monitor in power save mode during BIOS configuration

Hi heffiji,

I would like to get more information on this issue.

Please let me know if the monitor goes into power save mode while using a single monitor?

If you have not tried that yet, could you try using a single monitor at a point, to check if you still face the same issue?

Please reply if you have any further questions.

Thanks & Regards
Rakesh R
#iworkfordell

I have the same problem for a single monitor or a dual monitors setup (both monitors are Dell). I tested it on an old Fujitsu monitor with the same problem.

It worked OK 2 months ago, when I did an Macrium image restoration. This problem occured 2 days ago when I did another image restoration. I ran into the other power save situations (BIOS and DOS)  when I tried to troubleshoot it.

A summary of attempts to troubleshoot so far:

1) cleaning of the box (connections, cable, re-insertion of the cards)

2) single/dual monitors (dell), another monitor (Fujitsu)

3) reset to default Bios setting

4) do not allow computer to sleep until idle for 2 hours.

None of this works. It seems to kick into power save mode after a few minutes when I am not in windows environment.

(OS:  Windows 7 64 bit professional)

heffiji,

You do not list the specific Dell monitor model, but have you tested video card VGA --> VGA cable --> monitor VGA port and then booted into the bios to see if the image remains on?

Hi

The dell monitors models are  E228wfp,  st2420L. Can you please elaborate how to test video card VGA-->VGA cable--> monitor VGA port and then booted into bios?  

But it seems to me that it is not a monitor issue as the symptoms is re-produced on a Fujitsu monitor, which works OK on another system. And I have run the diagnostic test provided in the boot menu. It passes all the tests.

How does your suggestion explain the phenomenon that the system works perfectly on a windows environment, but fails on a non-windows environment?

My assumption was that you were using DVI to DVI. I wanted to see if VGA to VGA had the same non-windows issue.

There is no VGA port on my card (AMD Radeon HD 6700). I re-tested the single monitor setup as

1. st2420L.  (DVI-to-VGA connection)

2. E228wfp   (DVI-to-DVI connection)

Both settings repeat the same failure.

It sounds like the failure is in the video card driver. Moving this to the Desktop Video card board to get their thoughts.

Contact Dell Support in your region and have them send out a replacement video card. It will be interesting to see how the replacement does.

hi Chris,

1. My 1-year warranty  expired on June 18, 2012. Does the warranty for video card cover more than 1 year?  AMD cards covers 2 year (I read it somewhere) but this coverage does not extend to the parts in Dell system.

2. When I log in my Dell account, there is an options for extension for warranty is available in my account. Am I still eligible?

Thank you for your time.

Hi Chris,

I checked with the local representative.

1. The warranty for  OEM video card covers only 1 year.

2. It is not cost effective for me to re-join the warranty program (assuming the card is the cause).

Thank you very much for your time.

heffiji,

It's been a while since you originally posted this, and I've got to say, you left me hanging here... I have been searching for days and finally found this post, which contains the same exact symptoms that I am experiencing now.

I have a Dell Studio XPS 8100, Windows 7 64-bit OS and a ST2410 monitor. I have no problems at all with the Power Save Mode unless I'm in the middle of a Macrium System Image Restore. I conducted numerous tests over the past two days and found that when booted up with the Macrium WinPE Rescue Disk, the power save mode automatically (and quite randomly) invokes at anywhere from 1min, 26sec up to the highest time observed so far at 11min, 23 seconds. 

A few of the tests (31 percent to be exact, including the most important one in which I was able to restore my OS image), did not see a power save mode activation at all up to the 15 minute mark. My one-and-only (to date), Macrium system image restore took 11min, 59 seconds, so I consider myself lucky with that one.

If you read this -- and have time to provide an update or solution -- that would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

I found a solution, but possibly not the one you like. As suggested by the Dell tech, there was something wrong with the video card. I got a new video card, and the problem is solved.

Btw, my boot disk was prepared through MS Rescue kit (the other available option for Macrium), winPE was not available for win7 64bit then.

I am running 2 monitors , which placed a lot of stress on the AMD video card running at over 100 C most of the time. Now I am running a MSI nvidia 650Ti , seldom running over 50C .

Best of luck with your solution hunting,

Hi,

This info may help you. And I have gotten  through by this method  until I got my new video card.

Say I want to restore the backup image to disk 1. I had an older hard disk (say disk 2) with some earlier image of disk 1.

I connected to this disk 2 and booted from it. I ran Macrium Reflect from this partition successfully and I was able to restore the image to disk 1. Now you can disconnect disk2 and boot from disk 1 again. Of course, you need to reset the drive letter and other related matters and set this restored partition to active.

Come to think of it. The difference may be in drivers loaded. You may want to try lo load the drivers when you boot up from Reflect restoration disk. I never try this loading of drivers before. But this is rather easy (and dangerous as you may be stopped in the middle of a rollback).Or, you can just restore the image to a spared hard disk  and boot from this disk

Chris will be able to shed more light. He is much more knowledgeable.

heffiji and Chris,

I bought a new card (nVidia GeForce GT630), and both of you were right on: This solved the problem. I'm going to have to return that card though, because there's not enough room for a PCIe USB3 card that I recently installed.

That's okay though, check this out:  While I had the old GTS240 out of the machine I followed a tip that I saw in another thread here to take apart the card and give it a thorough cleaning. I did that, and it was really dirty.

I put it back together, reinstalled it in to my computer and ran a series of tests to find it working perfectly! Problem solved!

Thank you,