HDD are not turned off after installing graphic card

[hutorny]

Dear Community,

I've got pretty old HW setup, which used to work fine until I put some more hardware in.
Particularly, none of power saving options are working now:
- HDDs are not turned off as they used to do
- Displays are not are not turned off
- Screen saver is not activated

These problems started after I've installed
- a new graphic card and its drivers (MSI/NVIDIA),
- software for the display (DELL)
- video camera driver (Microsoft)
I've read all advices from this thread and found no solution.
I'd appreciate any advise on further troubleshooting.
Most important for me is powering off HDDs 'cause, unlike displays, they've got no power off button

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello and welcome hutorny now this is almost identical to my Ivy Bridge setup and I have no real issues with it when installing new hardware.

Now just where did you get the driver for the new graphics card? Is it the same as this one from Nvidia? Drivers | GeForce

Have you got an AV installed? if so it might be an idea to disable it when installing the GPU driver.

I did say I had no issues with my machine except for one an it involved the Samsung Magician software and the issue was solved by uninstalling it so do that if you are running it.

As that new card is a fair size just what are you using for a PSU? it could possibly be under powered.

Edit: I should have also added that it might be an idea too to only have the OS drive installed while you do the driver.

 

[hutorny]

Hi John, Thank you for interest to my issues. Graphic card driver came on a DVD with the card. Perhaps it was updated by autoupdater. I have no AV and did not have it before the upgrade. Neither I have Samsung Magician software. Regarding the PSU - how can I determine whether it is underpowered?

 

[johnhoh]

it sounds like your machine is not entering sleep mode the way it used to. This is common when you have a driver problem. Check in device manager to see if you have a mark next to any devices, which indicates a driver issue. Also google phrases like "computer won't enter sleep mode". Make sure your video card is properly installed as some of them require their own power to be plugged in.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok mate well see the suggestions that johnhoh has posted first and in reality you really need to update the GPU from the manufacturers site because a lot of software disks that come with cards and motherboards for example are more often than not out of date by the time you buy them. That's why I posted that link for that very purpose.

Now unless I am terribly mistaken that GPU does not need the power supply cable to it and the specs refer to it requiring 75W and a PSU of 300W is recommended by the MSI site.

So what you can do is two things first you can find the specs on the PSU using this
Using HW Info
PART A:
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section where you will see what the volts are doing see my pic. In my pic the section (Nuvoton) with VBATT as a dead give away you are in the section for the rail voltages. There are other section titles and one that pops up often is ITE (sometimes the usual one for Gigabyte boards)
Now the voltage on the different rails have to be within 5% =+/- of what is required or the machine will not work properly if at all.
Limits +/- (minimum - correct - maximum)
12v1 = 11.4 - 12 - 12.6v
12v2 = 11.4 - 12- 12.6v
5v = 4.75 – 5 - 5.25v
3.3v = 3.135 – 3 – 3.465v
-12v = -10.80 - -12 - -13.20v
+5VSB = 4.75 – 5 - 5.25v
The Power good signal voltage at pin 8 on the 24 pin plug (grey cable) should be the same as the 5v rail reading/s
See this for the rail voltage info
PSUs 101: A Detailed Look Into Power Supplies (Section 2.)
The original right hand window shows the machine running and is handy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it and use the main left hand side panel
FOR OTHER COMPONENTS
PART B:
Open each small square with + in it on the section the components are in and then click on the individual component/s (it will highlight in blue) - in the right hand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and other essential info that particular device. See pic for example.

Use PART A: - see mu pic for what you are looking for.

Second you can find out roughly what size PSU you need with what you have in the machine using this
OuterVision Power Supply Calculator < this will give you a suggested output wattage for the PSU and allow for some leeway just fill in the specs as best you can

 

[hutorny]

Hi John, Thank you for your advices. I've calculated power load and got: Recommended PSU Wattage: 357 W. Mine is Great Wall ATX-450PN rated as 450W. BIOS shows all voltages as normal, however HWiNFO shows Vcore 0.869 average (see the screenshot attached). Is it too low? Other voltages seems to be OK. In the device manager I've got a new unknown device ACPI\INT33A0 - an Intel Smart Connect device. Also I have another one which is there for years - it is a video capture board not supported by vendor anymore. Last supported OS was Windows XP. In the past this board did not affect sleepability. Following your and johnhoh recommendations, I have downloaded the drivers and applying update.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok now the PU has enough obviously though I am not familiar with the brand and quality of build is all important with that device because if it does not provide the power in a stable and adequate manner then it follows that other components will be affected also.

For example a small difference in the CPU operating voltage (say 0.1v) alters the clock speed accordingly so any fluctuations in that will affect the performance of it. Now the main voltage rails are ok that is the 3.3v, 5v and +12v rails. The vcore readings I think if you were to watch them will fluctuate with use. So for the moment the main voltage rails are the ones that should be within that 5% +/- of the required standard voltage as per that ditty of mine.

The next thing is to see if that GPU update has any effect on how the machine behaves.

 

[johnhoh]

Intel Smart Connect has to do with waking the computer from sleep. Here is the driver if you do not have it
Download Intel(R) Smart Connect Technology

If after applying it you still cannot wake from sleep, try uninstalling that video capture card just to see if it makes a difference. You mentioned it did not used to affect sleep, but maybe now there is a conflict. Something to check. If you want to post the specific model of the video capture card, that might be useful

 

[hutorny]

Dear Colleagues,

I appreciate your help. Here is status update, and I think, with your help, the problem is identified.

I've updated the graphic card drivers and it had no effect on sleep.
Then I've installed Intel(R) Smart Connect Technology and when it runs, it complains:

Intel Smart Connect Technology Agent is not running

I've looked at the event log for records of this particular service and found a bunch of errors like this:

ISCT - isctAgentUnhandledExceptionHandler   [TID: 0x12b0] Exception - address (0x000007FEFD929E5D) - code (0xe06d7363) -parameters(19930520, 2d6f860, d8d81838, d8d10000)

The 0xe06d7363 error code is described on ms support site although I am not sure if I can get any use of that information.

 

[johnhoh]

You need to enable ISCT within your bios. Hold down the delete key during bootup to get into bios, then go to the advanced > cpu section. See Page 3-18 of the link.

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1155/P8Z77-V/E7074_P8Z77-V.pdf

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok mate now I have that very same board as I think I mentioned before and as I can only just navigate the BIOS I think I will leave this to johnhoh hope it goes well.

 

[hutorny]

ISCT was indeed enabled in BIOS.
Also I've noticed ISCT warnings in the event log:

ISCT - CAgentService::AgentServiceInit   iSCT 3.0 BIOS implementation was not detected - fall back to support 2.x functionality

So I've upgraded BIOS to the most recent version but this did not help.

Now I am wondering if Dell software interfered with the power saving feature, because it has Power Nap option which has no effect too.

 

[johnhoh]

here's what i'd do next to try and pinpoint problem..

disable isct in bios

reboot, check device manager (start>run>devmgmt.msc) and post a screenshot of it here

also post a screenshot of your startup programs, start>run>msconfig>startup.
You will need to change the width of the column headers to make the screenshot useful here - do not need the Startup Item column, do need maybe 8 characters of Manufacturer column, need the entire width of the Command column, do not need Location column.

The combination of these screenshots will tell us the changes made to your system by your new hardware

also, to make sure sleep is working, try this. Your computer should immediately power off into standby mode when you run it.

http://www.gammadyne.com/sleep.exe

Probably should have mentioned this earlier, but check control panel > power > to make sure you are still set to go to sleep automatically. I assumed this was true since you said it used to work, but it would be good to check...

 

[hutorny]

Hi John,

Please find screenshots attached.
Sleep works, I use this command to make it sleep:

C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0,0,0

 

[johnhoh]

a few things to try next ....

device manager shows an error on "multimedia video controller". We need that to not have a yellow checkmark. If that's your new video camera driver, it needs a different driver. Hopefully that's the problem here.

msconfig does not show anything that stands out to me, but does anything there look new to you?

If you use a wireless mouse, make sure it has fresh batteries. Better yet, try a non-wireless mouse for a bit.

Do a google on your new graphic card. "graphic card xyz is causing screen saver to not activate"

Do a google of "most stable driver for graphic card xyz"

Shutdown, unplug all USB devices except keyboard and mouse, restart. If the problem is not the multimedia video controller or the graphic card driver, its probably one of the USB devices.

 

[hutorny]

Hello Colleagues,

I've found the problem and for my big embarrassing it was the mouse.
It is an old and worn out USB wired Glaser. I've cleaned its optic before I posted a here, and after I identified the problem by pulling it out, as you advised. The cleaning has not helped, so I replaced the old mouse and the problem is gone.

Thank you for your help

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hmm stranger things happen at sea they say anyway alls well then.