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35483
xps1730: Black/Blank screen when booting on battery power
Whenever I boot my XPS1730/8700M GT into Vista when the laptop isn't plugged in I'll end up with a blank screen. There isn't a problem when the laptop is plugged in.
This has been a known problem problem for a while now. Last december Dell released an updated nVidia driver (176.78), which claims to have solved this issue. Sadly it doesn't changes a thing, screen is still pitch black whenever people boot into Vista on battery juice.
It has been almost two months since the last update and having an expensive laptop around that fails to startup when you're not plugged in beats abit the purpose of ... erhm ... a laptop?
Has anyone found a working solution for this? (Setting the "No GUI boot" under "System Configuration" does not do a thing)
Thanks.
bnculp
24 Posts
0
February 14th, 2009 10:00
I have the exact same problem and have posted about it several times.
I opened an incident last month with Dell tech support and they told me to go back to the original factory drivers. They refused to acknowledge that the drivers released in December 2008 (176.78) did not fix the blank screen while on battery problem.
I had been a loyal Dell customer with many purchases over nearly a decade. The M1730 will be my last. Unacceptable support :emotion-9:
pepitovfr_e2b8ad
8 Posts
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March 28th, 2009 23:00
Has Dell (or anybody else) come up with a solution to this booting blank on battery power problem?
I find it hard to believe that with so many people experiencing it that Dell continues to ignore it :emotion-42:
bnculp
24 Posts
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April 8th, 2009 06:00
I opened a second incident will Dell on this problem. The first response was to try the latest Nvidia driver, 179.48, released in Feb 2009. After I informed Dell that I had already tried 179.48 and that it did NOT solve the problem, I got this response :
"Dell along with Nvidia is working on this unique issue and we'd get back to you once we find a turn around for this issue"
pepitovfr_e2b8ad
8 Posts
0
April 8th, 2009 15:00
Interesting, I thought the latest version driver was 7.15.11.7713 (3/12/2008), that's the one I am running.
Does anybody have a link for this version 179.48 driver?
bnculp
24 Posts
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April 9th, 2009 04:00
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_notebook_winvista_179.48_beta.html
daweezer
7 Posts
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April 9th, 2009 16:00
There is a newer driver on the Mfgr site dated 01/30/09 that didn't fix the issue either however there is an easy fix: Do the following and it works> I have had my 1730 for 3 days now and it just now has a display when booting off the battery.
Here's what I did
1. Press the Start Button
2. In the search field type msconfig
3. Press Continue
4. In the systemconfiguration window go to the Start tab
5. Check the No GUI-Start option
6. Press OK
Shut down your computer. Unplug it. Bring it back up and you will see the display.
The GUI-Start shows the Window-Loading at startup, this option simple deactivates it and let you boot your 1730 on battery.
bnculp
24 Posts
0
April 10th, 2009 06:00
The so called No GUI start boot option solution does NOT work for me and others who have tried it. It has been mentioned before.
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19258273/19429998.aspx#19429998
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19184727/19334591.aspx#19334591
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19132349/19284354.aspx#19284354
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19248179/19463569.aspx#19463569
http://en.community.dell.com/forums/p/19248179/19394677.aspx#19394677
hartikka
4 Posts
0
April 11th, 2009 07:00
FYI: I have 2 xps 1730's. One boots on battery & one doesn't. Different video drivers have had no effect. I can boot in safe mode on battery. The only work around I have so far is to hibernate the system instead of doing a shut down if I want to take the unit somewhere without the pwr supply. That works fine. Beyond that I don't know why Vista is not starting up, which is why the screen is black. Attempting a clean boot didn't help either.
pepitovfr_e2b8ad
8 Posts
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April 11th, 2009 17:00
That's interesting. One of them must have a different firmware or motherboard version.
daweezer
7 Posts
0
April 13th, 2009 10:00
This was a one-time fix. It booted once off the battery to show the display but after that, you have to hibernate your system if you want to use it some where there isn't a plug in power supply. For a $1700 machine, this needs to be fixed soon.
pepitovfr_e2b8ad
8 Posts
0
April 13th, 2009 16:00
Good news. I updated to the current Nvidia drivers on the Dell website and the problem is fixed. Laptop now boots on battery fine :)
pipelinecache
4 Posts
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April 25th, 2009 12:00
Hi,
could you point me to the drivers you've installed? The only thing I can find is the old version 176.78:
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R204465&SystemID=XPS_1730&servicetag=&os=WV64&osl=en&deviceid=15130&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=1&catid=6&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=6&fileid=285117
daweezer
7 Posts
0
April 26th, 2009 13:00
I upgraded to the new one on dell's site almost 2 weeks ago and the issue was fixed for only 8 battery boots and then the problem started again. Please let me know if the problem arises again and if not, i'll try it again. Thanks.
pepitovfr_e2b8ad
8 Posts
0
April 26th, 2009 17:00
The one I got from the Dell website was called NVIDIA_-GEFORCE-GO-8700M-GT-_A09_R204464.EXE
Driver information in Device Manager reports Driver Date: 22/10/2008, Driver Version: 7.15.11.7678
It's still working fine, booting off battery no problems.
daweezer
7 Posts
0
April 26th, 2009 18:00
This is the link for the older video driver: http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15247.
I am grateful to have seen bnculp's post showing this driver as one that works. I hate that this hasn't been fixed yet though.