Anyone's Infill G4 GPS not resuming from hibernation? Pls help!

**Carz** · 03-14-2009, 07:29 PM

Seeking fellow G4 users solution to long standing issue (at least for me) with the built-in gps on com port 1 not initializing (or whatever the problem is called) when resuming from hibernation.

For my G4, if it's left to sleep long enough, G4 will shut down before the battery charge falls to an unsafe level. I will know it is a shut down because G4 will not power up automatically upon turning the ignition on and also XP boots up from scratch unlike when it does power up automatically when resuming from sleep and XP resume from where it left.

I can power up G4 from the power button just fine (just as I'd too if I've manually shutdown XP). Although, XP boots up without any disk check or error message to indicate improper shutdown like a power cut of some sort, it appears it is not a proper shutdown nevertheless because Garmin Mobile PC will not find any working GPS com port (both physical and virtual ports created by XPort).

Whenever Garmin cannot find any gps ports, I can confirm the abnormality by maximising XPort to see garbage characters on the status bar instead of proper GPS coordinates which explains why Garmin is having problem finding proper GPS ports. When Garmin can find the GPS port, XPort status bar will also show proper coordinates. I can bet my last dollar any simple GPS appz that allow reading of gps coordinates will also show similar abnormality when the issue occurs. I'm pretty sure I've also tested Garmin without starting XPort or XPort without starting Garmin to continue having the same issue so I can rule out Garmin or XPort being the culprit.

On my previous Hi-Info N5 Car PC with GlobalSat BU-353, I've switched from GPSGate to XPort to split the ports for multiple GPS appz after reading it also helps usb resume issues(just in case)and carried on using XPort on my G4 although I've no problem with any usb device (Huawei E270, Asus Wireless G, keyboard) resuming on my G4 even without selecting any device in XPort to stop/start. I've also checked selective devices with Infill name and still the GPS problem remains.

To get around this problem when it occur, restarting XP does not help. I've to do a proper shutdown of G4 from XP and power up from the power button which is a pain in the *** even though before I get out of my multi-storey carpark, CF and Garmin will be loaded. Still I would have prefer being able to click anything I need to do and set my destination in Garmin before I set off instead of while navigating the car park or on the road which is dangerous.

Knowing the battery level will not support sleep mode till the next day I start my car and to avoid the "improper shutdown", I end my day by chosing hibernate manually instead. However, surprise surprise! When I start my car the next day, GPS port still resume with the same problem!

I subsequently discovered a quicker way (have been doing this till now) to get around the problem (without a shutdown and fresh start) is to hit sleep in CF whenever Garmin's searching for GPS port which indicate to me the problem is there and then resume G4 again. Lo and behold! It's alive! The GPS port resume properly!

When I do a test by clicking hibernate and then resume once G4 power off into hibernation, the problem does not occurs. Only if I left it to next day do I see the problem. This makes it so hard to troubleshoot as it cannot be duplicated in a short time. It makes me suspects it may be some kind of old GPS data cache (if left too long without signals) that may be causing the problem 'cos resuming from sleep mode does not pose any problem. Could it be b'cos the GPS data cache has not expired within the short interval? This is the only difference I can think of between times when it resume perfectly from sleep and times when it resume with problem from hibernation or the "improper" shutdown.

I've the following qns on top of hoping someone can help:

Does your G4 goes through a sleep then hiberate cycle when battery is low instead of straight shutdown? Max hibernate time out of 6hrs in XP power option is not practical i.e. not when I return to the car in say 8hrs after work? This has to do more with the having to wait for the booting time rather than the GPS problem. Anyway to set auto switch to hibernate upon detecting low battery charge ?

Which device description is the G4 built-in GPS besides knowing it's assigned to com port 1? XPort, if it helps stop/start device does not list com port but usb devices instead. Could the GPS be actually a usb device that is running a usb to com port driver?

Sorry it's it hard to follow my lengthy post but I would think more details are better than missing bits that may be crucial to some who may be able to help me troubleshoot. Pls also do not think by posting such a long post, I would have known or covered everything and anyone should feel they have nothing to offer. Pls do not hesitate to offer any suggestion even if it's obvious or crazy as sometimes the most obvious could be missed out or craze works.

I'm at my wit's end but still bearable cos I love my G4 and CF.

**Curiosity** · 03-18-2009, 12:51 PM

There's problem that could drive you crazy. Being able to sleep/wake and get it working again would mean that it can reset without shutdown or unplugging, so some kind of software solution should work. Unfortunately XPort doesn't reset real COM ports. I'll see if I can add those to the list though.

In my opinion, the GPS and COM port get out of sync. Baud rate, parity, or stop bits has changed on one but not the other. I'd be interested to know what happens if you hit Scan in XPort while it's happening. If it starts working at a different speed, that could tell us what's going on. Does anyone know what GPS is in there and how it connects to serial port and power?

**Carz** · 03-18-2009, 03:52 PM

Curiosity, thanks for replying!

I can't remember on a fresh installation the default baud rate on com1 or if I did changed it but the manual state to set it to 9600 which is the the current settings I have. If I'm remember correctly, I did try hitting scan on XPort when the problem happen but that does not get the GPS working although XPort could still detect com1 port as the GPS port and the status bar still showed garbage instead of gps data.

However, you shouldn't take it as a confirmation until I try it again and I think it is wise for me to throw every that I think I know or any troubleshooting I've done out of the window and start troubleshooting from scratch and follows any suggestion and recommendation.

I ended last night by selecting all devices listed in XPort before hibernating (within CF instead of Windows and Garmin Mobile PC running in the background). Today when I started my car, the GPS did resume fine cos Garmin has the signal bars and I could set my destination! However, I had to do a quick stop shortly 1km later at a store (ignition off action in CF set to sleep). When I return in 5min later and started my car, I could see CF interface and audio cd resumed playing a little from where it last stop before it stop and everything else hang almost immediately when windows dialer for my USB Huawei Mobile Broadband appeared in the foreground saying cannot dial, cancel, retry etc but the touch screen does not generate clicks and usb keyboard didn't work either, either it really hang or the touch screen and keyboard did not resume correctly. I guess I have been too aggressive by choosing all the devices in XPort list and it resulted in slower than normal resume of the devices.

As I said, I'm going to start troubleshooting from scratch so for tonight before I read your reply, I've disabled XPort and hibernated within CF and Garmin in the background. Forgot to isolate more variables by quiting CF and Garmin and hibernate from Windows itself but let's see how tomorrow. If it doesn't work I'll do just that. And if that also doesn't work, I'll enable XPort again, do the test you mentioned and note the baud rate detected in XPort.

Also, when I return, I will record the details of the 2 Infill devices in the XPort list and hope it will offer more clues since 1 of them could be linked to the com1 which may explain why the GPS manage to resume when I selected all the devices.

In the meantime, what is the purpose of Video Sync Reset, NMEA Filter and log output options?

Again, sorry for my lost post.

**Curiosity** · 03-18-2009, 04:39 PM

Yeah, that's a little dangerous selecting every device. Some don't like being switched off and back on again. I noticed you said the COM port was set to 9600. If the GPS is working at 4800, then that might be the problem. That setting is only a default when the system powers up, and may be what's causing it to get out of sync with the GPS. Change it to 4800 or whatever baud rate the GPS is working at. That should eliminate some of the problems.

**Carz** · 03-18-2009, 05:29 PM

Infill G4 FAQ

Infill G4 GPS receiver not working
Please setup your navigation program on COM 1, Baud 9600

CF FAQ

Official Infill G4 Centrafuse Settings
COM: COM 1 (usually)
Protocol: NMEA
Baud Rate: 9600

Both seems to agree with each other.

However, thanks for reminding there is baud rate settings in CF Navigation setup page as I don't go into that page very often once I changed the default Destinator engine (not using) to a 3rd party engine running off a virtual XPort to support other plugins. For main navigation I use external Garmin Mobile PC on another virtual XPort but it doesn't have any baud rate settings.

Hopefully, it is because CF remain opened whenever I hibernate and the baud rate did not match (default probably 4800). Will run a check and try both 9600 and 4800 just to be sure.

By the way, what does NMEA Filter in XPort do? Does it needs to be on since the protocol stated in CF FAQ says NMEA?

**Curiosity** · 03-18-2009, 05:45 PM

Don't worry about the NMEA filter. It just filters a little garbage when the GPS starts up. Just about all of them do it, and there is some software for Fire/EMS that detects that little bit and switches out of NMEA mode. The log is for saving the data for later review or playback. The video sync reset blanks the video output when you resume. It causes the monitor sync up again.

**Carz** · 03-18-2009, 05:54 PM

I just did a test on my notebook trying to understand how XPort detects the baud rate of the gps com port using GlobalSat BU-353. In the Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port settings, it is shown as 9600 bits per second. Is it the same as 9600 baud rate? Apparently, it does not affect how XPort detects it as XPort detects the BU-353 as 4800 which is according to specs. Your program is probably smarter than some which requires manual settings.

Ok I got to crash now! It's 7am my time! Hope tomorrow will be better. I feel with your expert knowledge on such topic, I'm getting closer to resolving my issue.

**Curiosity** · 03-19-2009, 12:00 AM

bps and baud are basically interchangable. It's odd that the Prolific driver would be set to 9600 by default when the GPS is at 4800, but I don't think it matters as much with USB. With the hard com port it's more important to have both at the same speed. When the com port is set to receive at one rate while the GPS is transmitting at different rate, you'll see garbage. It's not a big issue though because once an application opens and initializes the port, it will be using the correct parameters. It might take time to sync up at that point though, so it's best it set it to what the other end is using (4800). XPort resets the parameters every time it starts or resumes, so it gets a few spurious bytes then starts working. Normally, but in this case it may not be resetting fully for some reason.

**Carz** · 03-22-2009, 03:13 PM

Sorry for not reverting for awhile. I was trying to do more troubleshooting and getting consistent results before replying with more helpful info.

I've checked all the baud rate settings to be already consistent at 9600.

The next day after I disabled XPort and hibernated from within CF with Garmin in the background still running, the GPS did not resume correctly.

As I said I will isolate more variables. Just to be sure, I reverted the bios cfg to optimise default which enabled the com2 I previously disabled since there is no physical com2 port or supposedly anything running on it. I also enabled Hi-speed aka USB2.0 instead of full-speed and allocated max 128MB shared memory to the built-in vga (1GB physical ram available) and enabled system thermal cfg as we can never be sure in my country's climate the G4 won't overheat if we were to run w/o aircon. I believe these settings should not result in any issues compare with how the system was delivered in the first place. I did however, left the ACPI 2.0 Features disabled as it was the default. I've previously enabled it as I think it should be on but for the sake of troubleshooting left it as it is.

Not sure if it was after I disabled XPort or made the bios cfg changed, I discovered Garmin listed 2 other ports I never seen it listed before as Garmin had previously only listed the physical and virtual XPorts. The 2 ports has a string description ending with com3, and com4 and both these ports belongs to Huawei E270 USB Modem.

I ended the day by hibernating from Windows with both CF and Garmin closed and XPort not in use. But the next day, again the GPS did not resume correctly.

This makes me wonder what other variables I did not leave out that may be causing the issue. Could it be because of other usb devices or programs? Other than my windows mobile pc running with activesync which I will remove when I leave my car, Huawei E270 and Asus Wireless-G adaptor remain plugged in at the back of my boot. So I made a concious effort to remove my wm pc before hibernating but this time with CF and Garmin running. The next day which is today, the GPS did resumed fine! I must add I added the registry settings to show the hibernate button to make hibernating this way easier instead of hitting shift to reveal it when you click "Turn Off Computer" in Windows. That was how I last hibernated but I do not think there is any difference with hibernating within CF or from Windows.

However, for the sake of troubleshooting, without any further changes, I ended today by hibernating from within CF with Garmin running in the background and wm pc not plugin at all. Just after I hibernated, I remembered seeing MWCon was not running in the taskbar and I also did not test if my Huawei E270 resumed correctly but so far I do not think I've issue with it resuming. I could not do any further test today as I only went into my car to test but my girlfriend called me back to my home shortly for dinner.

Let's see how tomorrow if the GPS resumed fine and if it will resume if MWConn was running when hibernating (although should be unrelated).

Even though I probably need more time to isolate more variables and duplicate resuming GPS consistently before I resume using XPort I've a strong suspicion the com1 gps port is the culprit itself not resuming consistently from hibernation rather than anything else as everytime it did not resume properly from hibernation, a suspend(sleep) and resume quickly fix it.

Therefore, Curiosity, if you are still reading this, will you add the ability to stop/start com port in your next version of XPort?

Btw, if there's any issue with usb devices resuming, will you also recommend to select the usb hub these devices are connected in XPort listed devices as well?

**Curiosity** · 03-23-2009, 09:59 PM

When selecting devices in the list, just select one and not a hub. Try it for a few days, and if it works better leave it, if it's worse deselect it.

I still don't understand why you are setting everything to 9600 when the GPS is sending at 4800. It's just causing more problems.

Changing ACPI in the BOIS without reinstalling Windows can cause sleep and hibernate to not work properly. You should at least update your kernel in Device Manager, under "Computer". You should be using USB 2.0 and ACPI enabled.

As far as USB, can you list all the devices plugged directly into the PC and how many hubs? What's plugged into the hub(s)? Are they powered?