Alienware Blackscreen Fix

So I have seen so many threads about the common Blackscreen problem everyone has. I got it myself on my Alienware M17X R-1.

I'm not the best when it comes to computers and all. But recently I've been quite eager to attempt to fix this problem, because the only way to avoid it has been to run my computer on my intergrated card instead of my SLI GTX 260m. And I must say that the intergrated one is quite worthless compared to SLI.

So for those who do not know about the problem. I personally get it when I some times play games or watch youtube videos. What happens is often that I might first get a error saying that "Nvidia drivers has crashed and been restored..." after my screen turns black for a second. If I continue watching or playing, it turns all black and I have to turn my computer off by holding down the power button. Once this blackscreen appears my sound messes up as well. It makes some glitchy noises for a second or two.

I know there are alot of suggestions on how to fix this problem. I've been trying out a few, so I will write my result here and update as I try out different things.

-Deactivate Intergrated card and run on SLI only.
Result: Got the blackscreen just as quickly as when I got both cards on.

-Reinstalling all drivers.
Result: Makes no difference

-Download different drivers, old and new.
Result: Does not seem to make much of a difference either, yet I had not tried very many.

-Make sure GPU or CPU does not overheat
Result: It has never gone above 65c as I have seen. Not sure at what temp they crash but I heard there should only be a problem if they stay at 90c+

-Set the power settings to high preformance
Result: I believe this is important to avoid the black screen yet I have got it with the settings on High Preformance.

-Set the NVIDIA Power Management Mode to Prefer Maximum Performance
Result: After doing this it worked problem free for a good while. Played a whole day, watched videos no problems. I just suddenly got the blackscreen when doing nothing and running no applications. Also it was instant without any glitchy sound, after reboot it seems to be running fine again.

-Disable physX, SLI and readyboost. Reboot and turn on SLI
I have not tried it yet but will do so soon.

-Lower the clock speed
I have not yet tried this since I have never been messing with the clocking settings before and I am a bit afriad to do so. I read that it should be possible and might fix the problem. Do it at own risk though.


Please add your suggestions, tips and solutions if you have any. I am as I mentioned earlier not very good when it comes to computers and I have only been hunting different solutions on different forums.

I am not happy before I get a reason to why the black screen appears or until I find a stable solution for it.

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If you are interested where I got all this information from I will add a few links to this thread incase you wanna look it up yourself.

-Another discussion here on the DELL Alienware forums
http://en.community.dell.com/owners-club/alienware/f/3746/t/19390258.aspx

-Another discussion whit a possible Fix by BatBoy, I have not yet fully tried it
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/447992-returning-m17x-3.html

In my case it might be that the Blackscreen problem is connected to the "Nvidia drivers has crashed and been restored..." problem. So here are some links to that as well.

-A several different fixes for the problem
http://www.repairyourpcnow.com/resources/atikmdag-has-stopped-responding.php

-A discussion about the problem in the NVIDIA forums
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=209372&st=0



Cheers,

X-Cross