people at the time getting new main boards with the exact same GPU's and eventual issues..............

 

What you describe sounds like "chip creep". That's not exactly a model specific defect; it's just an unfortunate nature of the relationship between components and thermal activity.

 

Yea I am starting to realize I wasted time and money on the new Power brick and attempts to get the gpu running normally. I guess it's time to let it go and move on to a new Laptop. Perhaps I'll switch over to AMD on the next GPU.

 

Also I confirm that disabling the 1394 device gets rid of the hangups, also I have gotten rid of black screens by lowering my gpu clocks to 585, 725,1500. Power Supply had nothing to do with it.

 

There was a settlement;

Nvidia chip settlement lists Dell, HP, Apple laptops | Nanotech - The Circuits Blog - CNET News!
Nvidia GPU failures caused by material problem, sources claim | TG Daily

Here they refer to the latest DELL bios revision, again this was from the recomendation of chip life expansion by running the GPU hot all the time. Gateway changed over to this vbios settings in the 9c.20.00 bios and above.
Beware of NVIDIA Graphic cards in Laptops ~ Codingfreak

Edit; there is no proof to date the GTS 9800m (G94) needs the vbios mod for the solder issue but we got it anyway.......

 

I have some good news with the bad. It seems that the only clocks that I HAVE to lower are the Core and Shader clocks. Running at 580core/900mem/1400shader right now without a black screen in a whole hour of Skyrim gameplay. Good thing as the mem is probably the most impactful overclock out of all of them for smoother fps .

 

Don't know if you have the targus 180 but check the gateway thread. The one person there cliamed grounding the laptop power addapter fixed his issue but if memory serves and you use an external monitor this can cause a ground loop issue. flashing or blacking out the external monitor.

 

You remember correctly, I used to make use of an external TV as my monitor but no longer. I use the Laptop's own wuxga display now. I confirm once again that leaving memory overclocked while underclocking core and shader values stops the black screens. How would I go about grounding my new 150W universal adapter (wasn't able to get the targus over here in Europe).

 

first does the 150w have a grounded A/C plug?

 

Yes I've tried plugging it directly into the wall and through a grounded a/c plug. Did not make a difference with the black screen issues.

 

well if you still can recreate the ground loop issues you then know your laptop is grounded...............

 

Hi, there is a big difference from W7 to W8 in the shutdown/restart process - hence W8 being slightly quicker. Until recently I was unaware that W8 uses a hybrid hibernation process to store part of the kernel state on shutdown & then tries to reload this on startup, which is faster than a complete initialization. However, if (as on my Inspiron in the last few days) W8 fails to shutdown cleanly then on restart you get problems & black -screen hanging of the OS, which is fixed by holding down the power key.

Note that certain UEFI BIOS settings are required to support this process (I think) & that anything installed by you that affects the shutdown process may be an issue - I have not yet found my problem, all drivers are up-to-date, no viruses or malware, OS files are fine, HDD OK, all unnecessary apps removed, etc. As noted above, if you are on W8 & have such a problem, you can try switching off the quick-start process. This is in the Power options, under what the keys do, but you may need to go into Advanced mode to switch off the quick-start option. Reboot the machine & see what happens. If this fails, then I think a refresh or re-install is in order...