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8 Posts
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39333
Blank screen on m17x-R4, discrete graphics card dead?
TL;DR: When I start up my m17x-r4 the lights of the laptop switch on, but the screen stays blank, nothing seems to be loading and this all came after disabling the integrated graphics through Fn+F7.
Five days ago, I had an Alienware m17x-r4 (with a Radeon 7970m) with an Ubuntu 14.04 partition and a Windows 7 Ultimate partition, both working without problem. After a nightmarish chain of events that I'm still unable to understand, now I have the same laptop whose only functionality is to light the keyboard lights and nothing else. I'll go through the details fast, since my only concern right now is to know whether to send the computer straight to Dell or what. (you can skip the following paragraph)
Five days ago I was installing a video game in the Windows partition, when the computer freezed with an unbearable looping sound. After that Windows was unable to boot or to repair itself, so I started to use Ubuntu while deciding what to do. Out of nowhere, Ubuntu decided to give me yet another critical error, forcing me to reinstall that OS too. For the last five days I have installed at least four times each of the OSs for different reasons, while moving the many GBs of data I had in each of them from one OS to the other and even having to use data recovery tools at some point. Finally, I managed to stabilize both OSs with all the updates and all the drivers seemingly properly installed. There was only one problem, Windows was giving me poor performance on video games. In the previous Windows installation, an AMD program would ask me programwise the performance I wanted, but in this fresh installation this functionality was gone, and every program was executed with lower-than-optimal performance. This prompted me to tinker around with the integrated-discrete graphics configuration of my laptop.
I tried various things, like uninstalling and reinstalling drivers and things like that, until I discovered that Fn+F7 would disable the integrated graphics card. When I did this, the games would perform much better, so I hoped this could be a temporary solution. The problem is that it was very unstable and the screen would freeze within 2-3 minutes of starting up Windows. Sometimes the screen would freeze as soon as Windows was booted. Luckily, I had enough time to press Fn+F7 again and go back to the previous configuration, with the integrated card working, both cards appearing in the device manager, with their drivers installed. But when I tried Fn+F7 again the instabilities increased to the point that Windows would not even start up leaving me without an option to revert the situation. I tried to reinstall drivers in Safe Mode and pressing Fn+F7, but Safe Mode does not allow for any of those functionalities. I uninstalled all graphics drivers and tried to start Windows again, but it was very unstable, practically unusable from start. I managed to reinstall Radeon drivers, but the screen was already tearing very badly. Finally, when powering up the laptop, the first splash screen would load, but two big green vertical lines would tear through the screen and the computer was not able to enter the boot loader any more. After two more shut downs and starting ups, the screen simply would stop reacting and that is the situation I'm in, right now. The lights of the laptop light, but the screen does not and it does not seem to load anything.
I assume this means sending it to Dell, but maybe there is something I can still do by myself (maybe opening the laptop and re-seating the graphics card?).
Thanks in advance.
MichaelPalin
8 Posts
0
December 22nd, 2014 07:00
Well, it was basically faulty graphics card and hard drive as the ePSA diagnostic said, but I was lucky enough to realize that my laptop was three weeks away from the warranty expiring, so I sent it to Dell and had it fixed within a week or so. I even got a bigger hard drive, :)
MichaelPalin
8 Posts
0
June 4th, 2014 06:00
I have sorted the potential solutions down to three:
1. I have managed to enter the BIOS twice, start loading Windows once (it froze halfway through) and load Safe Mode another once after switching on and off many, many times. The screen still tears badly every time. The BIOS tells me the integrated graphics is "undetected" and in Safe Mode I see that the only display driver is that of the Radeon 7970m. If I could start up Windows just once, I could press Fn+F7 and maybe revert the situation, but it seems statistically impossible.
2. I could physically remove the graphics card and see if the BIOS changes automatically to the integrated graphics card. Or, at least, I could try to re-seat it and see if it was a problem of misconnected pins all along. I need your opinion on this.
3. Contact Dell and pay gazillions, :(
Thanks again!
paulladle
108 Posts
0
June 5th, 2014 06:00
If it's crashing out in the BIOS Windows isn't to blame so getting into it isn't going to help no matter what keys you press.
Motherboard (including the graphics chipset) or hard drive sound like the points of failure. You could try taking out RAM sticks one at a time just in case this is the source of your problems in which case you're lucky as this is a relatively easy fix.
It is also possible (although fairly unlikely) that the power supply could have issues.
MichaelPalin
8 Posts
0
June 5th, 2014 06:00
The reason I want to enter Windows is because the problem originated when I disabled the integrated physics card through Fn+F7 in Windows, so I hope to revert the situation by getting into Windows somehow and pressing Fn+F7 again (which did solve the problem the first time I disable the integrated card). I don't know any other way to re-enable the integrated card and the BIOS (in which the integrated card is marked as disabled) does not seem to have that functionality.
Right now the screen wont even switch on anymore and nothing seems to be loading (no sound of any kind). At best, things start to load randomly once every 200-300 tries and then, apart from a constant image tearing, it will crash randomly (on BIOS boot up, on Windows start up or on Ubuntu start up, although Windows Safe Mode seems to work indefinitely).
I may try to test the memory modules, but I don't see any of the typical symptoms related to defective memory (no blue screen, for instance).
EDIT: The memory modules seem to be ok.
paulladle
108 Posts
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June 5th, 2014 12:00
MichaelPalin
8 Posts
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June 5th, 2014 13:00
I have managed to run an ePSA diagnostic getting errors: 2000-0142 (hard drive) and 2000-0332 (video card). Not sure if the hard drive error is critical (it does not seem so, I've been backing up files from Safe Mode and an Ubuntu LiveCD and it worked wihtout any problem), but the video card one means faulty video memory. I'm going to try to update the BIOS (if Windows in Safe Mode allows for that), which is recommended for those errors and see what happens. After I do this, I think I'll open another thread with a more focused question.
paulladle
108 Posts
0
June 5th, 2014 14:00
HankScorpyo
1 Message
0
December 22nd, 2014 06:00
Was this resolved?
(I seem to be having the same problem). I think the 7970m has died and I'm not sure how to turn on the integrated graphics and also how to replace the 7970m with something else if it is dead.
Any advice would be great!
mojomonkeyx
1 Message
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December 24th, 2014 16:00
So this is very interesting to me - also a 7970M user and have had the same problem in last 2 days. 3 of us, same card, same problem, at same time?
RedSilentScope
2 Posts
0
January 21st, 2015 21:00
This happened to me as well. I'm currently in safe mode and was wondering if I should try flashing the bios or restarting windows. Everything else seems to be fine and this just happened out of the blue.
2000-0332
msg: video memory- video memory integrity test discrepancy
MichaelPalin
8 Posts
0
January 22nd, 2015 02:00
You should try to recover all your information and start contacting Dell to send them your laptop for repair. The memory of your graphics card is mostly faulty.