New Dell Studio 540 running Vista x64 bit issues

I had exactly the same "sleep / display corruption" problem with the following system, that I just received earlier this week: Dell Studio 540, Q8200 quad-core processor, 8GB RAM, 2 * 640GB disks in RAID 0 (striping - not my choice of disk configuration but it was a good deal pre-configured in the refurb section of Dell Outlet), 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3450, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit. I was already reasonably sure this was a video card problem (the driver version that was already installed was 8.493) After reading the advice on this thread and this thread, I downloaded the 8.513 driver update, and installed that. I ran into the same problem that others have had: the installation didn't complete, the driver itself installed but the Catalyst Control Center install failed. All subsequent logins and any attempts to start CCC led to this dialogue: I tried uninstalling CCC with an administrator account but that failed so I used the technique described here to reveal the primary administrator account in Vista and then used that to successfully uninstall CCC. After that, sleep mode worked just fine, but I had no CCC to configure the Radeon card (not that I particularly need it right now). So I've got sleep working correctly but no CCC. I might try the newer drivers that are available from AMD/ATI's site (currently 8.12 / 8.561) later to see if I can resolve the CCC issue too.

  The problem certainly has something to do with the ATI HD3450 in my case. My guess is the drivers. I've been using the on-board Intel video for about a week without a hitch. My EVGA 9500GT video card came Friday after a short shipping delay. I was able to install it and load up the supplied drivers and all is very well so far. I put the system to sleep last night and it woke up without problem this morning. I updated the drivers this morning as a matter of course. It's also slept for 3 or 4 hours at a time with the latest (non-beta) drivers and came right back. So far I haven't noticed any visual video problems and DVD movies play fine. Hopefully its all fixed now. I used to enjoy troubleshooting things like this, but not anymore - I just like them to work. Although the 9500GT isn't a hardcore game card, it's really improved the one game I do enjoy playing, Supreme Commander, as well as handling everyday stuff just fine so far - time will tell. At least this seems to eliminate a motherboard problem or incompatibility as the 9500GT and the on-board Intel video works just fine.

I have had several PCs over the last 10 years or so with ATI video cards. They have all had excellent video and features but come to think of it, I don't think any of them did the sleep-mode/power-down things well? Might be my faulty memory? Back then I just blamed whichever version of Windows I was running.  My wife's PC has an older ATI card, forget which one, but probably 2 or 3 years old now and it crashes as soon as it tries to sleep (XP Pro). We have it set to never sleep on hers. If I run into any troubles, I'll be sure to post in case anyone else decides to go a similar route. Never did hear back from Dell tech support...

Hi guys,

I had the same problem as everyone here.  I got the mosaic screen when waking up, I got the strange message about some file not found when I tried to update the driver from ATI website.  My first Dell call only updated my driver to Dell's website's latest driver which did nothing.   I think my problem was solved with my 2nd Dell call and I want to share it with you.  The problem Dell tells me is that the updated ATI driver 8.12 is not compatible with the intel G45 chipset motherboard we have.  The new display driver version 8.12 is so new that of course there would be a chance it would have a bug and it does.  The Dell tech spent 1.5hrs with me trying to figure this out.   What worked in the end was, she deleted my 8.12 driver and installed the older 8.11 version driver from the ATI website.  She only installed the driver and not the Catalyst conrol center.  Go to http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/vista64/common-vista64.html.  Under OPTION 2, download ONLY the Display Driver 8.11.  She did not download the Catalyst control center or the option 1 suite.   She left the Catalyst Control Center as the current version 8.12.  If for some reason you guys can't get the 8.11 driver to work with the 8.12 Catalyst control center, I guess you can try just downloading everything 8.11 but I didn't have to.

After installing the driver and rebooting, my computer hasn't crashed nor my monitor freezing/mosaic pattern for the last 3 days with repeated sleep/bootup/hibernation.  I'm loving this Dell Studio now that it's working properly.  I hope this helps you guys since I've gotten so much good help from forums about a bunch of things and want to return the favor.

Never mind.  The above solution didnt' work today, the display driver messed up again after 3 uneventful day. Mosaic all over the screen when I was scrolling down by pressing the roll wheel and sliding down the mouse.  It recovered after 1 minute.  I had it hibernate all night and it restarted fine until I was scrolling down a webpage already opened from the night before.   It's another call to Dell to see if another tech has any idea what to do.

Emman_32, it sounded like you had a good fix there for a while! Sorry to hear that the issues continue. So far my configuration has continued to work, but with no CCC - though I'm not setting this machine to sleep all the time, instead I often turn it off completely.

Perhaps we'll just have to wait for a newer version of the ATI drivers.

Thanks to everyone for their experiences, tips and guidance on this thread.

I had the exact same problem with my Dell Studio 540 - same configuration.  I spent more than a week talking to 4 different support reps, and even had a technician come to my house to try replacing the motherboard and harddrives - all to no avail.  However, finally, after talking to the fifth support rep, he was able to figure out the problem.  He updated the chipset drivers with the latest version, and then updated the ATI driver and it worked like a charm. I haven't seen the vertical lines since. 

This was such a painful experience, that I had to share the resolution here. If anyone is desparate, I can share the voicemail box of the technician that was able to solve the problem.

Randombanter, please tell me your technician's phone extension so I can call him.  I haven't updated the chipset driver since my tech told me it was a G45 chipset but when I used the freeware CPU-Z program, it shows a P45 chipset.  This Dell computer experience has been most unpleasant.

The technician can be reached at 800-624-9896 x7240099

In case it helps, here are the two files he downloaded:  AMD_RADEON-HD3450--256MB-PCI_A02_R201415 and R191900.  The first file was 105mb and second much smaller at 2.3mb.

I know this is an old post but I wanted to let everyone know what happened in the end to fix my problem.  After 4 phone calls and wasteful time updating drivers and reversing to older drivers, I got upset and demanded to get a new video card.  The tech finally got approval from his supervisor and I got a new 3450 video card.  After putting it in, my system no longer locks up, gives mosaic pictures, nor any other problems that I had with the defective video card.   SO, if any of you guys are having problems with the video card and the updated drivers and other software fixes don't solve the problem, don't just live with a defective new computer system, ask for a replacement video card.  My system has been problem free for almost two months now since I got the new video card.

Just as another point of information on a very similar problem, my Dell Studio 540 Q8200 with a 3650 card (ATI Radeon HD 3650 256MB supporting HDMI) goes into power saving mode even while being used, and won't come back out until the power is recycled.   Everything is still running while it's in power-saving mode, but even resetting the system won't bring it back out -- I've logged into my machine remotely and performed a full reboot -- I even hear the startup bios beeps, but no visual.

I have not seen this behavior during the short intervals I've been running Vista (which doesn't prove anything), but I have seen it when I boot into Acronis True Image standalone mode, Clonezilla (a standalone linux-based disk cloner), and under actively working under OpenSuse Linux with kernel 2.6.28.8.    Strangely enough, I didn't see it under kernel 2.6.27.19, but that kernel had quad processor hangup issues.

Sounds like there's some extreme flakiness with the Radeon 3[4/6]50 cards and power saving.