Before I have to call Dell.... (waking up to a BSOD)

Over

So my Dell XPS M1530 recently began having issues where it wouldn't boot up - couldn't even make it to the Dell loading screen. Still under warranty, I called Dell, and after a good 2 hours on the phone with them (Despite the fact they apparently knew what the problem was within 20 minutes), they finally said my mobo had failed, probably my memory as well, so they sent a repair tech in.

Now I've got a shiny new mobo, but the tech didn't seem to know anything about my memory possibly being an issue. And hey, once he replaced the mobo, it started up fine, so it must be all good, right?

Well, it is, and it isn't.

My computer starts up form shutdown fine, runs fine while it's on, but whenever I hibernate or put my computer to sleep, I can't wake it back up. Sleep mode just sits on a black screen until I force it to shutdown, and trying to wake up from hibernate results in a BSOD with BAD_POOL_CALLER listed, which from what I've read means a driver or new hardware issue. I've tried to run Windows Debug on the crash dump for more info, but it's not reading the characters right to give me anything (after following the Dell instructions for it... so...).

Before I put myself through the Dell tech support circus again, anyone have any suggestions?

tl;dr: Just had a new mobo installed by Dell, and now laptop can't wake up from sleep/hibernate without stalling on a black screen/BAD_POOL_CALLER BSOD.

Jubal77

Have you have tried reinstalling all the system drivers? Usually when I swap out a mobo I make sure to reinstall all of the drivers from the driver disc or go to dell.com and dowload the lastest updated ones.

Since the computer runs and it fails on wake up it could be the chipset drivers or network drivers or video drivers imho.

If it still happens after you update all of the system drivers I would run Memtest for 4+ passes and see if your RAM might be the issue.

Spudge

Good thought Jubai. I forgot about that one (and I have Dell certification whoops)

Chipset drivers! 75% of the time, they work all the time

Over

Many thanks.

I grabbed the drivers, going to start with chipset and work down through network then video if it still isn't fixed.

Over

Well, the chipset driver seemed to work at first (I hibernated and woke it back up successfully), but when I tried it a second time it just stayed on a black screen after getting past the "Resuming Windows..." loading screen.

I've now done Chipset (Intel and a Ricoh Flash driver), Network (wireless and ethernet), Video, and even tried Audio drivers to see if it would work. I've gotten rid of the BSODs, but I can only seem to get one successful hibernate+wake up before the second try either sits on a black screen on wakeup, or the laptop just doesn't shutoff when I go to hibernate, instead staying on with a black screen until I do a hard shutdown.

Best part is that now I just got a new BSOD, something about a bad driver that scrolled down to the dump before I could catch what it was. Looks like I'll be calling Dell afterall unless somebody has any other ideas. Edit: Looking at the crash dump in WinDbg, it was a Pool_corruption, under the VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT bucket.

Djeet

You could try updating the BIOS in case you're not running the most up to date version. I've noticed BIOS updates often are made to address power management issues.

My ThinkPad has a resume issue in that sometimes when I try to wake the machine, the LED lights go on and off as if it was waking up properly, but the screen never powers on. I've worked around it by forcing hibernate/resume cycle again (closing the lid and then opening it again when the sleep LED light goes on).

Jubal77

I know dell usually does this but did they swap out the same mobo model? I would double check that as the error tells me that the drivers are either faulty or incorrect for that mobo/OS combo.

Over

I checked my BIOS first: I'm running the same version as the latest update on the Dell support site.

As for swapping in the same mobo model... I have no idea. I watched the guy for a bit, but I didn't really check what came out versus what went in. Any idea how I would be able to check if it's the same one without unscrewing everything?

Spudge

There's really not a way without pulling the mobo and cross-checking model numbers

However I'm betting they put a different board in (a different major rev at least) if installing the correct chipset drivers actually caused more problems

Over

Spudge wrote: »

There's really not a way without pulling the mobo and cross-checking model numbers

However I'm betting they put a different board in (a different major rev at least) if installing the correct chipset drivers actually caused more problems

Ugh.

I wonder how long it will take me on the phone for them to figure out which model they put in. But all things considered, the computer still runs fine as long as I shutdown instead of hibernate, so in the scale of computer issues, it's not bad at all.

Thanks for all the help guys.