LCD unresponsive after sleeping for a couple hours.

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Plinkerton · #1 Post by **Plinkerton** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:19 pm

So far I've only noticed this a couple times, both after my TP was asleep for a couple hours. When I open the TP back up, it seems to resume normal startup by the lights. The WIFI reconnects, and the battery light, and the little circle with the "z" light come back on as usual. The odd part is that the LCD does not do anything at all. It stays completely black.

So far, the only way I can see of getting out of this is to hold the power button, until the TP shuts down, then turn it back on. It doesn't do this every time, and everything else is working perfectly all the time. There are no video driver issues, as I don't have that screen flickering or anything light that.

Does anyone know why this happens, or what's going on? It seems pretty intermittent, and only happens ocassionaly. Its a bit annoying though, when it does happen.

Thanks everyone,
Plink

lfeagan · #2 Post by **lfeagan** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:23 pm

Dude, I had that type of garbage happening to me too until I got rid of the lame stock video drivers and put on some OmegaDrivers. At least I think that is what fixed it. Anyways, give that a shot.

http://www.omegadrivers.net/

Plinkerton · #3 Post by **Plinkerton** » Mon Oct 25, 2004 11:56 pm

Thanks a lot lfeagan. How exactly do I know which ones I need? I clicked on ATI Radeon, as that's what I have, (9600), and then I clicked on the Windows XP link, and it brought up a bunch of files, all the same name, called:
"Radeon Omega Drivers 2.5.90 (Catalyst 4.10 Beta)"

Is that what I need? Do I just download it, and do whatever it says? It's about 16.2 megs it says.

I hope that's all it is. it would be a bit of a drag if it was something serious.

Thanks again,
Plink

Oh, one other thing, I downloaded that, and went to install it, and it said "If you currently have ATI drivers installed, uninstall the ATI control panel or CCC before continuing. Then it says to NEVER instal the ATI stuff after you instal the Omega stuff. It says to uninstal it by going to ADD/REMOVE programs.

Should I do all this?

Also, if anyone else has any experience with this problem, please add something here also.

Thanks.

MichaelMeier · #4 Post by **MichaelMeier** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:58 am

Plinkerton · #5 Post by **Plinkerton** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:19 am

Thanks for that insight Michael. I think every time it's happened to me, I have had Firefox open, as I usually do. If I had thought of pressing Fn+F7 it probably wouldn't have bothered me as much. i've never thought to do that.

I'll see if I should install these drivers that lfeagan showed me, and I'll remember your tip.

Anyone else with this slight issue?

Thanks.

This place is like a support group.

Plinkerton · #6 Post by **Plinkerton** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 11:49 am

While I wait for lfeagan to clarify on what I should do with these drivers, I'll ask another question I'm curious about.

Every once in a while, when I boot up, if there is a wifi connection around, and my computer tries to connect to it, I sometimes get an error that says, something like: There is an error with the wifi connections icon in the taskbar, we'll have to close it. Then, after that error, another one comes up, and says the IBM Access connection icon had an error too, and we'll have to close that one. Everything still functions properly, the wifi connection hooks up, and there is no issue, but the icons dissapear from the taskbar.

Why does this happen? It really doesn't bother me, as everything still functions fine, but it's a little strange, and I WANT PERFECTION! :p

Thanks everyone,
Plink

EDIT: One other thing I just found regarding the installation of drivers.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=4759
That thread mentions that drivers from ATI shouldn't be installed. I was just wondering if this could relate the same to installing drivers from Omega.

Plinkerton · #7 Post by **Plinkerton** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 12:16 am

Dammit. It just happened again. I haven't installed those drivers yet, as I'm waiting for lfeagans response.

This time, I think I had Firefox closed, and it was only asleep for 10 minutes or so.

I opened it up, and the lights came on, the wifi picked up, but the screen was just blank. not a flicker. I hit fn+f7 a million times, and every other function key. I hit control alt delete, nothing did anything.

Finally I had to restart by holding the power button.

Other than that, it's been functioning perfectly all day long, through a bunch of sleeps and awakes.

Help!!!

EDIT: and that stupid issue that I mentioned before about the wifi taskbar icons just happened again. What the hell...

MichaelMeier · #8 Post by **MichaelMeier** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:12 am

Plinkerton · #9 Post by **Plinkerton** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:33 am

Yeah, sleep, standby, the thing with the little nighty-night moon thing.

I have the presentation manager thing installed, as I haven't removed any IBM preinstall stuff.

This time, I had it on AC in standby, and then I took it off of AC, and opened it, and that's when the problem happened.

Other than that, everything has been functioning perfect;y, which is very nice. It's nice to have a sense of reliability with this computer. I'm glad it's only having that issue, and that I'm not the only one. Hopefully we'll find a solution.

I wish lfeagan would respond, as he seems to have a fix, though he doesn't seem positive if it actually works.

-Plink-

lfeagan · #10 Post by **lfeagan** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:19 pm

It is perfectly normal to uninstall your video drivers to get the Omega drivers on. It will likely ask you to reboot and if you do it should come back up with the display in like 800x600 or 640x480 resolution. This is normal as it should have reverted back to the generic VGA driver. But, I would like to hear more about specifically how you make this happen as I can't get it to happen to me again. I just want to make sure that I have things fixed.

I will say though, I leave firefox running all of the time and I don't seem to remember it having any correlation to the weird display behaviour. As far as the wifi and access connections thing, I have never gotten that error, but I have had mine disappear once. Seems to have to do with it coming out of hibernate and being in an "bad" state such that things get messed up. Perhaps the wifi software comes up while the hardware is only partially initialized or something.

I will admit, I do have a suspicion based on what you said. I am starting to think it is NOT the display drivers but is in fact the keyboard. Do this, try getting it to happen again, and after it is screwed up, hook up a USB keyboard if you have one around or a USB mouse or something and then see if you can get it to wake up. If that doesn't work, try it with the keyboard and mouse hooked up before making it to weird and try to get it to happen (while using the built in keyboard) and then try the USB keyboard and see if it works.

lfeagan · #11 Post by **lfeagan** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:22 pm

I just tried this sequence you mentioned as:

"This time, I had it on AC in standby, and then I took it off of AC, and opened it, and that's when the problem happened. "

And it came back up just fine for me.

Plinkerton · #12 Post by **Plinkerton** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:44 pm

lfeagan, I actually can't seem to get it to replicate ever. each time it's happened, which is maybe 2 or 3 times total, I was doing something different. Once it was in standby for a few hours, another time, I had Firefox running, and another time was what you just mentioned.

It seems to be very intermittant.

I haven't tried the drivers yet. I guess I will right now. I can't get this problem to replicate, as I said, so it will be a bit hard trying to find what the issue is.

I don't have a USB keyboard, but do have a mouse. It didn't seem to do anything either, when I moved it and clicked it, as I have done when this happened before.

If you said that you used to have issues like this, but don't anymore seemingly due to the drivers, maybe that is in fact the problem?

I'll give it a shot.

Thanks for the help everyone,
Plink

Plinkerton · #13 Post by **Plinkerton** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:59 pm

Well, I did it. I installed the Omega drivers. It said at one point, that this hasn't been tested by windows XP and microsoft recommends that i don't install it. I did it anyway. Everything booted back up just fine, and seems to be working without an issue.

So, as for now, all is okay. I'll let you know if that LCD issue comes up again. It hasn't done it again since I posted that it did last time.

Thanks again,
Plink

EDIT: Well, there seems to be a slight issue after installing these drivers. On the desktop, or anywhere else, when I right click something, and the menu pops up, it takes longer to pop up, and it kind of fades in. That's too bad. What should I do? Everything seems to work other than that. Videos seem to run fine, and everything else is okay. Are there preferences settings that could fix this issue? I know nothing about stuff like this, so any help would be appreciated.

EDIT 2: I searched for Omega Driver Fading, and I found out about it. it's no big deal, and I got it to stop.

Thanks again,
Plink

Plinkerton · #14 Post by **Plinkerton** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 1:22 am

Okay, the problem happened again. This is what happend.

I had the system on AC power, with a wireless USB mouse plugged in and turned on.

I closed the lid, which put the system into standby. 5 minutes later, I unplugged the AC, and the USB dongle WITHOUT putting the computer back into operation mode.

When I opened the computer a second later, the screen would not turn on, etc. and I had to restard.

I'm thinking that it's something to do with the USB thing.

I'm going to try it once, removing the power, without the USB mouse, to see if it works, and another time, unplugging the USB mouse to see if I can replicate what I did this time.

I'll let you know. Is this a possibility though? Does it makes sense to react this way?

EDIT!!!!!: HOORAY!!!! I SOLVED THE PROBLEM! It was the USB mouse. Stupid thing. When I disconnect it while the computer is in standby, then turn it on again, the problem happens. I replicated it perfectly, and the power cord has nothing to do with it.

Now I will just make sure to disconnect the USB wireless dongle before standby.

Thanks for all your help.
Plink

lfeagan · #15 Post by **lfeagan** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 2:14 am

Hey, that is wonderful to hear that you got it fixed. Now you can go back to the stock IBM drivers if you like since they do have a fairly nice setup/integration into the notebook. I am sure you know where to find the installer on the hard drive.

lvlolvlo · #16 Post by **lvlolvlo** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 2:47 am

have you lot tried updateing your grfx drivers, power mngmnt drivers, and the thinkpad presentation mngr drivers?

mdarnton · #17 Post by **mdarnton** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 7:17 am

If your computer's doing the same thing as mine always does, try hitting the Fn key, alone, a couple of times. I always have to do that after the screen's gone to sleep, and I never suspected it wasn't normal--it just seems to be the sharpest stick on the keyboard for waking things up, for me. :-)

Plinkerton · #18 Post by **Plinkerton** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 10:06 am

One would think I would know where it is... But alas...

I went to the drivers folder in the C drive, but I don't see anything. I went to Video in the Driver folder and still didn't see anything.

Oh, maybe I found it. I don't want to run it if I'm not sure though.

IBMTOOLS>DRIVERS>VIDEO
I see something called SETUP.EXE that has an ATI logo. It says that it's an ATI CIMM APPLICATION LAUNCHER.

Is that it? Should I uninstall the Omega drivers first in the ADDREMOVE section?

Thanks a lot.

lfeagan · #19 Post by **lfeagan** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 10:55 am

Yep, you found it. It is at:
C:\IBMTOOLS\DRIVERS\VIDEO\SETUP.EXE

Make sure to uninstall the Omega drivers first via Add/Remove Programs. It is listed as something like "Radeon Omega...."

P.S. Was I quick enough this time?

hehehe lolz

Plinkerton · #20 Post by **Plinkerton** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 12:56 pm

Thanks a lot lfeagan. Right on time.

Plinkerton · #21 Post by **Plinkerton** » Fri Oct 29, 2004 1:30 pm

Thanks again everyone. I'm glad to have this issue fixed. i think I can replicate it every time, if I do what I mentioned above.

I uninstaled the Omegas and reinstalled the ATI's and everything seems fine, and back to normal.

Thanks a lot,
Plink

LCD unresponsive after sleeping for a couple hours.

LCD unresponsive after sleeping for a couple hours.

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