Start a Conversation

This post is more than 5 years old

Solved!

Go to Solution

227703

January 7th, 2016 00:00

Alienware M17X-R4 Video card problem 680M

Hello guys,

I send my PC to offical service at this summer for a completely different issue (keyboard issue) and after it came back from the service I have started having this quite frustrating issue with my pc which I cannot resolve about 3-4 months. While gaming I get this sudden freeze following a blink at screen. After the black screen Windows prompts an error message which says like "Video card stopped responding and has succesfully recovered." And effects are not always the same. Sometimes black screen doesn't go away until I close and reopen my lit. And sometimes black screen becomes light blue even orange screen and doesnt go away at all. Sometimes it causes a lot of exe programs(f.e. games, chrome, battle.net) to crash and sometimes doesn't. Also a note, sound continues to come while these things happen. So if I'm in a skype call with someone I can keep talking. Lastly, sometimes PC completely freezes even sound stutters until I hard-reset the pc.

Recently these crashes started to happen very often. Especially when I'm playing WoW. 

 

Things I have tried:

- Cleaning inside of my laptop and fans.

- Returning to older version of Nvidia drivers & and making a clean install.

- Returning to Windows 7 from Windows 10.

 

So I'm quite sure that this is not an software problem. It has to be a hardware fail.

 

Things I have noticed:

- When this blinks happen GPU usage goes to %0.

- I never get this issue while I'm only on battery. But I get like unplayable 20-30 fps which is normal on battery.

Also another funny thing is after my pc came back from service It cannot detect my integrated graphics card which is Intel HD Graphics 4000. It says -Not detected- on BIOS and I cannot install the driver because installer gives an error message like"This pc cannot meet requirements.".

 

Other thing I tried was swapping and trying RAMs individually at different slots. No luck.

 

Today I found a forum thread which says it can possibly resolved by decreasing GPU Voltage / shader clock because motherboard sometimes cannot feed the video card with enough voltage. But I cannot underclock even change my video card's voltage and shader clock from any overclock tool. It's just grayed out and cannot be changed. I can only change GPU clock and Memory clock. This voltage thing makes sense to me because like I said I never get this issues while I'm only on battery. I learned that laptop automatically decreases GPU voltage when it's on only battery. Is there a way to change my video card's maximum voltage or not? 

Sorry If I wrote poorly I just tried to be as brief as I can be while giving as much as information I can. 

I'm in a very desperate position and out of options. If you have any idea or any information I'm waiting. Thanks.
 

Brief rig:
i7-3820QM CPU

Nvidia 680M GPU

32 GB RAM

Official Alienware Windows 7 version & drivers.

11 Posts

January 27th, 2016 03:00

So I resolved this issue about a few days ago. Never had the crashes again. I still don't know the real cause but it turns out for some reason my GPU has instability issue when it's running at full speed so when I lowered the Base Clock Offset by only 25 MHz my crashes instantly stopped. I'm using NvidiaInspector but I believe you can use other Overclock tools too.

7 Technologist

 • 

4.4K Posts

January 7th, 2016 14:00

Hi, 

It seems like you have tried most of the recommended troubleshooting procedures for this type of issue. Make sure your system is running the latest BIOS firmware, if not, click here to download link. Maybe reinstalling both the Intel and NVidia drivers, you can download both drivers from the Dell site. If the same issue continues, it could be a hardware issue with the NVidia card. 

327 Posts

January 8th, 2016 09:00

try by using a better thermal paste, is possible that the paste that you have is old and is not working as before. Replace it with IC diamond or something more extreme as liquid ultra.

11 Posts

January 8th, 2016 13:00

@judal7837 I thought about that too but my temperature values are normal. Can sensors show wrong values because of old thermal paste or can old thermal paste cause such an issue even if temperature values are normal?

11 Posts

January 8th, 2016 13:00

@Alienware-Rodrigo yeah i'm using A13 Bios right now. And like I said my pc cannot detect Intel HD Graphics 4000 at all. So when I tried to install the driver installation gives an error like this pc doesn't meet the requirements. Is it absolutely my video card though? Can it be possible motherboard cannot feed enough voltage or something? Also like judal7837 said is it possible old thermal pastes cause this. My temperature values of both GPU and CPU is normal. 

327 Posts

January 8th, 2016 15:00

how much grades do you have on your CPU and GPU i dont know what do you know as normal ... it would help if you see your temperatures while gaming. 

11 Posts

January 19th, 2016 10:00

I changed my thermal pastes and problem didn't go away at all.

My temps were normal anyways like I said. It was around 60 C while gaming and max 70. And my CPU is around 50-60 C.

327 Posts

January 19th, 2016 13:00

maybe your old OS is failing, try to make a clean install and tell me what hapened

11 Posts

January 20th, 2016 09:00

I already clean installed from Alienware DVD twice.

I read Windows 10 might messed up with hardware at BIOS. To try that accusation I want to fully reflash my BIOS and vBIOS. How can I do that? I already tried reflashing to A12 from A13 which I downloaded from the Dell support stie. And I tried pulling out the BIOS battery from laptop and waitin 30 min. My system date and etc got resetted but not my vBIOS.

I want to make BIOS to factory state. Like the first day I got the laptop.

No Events found!

Top