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69275
February 29th, 2016 10:00
Alienware M17x-R4, graphics card and bios, issues
It's been a week since I started repairing my Alienware M17x R4, I think I did every possible solution that I can think of and now I'm out of ideas so now I'm trying to seek the help of others. And for the other guys that experiencing some problems with your Alienware M17x R4, you can find some answers here or much better, fix it. Now let's start..
Let's focus on the problem and skip all the process that I did (including reformatting the windows for about 5 times and re-flashing the BIOS for almost hundred times with different versions xD). I found the culprits, the Graphics Card (AMD Radeon HD 7970m) and the BIOS.
1st problem: Windows won't boot, stuck at the loading screen.
Solution: Boot to Safe Mode (Optional: with Networking to access the internet), go to Device Manager, under Display Adapters, uninstall your graphics card, don't forget to tick the box.(In my case, AMD Radeon HD 7970m) Restart, and you can now boot into Windows.
2nd problem: Can't use Graphics Card due to Windows won't boot or Windows won't/can't detect your Graphics Card.
Solution: Download the BIOS here, download the version A09, Run as administrator. Windows will now restart downgrade/flash your BIOS. After that Windows will now boot and give you the Welcome! screen, and that Fix the problem.(After re-flashing so many times, version A11 and A13 worked but not good and stable as A09, so I suggest you stick with it.)
3rd problem: After setting from Integrated graphics to discrete graphics, Windows boot normally. But after I opened DOTA2 and graphics started to show on the screen, it suddenly went sky blue, next reboot went pink, and so on different colors. Reboot the system to Safe Mode, disabled the Graphics Card Driver and boot to Windows normally, enable the graphics card and restart. After that I got the Blue Screen Of Death! The problem is simple, I got the Blue Screen after I successfully install the Graphics Card driver.
Solution: Reboot into Safe Mode, go to Device Manager, uninstall the graphics driver. Restart windows, Update the BIOS to the latest or Downgrade to A09. That will fix your problem! ( But in my case, this doesn't solve my problem, as I update my BIOS to the latest, Windows will not boot and will be stuck at the loading screen. After that, I will downgrade again my BIOS to A09, A11, A13 or whatever will work first and reinstall the graphics driver, but then again after a few minutes it's either I will get a blank screen or a Blue Screen).
And now my problem is that I'm going in an endless cycle of updating my BIOS to remove the Blue Screen but that will result a Windows will not boot. Then again downgrading my BIOS to A09 (A11 or A13) that way I can successfully install the graphics driver but that will result in a blank screen or Blue Screen, and update and downgrade, and so fort and on..
I already did a diagnostics (By pressing F12 at boot up) , and all of the hardware are working fine and all scored PASS! I already tried to open my AW and clean it inside, and reapply thermal paste on the GPU but that didn't solve my problem.
And now, I'm just using my AW without the GPU, and just using the CPU integrated graphics. It works fine tho but what is a gaming laptop without a GPU?! Nothing!
So, who's the real culprit?! The GPU that can't boot to windows after installing the latest BIOS, or is it the BIOS that causing blue screen after installing GPU driver?!
If there's Tech Support that can solve my problem, I will be really thankful! And if it's possible to request a newer BIOS that can solve all the problems that we (Alienware M17x-R4 users) are facing.
Please help and Thanks in Advance!
Alienware M17x-R4
OS: Windows 7 64-bit
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40GHz
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7970m
MEMORY: 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz



Alienware - Rodrigo
7 Technologist
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4.4K Posts
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March 1st, 2016 12:00
Hi,
It seems you ran through all of the recommended troubleshooting procedures for this type of issue. To me it sounds like a hardware failure with the discrete video card and you may need to replace it. When you get the blue-screen, does the error code end with x0116 ?
GLasgowKiD
2 Posts
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March 2nd, 2016 12:00
@ALIENWARE-RODRIGO Thanks for the response!
Is it really a hardware failure, even tho I've got a PASSED score on all diagnostics test?
I'm not sure but I know I've seen that error code before I reformatted my AW. But even after that I still tried to put back my GPU and install the driver, I got an error ID 1033. I've checked it on BlueeScreenView and I got-
4 consecutive Bug Check Codes: 0xa0000001
Caused By Driver: atikmdag.sys
File Description: ATI Radeon Kernel Mode Driver
Alienware - Rodrigo
7 Technologist
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4.4K Posts
0
March 4th, 2016 07:00
Hi,
Unfortunately, it does sounds like a hardware problem because the driver keeps crashing. It shouldn't be doing this after everything you tried.