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Alienware X51 freeze/crash behavior
Hello everyone, and thanks for the great work you do here.
It's been a while since I've been experiencing this very annoying behavior pattern from my Alienware X51, and I've been wondering if there is any way to fix that.
- Turn on the pc, everything goes fine.
- After about 5-10 mins, the video crashes. It can either freeze on the spot, or disconnect entirely (monitor saying "no signal"). The issue happens REGARDLESS of the workload. It has happened while idling on desktop, browing sites or playing games such as WoW or HotS. Audio may or may not crash, as well. Sometimes, when the video froze I could heard the usual windows "beep" that is associated with hardware connecting/disconnecting.
- After the force reboot, the following things may happen:
1) On restart, I get a BSOD. After the second reboot, the pc restarts fine.
2) The pc starts turning off and on again, unable to boot. This is usually fixed by holding the power button down for 30 secs or so.
3) The pc restarts fine
- The weird thing is that after all the previous issues, the "rebooted" pc starts working fine. It can stay on for hours and no longer crash or freeze. These critical issues only seem to happen after it has been turned on after a 12 hrs or so pause.
NOTE: I cleaned the fans a few times. I still don't feel this could be an overheating issue simply because some crashes occurred while doing nothing.
Thanks in advance for any help you'd provide.
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
8 Wizard
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17K Posts
0
May 25th, 2017 14:00
1. You could try right-clicking on it and request an updated driver from Windows Update.
Second choice, you could also try loading your proper/latest Intel Chipset drivers manually.
2. Yeah, it's reportedly pretty lame and often inaccurate. I don't use it. I'm sure it doesn't help you are trying to use it on a machine running old Windows-7.
rocketh
12 Posts
0
May 25th, 2017 14:00
In regards to the unknown device, these are the only data I could find:
Bus PCI 0, device 31, function 3
Even running Dell Driver Detection, nothing new shows.
ecoec
1 Message
0
May 30th, 2017 19:00
I've similar problems with my X51 I bought back in 2012. And this issues were not resolved even Dell service guys came to service the PC. The problems still happen after awhile. I read the AW forum and it has to do with the design of the whole hardware itself and the unreliable software.
The X51 is my expensive mistake... for paying a premium price to buy problems from a presumed reliable PC maker. Today the PC still works by its mood. It will be interesting to see if your problems get resolved. Good luck.
covfefe
6 Posts
0
May 31st, 2017 01:00
his problem is the missing SM Bus driver. he should download and install the newest chipset drivers from the intel website. check your device manager for errors. expand all categories and see if everything is installed/enabled.
rocketh
12 Posts
0
June 5th, 2017 01:00
Update:
I downloaded and updated all drivers (including the HD intel graphic, NVidia Audio and Intel Chipset) and it seems like things are running smoothly now.
tifftiff
1 Message
0
September 23rd, 2017 20:00
I was experiencing the same issues on a brand new Alienware Aurora R6 desktop, I updated the Nvidia display driver and it fixed the problems immediately. This thread saved me a huge headache!
tadthedad
1 Message
0
December 2nd, 2017 17:00
Similar problems
Alienware X51 R3 Win 10 NVIDIA 745 4gb
Since a Windows Update to the NVIDIA driver on 10/25, system constantly crashes/refuses to load windows
boots fine into safe mode
startup repair fails
keep getting Stopcode DPC Watchdog violations
system is less than 1 year old
looking for Dell support
trying to roll back driver but this option greyed out
Cozzie_chov
15 Posts
0
December 4th, 2017 07:00
Was it a windows update or a nvidia update? I had a similar problem with a different driver not responding after the creators update on my laptop, uninstalled some stuff in a specific order, rolled back the windows update, reinstalled driver and everything seemed to work fine.