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Alienware M17X-R3 re-installation woes with a NVIDIA 560M
I recently upgraded the RAM in my Alienware laptop, and decided that this was a good time to reinstall Windows 7, and since then, I've been unable to have a stable system and it looks like it's due to a video driver issue.
Troubleshooting steps performed, once the machine started to bluescreen:
- Ran Memtest86+ for three passes to check the RAM - NO PROBLEMS
- Upgraded the BIOS to A10
- Upgraded the firmware of my SSD
- Checked the firmware of the GeForce GTX 560M
- Ran the built-in diagnostic tools - PASSED
- Started the Driver Round Robin
- Started with the Dell drivers - BSOD
- Latest NVIDIA drivers - BSOD
- Next version NVIDIA beta drivers - BSOD
- Called Dell and was told that because I DECIDED to reinstall, I would be charged for support
- Reinstalled with Windows 8
- Stock drivers SEEMED stable, only tested for an hour
- Installed NVIDIA Windows 8 drivers - BSOD
There have been several different BSODs that are generated, but every one seems related to video drivers. I used BlueScreenView to check the dumps. Is there some other driver that I should be using? Is this an indicator of a bad piece of hardware, even though all the "diagnostics" have passed?
Alienware-Luis_
200 Posts
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August 22nd, 2012 16:00
I'd recommend a Windows 7 clean installation.
Here's the complete list of drivers and the correct installation order for the M17x R3.
BTW, what BSOD are you getting?
TimRobichaux
3 Posts
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August 22nd, 2012 16:00
I did perform a clean Windows 7 install and that's what started the problem, including being told that this was "unsupported".
The link to the driver in the page you reference is a dead link ("Details for this driver are currently unavailable. Please try again later. ")
I followed that process and installed the driver listed on the M17X-R3 page as the first driver I tried. It was 26x.xx something...
Most of the original dumps were lost when I re-installed Windows 8, but the most common one was GRAPHICS_DRIVER_TDR_FAULT (0x116), hence my attempt at trying 4 different NVIDIA drivers.
Alienware-Luis_
200 Posts
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August 23rd, 2012 09:00
Send me a PM with your service tag, I'll look into it.
hayesjl
4 Posts
0
September 14th, 2012 08:00
i get the same thing on mine and its only a few months old. This so far is the worst hardware combination in an alienware laptop. I had alienware laptops before dell was involved and they were the best now Im seeing junk. Sitting here as we speak trying to get the nvidia drivers installed on a clean win 7 install and nothing but lockups and blue screens.