Suspend unavailable in ACPI compliant XP system

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Peter
In Windows, the control I recommended you to turn on should be in the Hibernation section of the Power Management control panel. But I don't /really/ remember and I don't have it in front of me right now.

I believe you are talking about Power Options in XP's Control Panel. In there, I find a Hibernation tab, and in there I find one and only one control and that's a checkbox to Enable or Disable hibernation. 😕

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: Muse
I've scoured my BIOS pretty thoroughly over the last couple of weeks and there's no such setting in the Award 6.0 BIOS. Where would I find that control in Windows?

Its not available through any property pages in Windows XP. In BIOS, it can also appear as Run VGA or Video BIOS [if/on] resume, but many BIOS have it hidden.

A potential problem with using the latest Silicon Image driver, is that the Silicon Image BIOS (i.e. firmware) embedded in the last BIOS for K8N Pro is dated January 2004 (v4.3.47). Often, newer drivers for these controller chips can require a particular minimum BIOS version. And according to the Silicon Image release notes, the latest driver should be used with Silicon Image BIOS v4.3.84. Although that is just the 'recommended' version, the 'required' BIOS version may not be far behind it.

The controller BIOS is often updated in conjunction with the driver precisely for these kinds of glitches. You could try either going back to a driver that is a little closer to the current Silicon Image BIOS, or use a modded BIOS that has incorporated the latest Silicon Image firmware. I can get the new Silicon Image firmware into the BIOS file, but I have no way of knowing what the result will be. It is very unlikely to result in a bad flash, but it might introduce new problems while solving none.

You might also try disabling Cool-n-Quiet if enabled and/or updating the AMD CPU driver.

Mmm, I think you are suggesting that I try an older Silicon Image driver because it may support my MB BIOS, whereas the latest driver may not.

I did update the AMD CPU driver, and it was a tussle to do so. I posted here and even called AMD support and the guy I talked to just told me that the problem I was having probably had no consequence. The problem was just that the processor showed as Unknown Processor in Device Manager. I found the driver and after installing it, that problem disappeared. I saved the driver for future use: AMD CPU K8 driver

I do have Cool and Quiet enabled in the BIOS and will go in now and disable it. I figure I have no need for it anyway, because with my CPU fan at normal speed (~2000 RPM) it's really almost silent (Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 HSF).

In the Award BIOS, under PC Health Status, the control I disabled was CPU Smart Fan Control.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Muse
I did update the AMD CPU driver, and it was a tussle to do so...The problem was just that the processor showed as Unknown Processor in Device Manager.

Hmm...that's weird. I've never seen XP w/SP2 fail to recognize any K8 models, except perhaps for the new Phenoms, which I have not yet used. The generic AMD processor driver included since XP SP1 should suffice to provide basic name and/or model string recognition for any K8 CPU short of Phenom. Did you migrate this XP install from the older MSI motherboard or something? Do you even have SP2 installed?

Re: MSI K8N Neo-V/V2.0 from Geeks.com

I think that was my thread in Hot Deals, IIRC. lol! I still have one of the K8N Neo3-H (NF4-4x) boards. I sold two others that are still chugging along, AFAIK. Should have went with that one. ;-)

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: Muse
I did update the AMD CPU driver, and it was a tussle to do so...The problem was just that the processor showed as Unknown Processor in Device Manager.

Hmm...that's weird. I've never seen XP w/SP2 fail to recognize any K8 models, except perhaps for the new Phenoms, which I have not yet used. The generic AMD processor driver included since XP SP1 should suffice to provide basic name and/or model string recognition for any K8 CPU short of Phenom. Did you migrate this XP install from the older MSI motherboard or something? Do you even have SP2 installed?

Re: MSI K8N Neo-V/V2.0 from Geeks.com

I think that was my thread in Hot Deals, IIRC. lol! I still have one of the K8N Neo3-H (NF4-4x) boards. I sold two others that are still chugging along, AFAIK. Should have went with that one. ;-)

I couldn't go with that MB because of the relative lack of PCI slots. I needed those slots.

I did have SP2 installed and it was not a migration. Well, actually I didn't reformat the partition before doing the install, so some legacy stuff remained, for instance under Documents and Settings, info for former users. However, that installation was from an XP SP2 disk.

My CPU is now (after the installation of the driver) indicated to be AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3200+.

 

[Muse]

I got a great tip at techsupportforums.com to try a free tool called MCE Standby Tool. It was originally for MCE but works for several OS's and can do a lot to resolve the evidently very prevalent problems encountered with reduced power states. 😉

It can be run as an exe or installed from the exe's GUI, for expanded control. I haven't installed it yet, but ran it and went into S3 Standby and successfully woke the system up after 49 minutes, which I think is a record. I don't feel so bad now that I realize that the problems I've been having are commonplace and that there are things I can do to resolve the difficulties. This tool looks terrific.

 

[tcsenter]

There are a couple tools provided by Microsoft for debugging shutdown and PM issues but using them and/or interpreting the results can be messy if you don't know what you're looking for/at.

And yes, I was suggesting trying an older Silicon Image driver from 2005-ish. Its not a real high probability but its definitely not implausible or unknown to have compatibility issues between disparate firmware and driver versions. The greater the disparity, the more likely and/or plausible it becomes.

I can integrate the new Silicon Image firmware into the Gigabyte BIOS if you want to try that route. There is also an ITE ATA/133 chip on this board. Are you using it and/or have you installed the ITE driver? --> IT8212F

Every device on the board for which there are vendor-specific drivers could be the culprit or contributing factor; audio, LAN, you name it.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
There are a couple tools provided by Microsoft for debugging shutdown and PM issues but using them and/or interpreting the results can be messy if you don't know what you're looking for/at.

And yes, I was suggesting trying an older Silicon Image driver from 2005-ish. Its not a real high probability but its definitely not implausible or unknown to have compatibility issues between disparate firmware and driver versions. The greater the disparity, the more likely and/or plausible it becomes.

I can integrate the new Silicon Image firmware into the Gigabyte BIOS if you want to try that route. There is also an ITE ATA/133 chip on this board. Are you using it and/or have you installed the ITE driver? --> IT8212F

Every device on the board for which there are vendor-specific drivers could be the culprit or contributing factor; audio, LAN, you name it.

Well, I did something I don't like to do which is mix solutions. i.e. I have run msc.exe (the MST utility and configured it, but haven't "installed" it) and after mixed results (two whacks at it), I installed the nForce_5.11_winxp2k_international_whql.exe all-in-one WHQL driver rollup for nforce3 motherboards from nvidia.com. Not sure where the credit goes, but (knock on wood) the last couple S3 adventures came out perfect. This morning the system came out of S3 perfectly in a few seconds after 5 hours asleep. I'm really stoked.

What's the ITE driver? How would I know if I have this installed already? Should I install that driver? I'm not using onboard audio (have a Hercules GTXP installed) and I skipped that portion of the installation of the nForce_5.11_winxp2k_international_whql.exe yesterday.

Edit: Device Manager indicates I have version 2.6 of the ATA controller, driver ID: 5.10.2600.446

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Muse
...I installed the nForce_5.11_winxp2k_international_whql.exe all-in-one WHQL driver rollup for nforce3 motherboards from nvidia.com. Not sure where the credit goes, but (knock on wood) the last couple S3 adventures came out perfect. This morning the system came out of S3 perfectly in a few seconds after 5 hours asleep. I'm really stoked.

Are you saying that you had not previously installed any NForce chipset/platform drivers? DOH!

You have been a member of Anandtech for seven years with nearly 7000 posts. What topics have you been participating in? lol!

What's the ITE driver? How would I know if I have this installed already?

ITE makes the IT8212F controller chip that Gigabyte rebrands as its own "GigaRAID" controller. Its the secondary ATA/133 controller that provides IDE#3 and IDE#4 connectors nearest to the SATA ports.

In BIOS, look for "Onboard GigaRAID" under Integrated Peripherals. If it is enabled and the GigaRAID Function below it is set to RAID, the you should install the ITE driver. If the GigaRAID Function is set to Base (or non-RAID), the driver provided by Windows XP is the correct driver (the ITE driver is only for RAID mode). If the GigaRAID controller is disabled, then drivers are irrelevant.

Might as well grab the latest Realtek LAN driver while you're in a driver-updating mood:

RTL8110S GbE

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: tcsenter

Originally posted by: Muse
...I installed the nForce_5.11_winxp2k_international_whql.exe all-in-one WHQL driver rollup for nforce3 motherboards from nvidia.com. Not sure where the credit goes, but (knock on wood) the last couple S3 adventures came out perfect. This morning the system came out of S3 perfectly in a few seconds after 5 hours asleep. I'm really stoked.

Are you saying that you had not previously installed any NForce chipset/platform drivers? DOH!

You have been a member of Anandtech for seven years with nearly 7000 posts. What topics have you been participating in? lol!

What's the ITE driver? How would I know if I have this installed already?

ITE makes the IT8212F controller chip that Gigabyte rebrands as its own "GigaRAID" controller. Its the secondary ATA/133 controller that provides IDE#3 and IDE#4 connectors nearest to the SATA ports.

In BIOS, look for "Onboard GigaRAID" under Integrated Peripherals. If it is enabled and the GigaRAID Function below it is set to RAID, the you should install the ITE driver. If the GigaRAID Function is set to Base (or non-RAID), the driver provided by Windows XP is the correct driver (the ITE driver is only for RAID mode). If the GigaRAID controller is disabled, then drivers are irrelevant.

Might as well grab the latest Realtek LAN driver while you're in a driver-updating mood:

RTL8110S GbE

Thanks. This clarifies things. Actually, I had all the drivers installed, but not from the mega-driver 36 MB nforce3 (and maybe this included nforce2, I'm not sure) file I mentioned that I picked off nvidia.com's website yesterday. But the ones I had installed were the ones at Gigabyte's page for my mobo: Driver downloads page for GA-K8N Pro motherboard

I got these and installed them because the driver/utilities CD that came with the mobo came warped to such an extent that it was unreadable. My efforts to flatten it out failed. Anyway, I figured that in general the ones at Gigabyte's page would be more recent and therefore better. However, it was pointed out to me that for components on a mobo it's generally better practice to look at the manufacturer's site for the latest drivers rather than going with the motherboard manufacturer's files. Plus, yesterday I talked to Gibabyte support and was suggested to download the latest nvidia chipset driver. The guy said that I'd need a new chipset driver because I just installed SP3. Now, I think he was probably wrong about that... for one thing, there seems to be nothing there for nforce3 boards more recent than the file I downloaded, which is dated 2005. Anyway, I checked Gigabyte's drivers and they had dates more like 2003, so I figured I should install nvidia's more recent driver file. I didn't uninstall anything, but just ran the big exe and let it do its thing. Like I say, I didn't install the audio driver because I have onboard audio disabled.

Your comments about the ITE driver are also appreciated. I did have an IDE drive on the GigaRAID controller a couple of times, just to do some things for it for my other system. I currently have that controller disabled. If it were enabled, I wouldn't be using RAID on it in any case. I really like the fact that this mobo supports 2 extra IDE channels, but I don't need them presently, and don't have any plans to implement RAID. I'm really excited that S3 Standby seems to be working now. I was starting to look around for another mobo, but now I'm happy with this one. My next mobo will probably be a quantum leap, though, Vista capable, PCI-E, more advanced RAM. But I'm not going to do it real soon, not if I can work through issues with this one, and right now it looks good, but it's early...

Edit: Thanks too for the link to that updated Realtek LAN driver. I'm downloading it now.

Edit2: The release notes for the updated Realtek LAN driver indicates a number if S3 and S4 related improvements and others that look important. Thanks again.