2408WFP Power save mode problem

That is a good solution for you, but I don’t wish to use suspend mode on my machine durring the day and don't want to run my monitor's light source for more than necessary.  As the light source ages with use, they take longer to warm up to full brightness.

There is supposed to be a firmware fix for the monitor in July.  I hope Dell is able to make the fix work for me.

In the mean time, my solution is simple.  After moving the mouse, if I briefly press the lid switch.on my laptop, the display comes up consistently.

JJJ

I just got a 2408WFP monitor yesterday and have run into the problem described in this thread. 

Some background info: 

I have a Dell Latitude D810 laptop with a built-in ATI Radeon X600.  I also have a Dell D/Port Advanced Port Replicator.  The monitor is plugged into the Port Replicator via DVI and the laptop is docked.  This laptop is used for work and has a policy set so that any time the computer goes into screen saver mode or standby, the machine gets locked and a password is required to unlock.  Before the 2408WFP monitor, I had a Samsung SyncMaster and I never had this problem.

The problem:

When a time is specified to "Turn off monitor" (via the Power Options in the Control Panel), the monitor goes into Power Save mode at the specified time, but doesn't wake up when you move the mouse or press buttons.

The Workaround for me:

I looked at the workarounds listed in this thread and most didn't work. 

1. As far as I can tell, I don't have the Catalyst Control Panel.  I couldn't find anything about timings in Display -> Settings -> Advanced.  In an earlier post, Crymson posted the name of two options (alternate DVI frequency & reduce frequency on high resolution displays).  I found those two in the options tab and made sure they were unchecked.  Didn't make a difference.

2. The Catalyst drivers available from the ATI/AMD website do not support my laptop.  I tried to install and got a message that my system is not supported.  I checked Dell's Driver & Downloads page and I have the latest drivers.

3. The ATI Tray tools workaround only works while my machine is not locked.  Once my machine locks, the keystrokes don't work.

4. I ended up changing the power options so that "Turn off monitor" is set to never while specifying a system standby time.  When the machine goes into standby, the monitor goes into Power Save mode.  To wake up the system and the monitor, I press the power button on the port replicator.  It takes about 10-15 seconds, but the monitor does wake up. This only works in standby for some reason.

Thanks to all for the contributions. 

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@SoundDude1 wrote:

That is a good solution for you, but I don’t wish to use suspend mode on my machine durring the day and don't want to run my monitor's light source for more than necessary. As the light source ages with use, they take longer to warm up to full brightness.

There is supposed to be a firmware fix for the monitor in July. I hope Dell is able to make the fix work for me.

In the mean time, my solution is simple. After moving the mouse, if I briefly press the lid switch.on my laptop, the display comes up consistently.

JJJ

 

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Several things for you:

1. You don't have to use my workaround. It's for others who might not like any of the other workarounds presented and have a similar setup to mine (see the standby requirement in my previous post).

2. I'm not running my monitor's light source for more than necessary. When the machine goes into standby, the monitor goes into power save mode.

3. Your workaround isn't much different from mine, instead of pressing the lid switch, I press the power button on my port replicator.

4. Do you have any more info on the firmware fix?

I appologize for sounding like I was talking at you, which was not my intention.  I was in too much of a hury to think about it and should have waited for a better time to reply.  I had the same intention of just letting others know another solution.

If you search the net, there are several people that have the "supposed to be official statement" from Dell about a A01 firmware update that is coming out in July.  I haven't called Dell Gold Support to validate this, but should do so.  See the example link below.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/news_archive/12.htm#dell_a01

JJJ

Allow me to add my power save problem.

For about a month all was well with my Dimension 690 Workstation with a nVidia GX 3500 video card using 2 DVI output on two monitors.  Yesterday, all of a sudden the primary monitor screen image wiggled a bit, red vertical lines came on the screen and the 2408WFP monitor went to power save mode.  Moving the mouse did not wake up the monitor.  A message came on the 2408WFP - something like "Video resolution not supported.  Change to 1900x1200@60Mhz" The second monitor seemed ok.  A few miuntes later, the whole system froze.  I tried to reboot several times, changed the DVI cable but the 2408WFP would stay on for 20-30 minutes and then go to power save and freeze the whole system.  Also, during POST, diagnostic light 1 & 2 light for a while but go off.

I suspect the video card.  Any suggestions.  Thanks.

Hi,

I'm experiencing also a strang phenomenon that might be related to how the power savings works.

When my PC wakes up the monitor from power save the contents of the screen is to be corrupted, i.e. there's a lot of pink and white flashing artifacts and the screen geometry is usually also broken. Sometimes I see also pink horizontal lines.

It does not happen every time and it seems to be dependent on what kind of applications were running at the moment of powering down.

The only escape sequence from that is to power off/on the monitor, then everything goes back to normal. I tried it with different graphics cards: NVIDIA and old ATI. Both the same, and with VGA input it happens more frequently then with DVI.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

BR

@BR

Has your monitor started doing something similar to this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=XpFOY9cWl-A

I posted to this thread a few months ago when I thought I had solved the power save problem by installing the Catalyst control centre.

Strangely though, the problem came back after a while. Perhaps it wasn't quite as frequent as before, but it was obvious that Catalyst wasn't the solution. I removed the Catalyst control centre (but still using the ATI driver for my video card) and reverted to using VGA only.

Recently, I checked back on this forum and saw the postings re the Dell monitor drivers. So I downloaded and installed. I now have Dell drivers installed for both the analog and DVI connections.

Surprisingly, that seemed to fix things. I can certainly power off the monitor and then power it back on with no problem. Also, and more importantly, when it validly goes into power save mode, a touch on the mouse brings it back again. So I was on top of the world again.

But....

After a week or so, it failed once to recover from power save mode. Then a couple more times over the next few days. It still works most of the time, but not every time.

Also, on boot up, there is a period just before the Windows XP "Welcome" screen during which it occasionally goes into power save mode and won't recover. Not every time, but sometimes.

So, having read the notices about the new firmware, I phoned Dell Technical Support to talk about it and was told it's not available yet for Australia. Call back in a couple of months.

I now have a couple of months to decide if I want to swap over to a monitor with the new firmware. Does anyone have any experience with it? Does it solve the power save mode problem that this thread's all about?

I'm a little concerned with swapping my monitor for a new one because of the various other reported problems which I don't have (left side bright, pink tinges, colour problems, input lag, etc.). I'm really quite happy with my monitor - I just wish it would behave all the time instead of most of the time.

I'd love to hear real experiences of people who have swapped to the new fimware. 

I had power saving problems with my 2408WFP and my two E248WFPs. I have these three 24" monitors in a triple monitor setup. Once I installed the Dell monitor drivers I never saw the power save problem again. Now maybe that was a co-incidence as I don't believe monitor drivers have anything to with power saving, but who knows. The 2408 does go into power saving mode briefly just before Windows logo comes up but always comes out by itself.

I have an A00 with a Radeon 3450 and am experiencing a similar issue under DVI or HDMI. I have CCC 8.7 installed... could someone post a screenshot of what Chris was talking about here:

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@Anonymous-Chris_M wrote:
Summary so far -

Workaround 1
There are two timing adjustments that can be made in the Catalyst control panel under the DVI section. Unchecking both options has cured the problem. The monitor still goes into power save mode as soon as it is turned on but then comes out of it very quickly.

Message Edited by DELL-ChrisM on 04-03-2008 07:19 AM

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Reply to yukmeez ...

Yes, the problem still exists. Nothing seems to solve it completely. I tried the Catalyst thing, which seemed to help at first, but in the long run didn't work (in the end I had to reformat the hard disk and reinstall everything to get rid of Catalyst). I downloaded the latest Dell screen drivers and installed both the VGA and the DVI drivers. That helped quite a lot, but it still occasionally won't recover from power save.

My latest solution is to cable both VGA and DVI into the screen. I use DVI. When it won't come out of power save, I switch to VGA, then power off the screen, then power it back on and switch back to DVI as it's coming back on. That seems to work and it sure beats having to power off the PC.

I don't know about other countries, but the new firmware is not yet available in Australia.

Are people still having this problem?

I am having the same problem with my EVGA 8800GT.  I was wondering what are some of the best permanent options to fix this. A lot of times at night I like to keep my computer on for running certain batches/video editing. I either have to turn the actual power of the monitor off or set the computer to turn off the monitor, and at this point, both of them make me have the same power save mode problem.

Thanks, btw, are new firmware out yet?

Hi, could someone please help,

My 2408 arrived today and it does not seem to work with my laptop, it only comes up with the message "entering power save" and "there is no signal coming from your computer. press any key on your keybord or mouse to wake it or press the input button on your display to switch to another source". But, my laptop shows it as Dell 2408WFP in the NVIDIA Control Panel, and when I do select dualview I can actually drag something "across the monitor" but nothing shows.

Alienware m15x

Operating system: Vista Home

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX

It's connected via HDMI as it is the only connection for an external monitor from my laptop.

I plugged my old laptop via VGA and the monitor works fine.

I have tried my PS3 via HDMI and it works fine.

I have tried different HDMI leads, and HDMI>DVI, still no change.

I've updated the graphics drivers to the latest.

Does it require drivrs to get this thing working?

In device manager, the monitors (my laptop and 2408) both appears as Generic PnP Monitor, is that suppose to be correct?

much thanks!