Alienware M17xR3 not recognizing graphics card anymore

Hello everybody,

my laptop is an Alienware M17xR3 with a Nvidia GTX 560m. The laptop has been running smoothly for about two years. Then some months after my guarantee expired all of sudded the laptop started not recognizing the graphics card anymore.

Graphics card is not recognized in Windows and the device manager. The graphics card is also not recognized in my BIOS stating "discrete graphics 1 not detected" instead of "discrete graphics 1 NVIDIA GFX" as it should be.

Usually the graphics card is not recognized from booting up the laptop. Once it is recognized on boot it usually works properly. Only once the laptop bluescreened and lost the graphics card on restart.

1. Graphics card temperature is below 60°C and also fails when cold

2. I did everything stated in Dell knowledge base for this problem (Alienware M17x R3, R4 & M18x R1, R2 does not detect its discrete video card(s))

3. Drivers are ALL up to date. BIOS was flashed from A08 to A12. It had no effect. Fn+F7 (I/D GFX) has no effect. It seems to work or fail by pure chance.

4. AlienAuthopsy shows no problems on video card test.

The problem has been widely discussed in several boards where it came down to Dell replacing graphic cards or mainboards sometimes solving the problem and sometimes persisting problems in spite of hardware replacements.

I have no idea what to do and as my guarantee has expired some months ago it is not an easy job getting some information about the problem or talking to someone though the problem is known to Dell/Alienware and already was known during my time of guarantee. I thing it is more of a design failure instead of a hardware failure.

Also Alienware support in Germany is hard to get or contact with all links from AlienAuthopsy for support 404ed and most redirecting to Dell where they than 404 or you get lost in the depths of the Dell homepage.

Can anybody help me?

Greetings from Germany,

Johannes