Serious Driver Issue: Windows Vista/Intel 855GME

[Aspenth]

Hello,

I've been having a situation with my laptop that has damn near drained me. I seem to be simply running in circles now and many of the company support forums have been little or no help.

Recently I purchased a copy of Vista Business to run on my Alienware Sentia. Before I purchased it I ran the compatibility toolkit and everything checked out okay to run Vista. I installed Vista and updated the drivers that were missing and installed SP1, that's when the problems started...

While installing SP1 I noticed that Vista turned off my display after non-use and I was unable to wake it up after. I saw the hard drive activity light cranking away and I still heard sounds when I mashed keys in frustration. This also happens when I put the computer to sleep or hibernate.

I tried to install the older XP driver from Intel and Alienware's website, but it doesn't really work. The driver crashes after reboot and Vista reverts to the VgaSave driver, which oddly enough fixes the display turn off problem, but disables sleep and hibernation. The driver is then overridden with the standard Vista driver after restart.

I have found many posts around the internet with people having problems waking their displays. Unfortunately most people have solved it with driver updates and the manufacturers I have encountered will not support or resolve the problem.

I contacted Microsoft with my frustrations but I am not expecting a solution or even a response...

I leave you to peruse my problem, perhaps someone here might find something I've overlooked. I'd really hate to go back to XP as I've become quite comfortable with Vista and do enjoy not having to reformat after every 6 months when the OS slows to a crawl.

Based on what I have so far I'm either left with going back to XP and eating the cost on Vista or keeping Vista but not ever being able to use my laptop as a laptop.

Any and all help is appreciated!

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Originally posted by: Aspenth
I have found many posts around the internet with people having problems waking their displays. Unfortunately most people have solved it with driver updates and the manufacturers I have encountered will not support or resolve the problem.

I contacted Microsoft with my frustrations but I am not expecting a solution or even a response...

I leave you to peruse my problem, perhaps someone here might find something I've overlooked. I'd really hate to go back to XP as I've become quite comfortable with Vista and do enjoy not having to reformat after every 6 months when the OS slows to a crawl.

Based on what I have so far I'm either left with going back to XP and eating the cost on Vista or keeping Vista but not ever being able to use my laptop as a laptop.

Any and all help is appreciated!

Unfortunately, sleep mode/hibernation/etc. doesn't always work - just the facts of life.

How does this preclude "use... laptop as a laptop"?

You shouldn't need to "reformat after every 6 months" because the OS slows down. A little maintenance would do the trick. HDD defragging and programs like Crap Cleaner should be routine maintenance.

Hopefully someone will come along with an idea for you.

 

[Aspenth]

Originally posted by: Flipped Gazelle

Unfortunately, sleep mode/hibernation/etc. doesn't always work - just the facts of life.

How does this preclude "use... laptop as a laptop"?

If I can't close the lid on my laptop, walk 4 feet to my next class or another meeting I'm not using my laptop as a laptop. Plain and simple. A laptop does not serve it's purpose to me if I need to shut it down every time I want to move it. And it's not so much that sleep mode doesn't work, it does. The display simply will not turn back on, my only current work around is to disable turning off the display, sleep mode, and hibernate and use it as a desktop PC, which is not what i want.

My feelings aside, I am simply looking to see if anyone has encountered this problem and may have either customized a driver or found a workaround for this...

 

[tcsenter]

What model Sentia? There are three or four.

Regardless of what the Vista Upgrade Advisor said, Intel 855GME has no drivers that support Windows Vista. All you get is a compatibility mode driver that is nothing more than the driver designed for Windows XP.

As such, things may never work correctly under Vista with this hardware and you'll need to go back to Windows XP. Not such a bad thing, really.

 

[Aspenth]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
What model Sentia? There are three or four.

Sentia 223