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January 31st, 2015 18:00
Need help with my Alienware X51 - video card + BIOS
I am having some MAJOR issues. After 5 hours of fighting this video card upgrade, I am coming here for help. Please anyone offer me something.
First, I bought a new video card - EVGA GTX 750Ti SC 2GB
I checked with the DELL support chat tech and did a lot of research. This card doesn't require much power and is compatible with my system. I swapped out the cards (750Ti for the old 545) and had no physical issues.
When I booted it up, I got the Alienware splash screen (press F2 or F12) and then 5 beeps then black screen (kb doesn't respond). I did some investigating and initially thought I had to delete my old card and drivers in win7 before installing the new one. I swapped the cards back. Deleted the card and drivers in device manager and put back in the new card. Same issue.
Doing more research, it looks like someone with same system and card said it was the BIOS and needed to be updated. I am running A01. I am trying to go to the latest and greatest A14...
Alienware X51 System BIOSAlienware X51 System BIOS View details
I downloaded it and it says to use a USB boot to dos. I figured out how to make a USB bootable disk with RUFUS and did that. But when I pick the thumb drive in the boot list it pauses a second and skips right to windows. More research says this is because of the UEFI. I tried several things to get past this with no success. My BIOS has the UEFI/LEGACY but it is greyed out. It wont let me choose LEGACY. And there is no secure boot option to disable.
I even tried to make a win7 boot USB from a win7 iso and put the BIOS update on it instead of the windows install files, but that didn't work. I tried booting to safe mode but I can't run the BIOS update from there either.
How can I get into DOS to run this BIOS update so I can then install and use my new video card? Anyone?
Milena M458
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2.7K Posts
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February 2nd, 2015 14:00
If you own the first revision of the X51 we didn’t validate the GTX 750Ti however if you want to try updating the BIOS you have to go first through the previous revisions (A02,A03,A06,A,07 and A14).
Steelemarsh
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September 14th, 2015 13:00
respawn
3 Posts
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September 15th, 2015 05:00
Good morning. It has been awhile but I finally fought through my issues and everything is working for me.
I know I had to go through a pain to get to the correct bios and then make sure all my settings were correct. I am not home right now (on work travel) but can tell you anything you need to know when I am back home in 2 days.
Beyond the bios I also had a heat issue that took me forever to figure out. This card runs hot and the system inversely suffers. I mean, I can prove this 100%. Running Minecraft for my son, the longer it runs the more the FPS drops and it starts lagging. If you play any sort of video game, you will see this.
My solution was to run with the case open and a 180mm fan (I bought a $20 top of the line case fan) on the desk next to it pointing right on the card. It isn't neat but the system finally runs beautifully. It plays League and Legends and CSGO with 60+ fps and no lag.
If you need any specific help or settings, I can assist you Thursday. Just hit me up here.