Nobilis Equus Model N4051 (Pegatron A15A / A15HR) Weird Display issue

[Topcat]

I took this Nobilis N4051 (OEM'd by Equus) in on trade for a Dell Precision I had on hand. It's a 2nd gen sandybridge I7-2670QM quad core @ 2.2 w/8gb RAM.



It had Win7 on a spinning drive. I dban'd the spinner, and tossed a SSD in it and installed 10. Here's where it gets weird. When rebooting (soft reboot/restart), when it gets to the point it would load the graphics driver, the screen goes black; backlight is still on but nothing on the display, yet the system is still running/functioning. If I press power and put it to sleep and wake it back up again, the display returns & functions as normal. If I cold boot it, it does not do this; everything is fine.... It is not a power management thing....it feels like a firmware quirk to me...or maybe a driver quirk... It's running the driver version 9.17.10.4459, right from M$ update, and there doesn't seem to be anything newer (Intel HD3000). There's very little information out there about this system; apparently they're quite obscure.....so no BIOS update for it that I could find.

FWIW, If I plug in an external monitor (either HDMI or VGA), the ext monitor works fine no matter what.

[mcplslg123]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

Without driver it works fine and goes to desktop screen?? Can you shutdown the system completely from windows?? If answer is yes for both the questions, try replacing the processor(as it controls the driver thru gfx core)/installing driver from website of manufacturer.

[Topcat]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

Without driver it works fine and goes to desktop screen?? Can you shutdown the system completely from windows?? If answer is yes for both the questions, try replacing the processor(as it controls the driver thru gfx core)/installing driver from website of manufacturer.

Yes to both. I added the I7 CPU, it originally was an I3. CPU bad? Never seen a bad one behave this way....

No such download from the manufacturer.... I have the 7 drivers for it, but they won't install on 10. Win Update installed the driver.

[Topcat]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

I played around with this some more this morning. I never tested it under 7, only 10. It appears to be a driver issue; the HD3000 never had official driver support from Intel for Win10.

Test # 1: Go to start and tell the system to restart. When the system cycles; at the POST screen, shut it off. Pull battery, completely dead.....so the next startup will be a cold boot. When I booted it back up, it went to the black backlit screen....seemingly because I told it to restart at shutdown; not actually shut down. Not sure if it makes any difference, but it's legacy booting, not UEFI. Telling it to shut down and powering it back up, it boots normal, display is fine. The only time this quirk arises is if it's told to restart in Windows.

Test # 2. I put the I3 CPU back in, which I believe is the same GPU. The issue is still there.

[SMDFlea]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

Those round speaker grilles remind me of some old toshiba`s. Can you post a picture of the sticker on the case, and can you find any stickers or visible silkscreened part numbers on the motherboard.

[Topcat]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

Those round speaker grilles remind me of some old toshiba`s. Can you post a picture of the sticker on the case, and can you find any stickers or visible silkscreened part numbers on the motherboard.

The board is by Foxconn best I can tell.....oem'd to Equus, then Nobilis..... Not much information on it. I couldn't see any numbers on the board itself; atleast without disassembling it......which I really didn't want to do.

Here's what was attached to it...these were on the bottom:





The top.



Then test # 3. I pulled the drive and stuck another in for testing purposes. I installed Mint 20.3. The issue goes away.....so it's definitely a windows thing....but still rings out firmware glitch. On Mint, I could reboot it 'till I'm blue in the face, always came back as it should.





Yea, leave it to me to find a weird one!

[SMDFlea]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

Its a rebadged Pegatron A15A ,i found this model first but couldn`t find any drivers https://www.anandtech.com/show/4297/...ed-not-apply/2 ,then after a bit more digging found the novatech A15A and a link to https://forum.novatech.co.uk/t/lapto...cy-chassis/447
You could try the drivers from the win8 download,it does mention you need bios version 303 but ignore that.
What does it show at your bios screen,is there a bios version

[Topcat]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

Its a rebadged Pegatron A15A ,i found this model first but couldn`t find any drivers https://www.anandtech.com/show/4297/...ed-not-apply/2 ,then after a bit more digging found the novatech A15A and a link to https://forum.novatech.co.uk/t/lapto...cy-chassis/447
You could try the drivers from the win8 download,it does mention you need bios version 303 but ignore that.
What does it show at your bios screen,is there a bios version

IIRC it's 202.....I remember seeing it in there, and it was 200-something...

I didn't see the BIOS in there, unless it's in the .zip...and it's a 1gb file, I'll download it in the morning (i'm on my laptop right now).

I also found this based on your model information (including the BIOS files). Looks like others have had this problem...and there's a fix.

https://superuser.com/questions/8849...15-motherboard

[SMDFlea]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

IIRC it's 202.....I remember seeing it in there, and it was 200-something...

I didn't see the BIOS in there, unless it's in the .zip...and it's a 1gb file, I'll download it in the morning (i'm on my laptop right now).

I also found this based on your model information (including the BIOS files). Looks like others have had this problem...and there's a fix.

https://superuser.com/questions/8849...15-motherboard

yes the latest and last bios version is 303. The technopat link appears dead but the dns one is ok, afaik the A15A and A15HR bios is the same https://ftp.dns-shop.ru/Notebooks/A15HR/BIOS/

[Topcat]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 Weird Display issue

yes the latest and last bios version is 303. The technopat link appears dead but the dns one is ok, afaik the A15A and A15HR bios is the same https://ftp.dns-shop.ru/Notebooks/A15HR/BIOS/

Yup, way ahead of ya there. Already have all the files downloaded!! Yes, the two submodels appear to use the same firmware. I'll do this first thing in the morning! I also added the OEM model numbers to the thread title to help with searches if anyone else encounters one of these.

[Topcat]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 (Pegatron A15A / A15HR) Weird Display issue

Just a happy ending to this issue & thread...

The laptop had BIOS 210 on it, I updated it to 303, and the black screen upon restart is fixed!! The seat of my pants from the original post just felt it was a firmware issue....it's now cured, and also learned the true make of this goofy laptop.

It's always great when I can ask my own forum for assistance, you fellas are the best!

I also attached the BIOS v303 to this thread incase anyone down the road runs into this....since the 'technopat' site appears to be defunct.

[SMDFlea]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 (Pegatron A15A / A15HR) Weird Display issue

Just a happy ending to this issue & thread...

The laptop had BIOS 210 on it, I updated it to 303, and the black screen upon restart is fixed!! The seat of my pants from the original post just felt it was a firmware issue....it's now cured, and also learned the true make of this goofy laptop.

It's always great when I can ask my own forum for assistance, you fellas are the best!

I also attached the BIOS v303 to this thread incase anyone down the road runs into this....since the 'technopat' site appears to be defunct.

Thats great but.... ive moved the bios to the "Bios requests ONLY!" , we like to keep things tidy in this part of your forum

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=104151
.

[Topcat]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 (Pegatron A15A / A15HR) Weird Display issue

Thats great but.... ive moved the bios to the "Bios requests ONLY!" , we like to keep things tidy in this part of your forum

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=104151
.

LOL...you're the boss!

[Dan81]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 (Pegatron A15A / A15HR) Weird Display issue

FWIW, Medion Akoya E6221 BIOS files should also work on it. They seem to be the exact same machine.

[Printerman580]

Re: Nobilis Equus Model N4051 (Pegatron A15A / A15HR) Weird Display issue

Hi

an old thread but could someone help me please?

I have a NovaTech A15A with the same problem. I'm thinking that your rar file is the right way to go.

How do i create a bootable disk? I've done this in the past with rufus but it requires a disk image.

I don't know how to create one with these type of files. Clicking the exe tells me the pc cant run this type of software so i assume this is actually for the bios update itself?