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Old 10-16-2009, 07:01 PM   #1
chashock
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Default Second display disappears

System Info:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
AMD Phenom 2.20GHz Quad Core
8GB RAM
nVidia GeForce 9300GE

=======

I have been using two eVGA UV16+ devices for some time now under Vista, with very few issues. The nVidia 9300 GE is the only video card in the system.

I just loaded Windows 7 Ultimate (retail version) onto my HP m9517c last night and all was well until about 20 minutes after the upgrade was complete and I was actually using the system.

Now, after about 20 minutes of use, the first of the two monitors attached to a UV16+ just goes dark. It behaves as though it's asleep, even though I've had all power management on these monitors turned off for a long time, and I double checked and it's still turned off. The system thinks that the monitor is still there in Control Panel, the mouse will disappear when I move it to that monitor, and the app I had open on that screen goes back to that screen if I close it and re-open it, as though it's displaying just fine. The only way to recover from this that I've found is to completely re-install the driver. One other thing I've noticed is that when the screen goes dark, my CPU utilization goes through the roof across all four cores, maintaining an average of 90%+ for more than an hour (I finally got tired of waiting for it and rebooted last time, it may have kept going if I'd let it).

I've noticed from the other forum entries that this driver seems to be particularly unstable, and if that's all this is, I can wait for awhile, but the dearth of responses from any forum mods or DisplayLink folks makes me wonder if anyone's really listening? I have far more obscure technology attached to this PC and it loaded with zero issues under Win7 and is functioning just fine. Is there a major update coming soon to the 5.2 driver release that fixes these bugs or are we just taking baby steps along the way?

I love this product, it has served me very, very well in expanding my viewable work space from 2 to 4 monitors, but not being further along on Win7 development (considering it's been out there for what seems like forever) is a little disappointing.

What can we expect to see in the near future?
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Old 10-17-2009, 06:39 PM   #2
Martin
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Hi,

To help me diagnose this, could you please tell me which process is using all the cpu?

The 5.2 product release is due in a couple of days and this has a large number of changes. Please keep me updated with your experience and I'll try to resolve your issue as quickly as possible.

Martin.
DisplayLink
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Old 10-18-2009, 01:31 AM   #3
chashock
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Martin:

First, thanks for the response. I truly appreciate it!

Yours is the $64K question, as I noticed today some more details to the behavior.

I had some other issues, so I decided to bite the bullet and do a fresh install of Win7, hoping that would take care of the DisplayLink issues as well. Unfortunately, it didn't. The adapters were recognized properly, the 5.2 driver installed, and for about 20 minutes both displays on the eVGA devices worked great. Then one just went dark. The system thinks its still there, but it shows nothing. CPU utilization spiked to 100%.

I was installing some other software when this happened, so I when I opened Task Manager, I expected to see the DisplayLink software chugging through cycles and the install to be eating everything else (the system was at about 20% utilization before the display went dark). What surprised me was that it's the System Idle Process eating 80%-85% of the CPU, and the DisplayLink UI is idle. The software install was still eating 15%-20%, but now the System Idle is through the roof, and overall CPU utilization is pegged (bear in mind I'm watching processes from all users and I'm the only user logged in). About 10 minutes after the first display went dark, the second did the same thing.

I disconnected both of my eVGA adapters and reconnected them with no change.

It looks like some kind of resource isn't getting returned properly, and even though the system thinks it's a system idle process, it's consuming cycles somehow.

If there's some kind of log I can get you, or other info that would be helpful, let me know. I've gotten used to 4 displays when I'm troubleshooting remote server issues, and not having these work stinks. I love this product, so whatever I can do to help troubleshoot it let me know.

Thanks!
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Old 10-18-2009, 10:40 AM   #4
Martin
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Hi,

Thanks for the update. The System Idle Process isn't really a process using up the CPU, it really just shows you the unused cpu percentage (see attached pic). There are some more logs I could use though in C:\Program Files\DisplayLink Core Software\Debug\. If you could copy and zip up the folder as soon as the first display stops working, I should be able to investigate it.

If you post a pic (or two) of the task manager as well, I'll check to see if the displaylink processes are up to no good.

Also, knowing which nVidia driver version you have installed for the 9300 may be useful. To find it, go to Device Manager, expand the Display adapters tree, right click on the device you see there and click properties. Then navigate to the driver tab, where you will see a Driver Version number.


Best regards,
Martin
Attached Files
File Type: zip sip.zip (77.8 KB, 895 views)

Last edited by Martin; 10-18-2009 at 10:42 AM.
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Old 10-18-2009, 02:34 PM   #5
chashock
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I know System Idle isn't really a process that consumes resources BUT, if a thread or a process doesn't close out properly or goes rogue, it CAN show up as if it is. I'll try to explain what I'm experiencing.

Right now I'm in the process of installing several Adobe products. My System Idle shows to be roughly 84%. My overall CPU utilization shows to be 16%, which is normal behavior. Nothing going crazy.

After a display goes black when attached to the eVGA adapter running the 5.2 DisplayLink driver, my System Idle immediately shows 90%+, AND my overall CPU utilization shows 90%-100%, with no other processes getting anything but 1%-2%, none of which is the DsiplayLink UI (the only process I could immediately find that was tied to DisplayLink. That is NOT normal behavior in all the years I've worked with Windows. System Idle should always be the remainder of 100 - All running CPU cycles. When the 5.2 driver dies, that's no longer the case.

That says to me that when the display goes black, the driver has attempted to do something or done something it shouldn't have, and is not being taken out of the resource pool without a fight, so to speak, and is being tagged as sys idle, when in fact it is NOT.

I've disconnected both my displays at the moment so I can finish my system rebuild without more hiccups, so once I get that done I'll reconnect and get you a screen shot of what I'm talking about.

I'll also get you the log files. The nvidia 9300 is using driver version 8.16.11.9107 from 9/27/2009. This is the most updated Win7 installation driver, I believe.

Thanks!!!!

Last edited by chashock; 10-18-2009 at 02:44 PM.
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Old 10-19-2009, 12:36 AM   #6
chashock
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This time I got things to work for a couple of hours, but it ended up in the same result.

Attached is everything from the dump folder. All but one file shows the last activity as 2:42, but one shows 6:28, which is about the time it crashed on me.

I've also attached a couple of screen shots of the Task Manager. As you can see, total CPU usage is reflecting what is in the System Idle Process in the After screen shots, but clearly not the Before.

Let me know what other info I can get you.
Attached Thumbnails
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Name:	Before DL.jpg
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ID:	70   Click image for larger version

Name:	After 1.jpg
Views:	984
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Name:	After 2.jpg
Views:	913
Size:	83.7 KB
ID:	72  
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File Type: zip chashockdump091018.zip (47.7 KB, 864 views)
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Old 10-19-2009, 07:47 PM   #7
chashock
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Martin:

Another update. I plugged in just one of the displays this afternoon to try and get something done, and less than 5 minutes after plugging it in, the display went dark on me and my CPU usage skyrocketed.

I've attached the debug folder (the files updated almost immediately this time) as well as a screenshot.

Thanks!
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	DLFailure1019.jpg
Views:	881
Size:	92.1 KB
ID:	79  
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Old 10-20-2009, 12:30 AM   #8
Martin
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Thanks for the logs. I can see that the usb device is reporting errors, but the logging level is perhaps not high enough to get anything informative. I'm going to get back to you tomorrow with some information on how we can gather more descriptive logs. Unfortunately, this is also an area I'm not too familiar with, so I'll have to raise a bug and keep an eye on it for you.

Martin.
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Old 10-23-2009, 05:52 PM   #9
chashock
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Thanks for the update, Martin; I've been away on business so I just saw this. I'd noticed a lot of errors in the logs as well, but none of them really made any sense to me, either, as this isn't something I spend a lot of my time doing.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do on my end to get you more information. I'm really wanting to get back to my four displays.

Thanks!
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Old 10-27-2009, 05:49 PM   #10
Martin
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Hi,

Have you had a chance to try the product release available from WU? It seems that I cannot get people to look at it when it's from the RC.

If you are still seeing the problem, merge the attached registry file, which will increase the verbosity of the logging. Once you've done that, reboot and wait until the problem occurs. Then, zip up all the logs from c:\program files\displaylink core software\debug and upload them here.

Thanks,
Martin.
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