M17x-r3 graphics issues ........ sort of

Question

Ok will try to keep this short and sweet and clear :)

i have had my m17x for maybe 3 years now and still love it, my graphics up until friday of last week fine, then i was reading something about capturing game footage etc and decided to try something using adobe premiere pro, once i updated premiere pro it kept crashing, i narrowed this down to a graphics issue on my machine.

So Fn F7 and switched over to the inbuilt intel hd 3000 adaptor and premiere pro worked fine, switched back to my Radeon hd 6900 series card and premiere pro crashed.

So i decided to update the drivers for the 6900, premiere pro now works fine, However i have now lost the ability to switch displays Fn F7 still brings up the switchable box, both display adaptors are in device manage and also in the bios so everything is there, i will probably never need to switch to the intel hd 3000 display but it's just niggling away at me.

revert back to the drivers i had on there i hear you all shout, that is my problem i don't know which drivers they were :( all the drivers i have since tried have done my head in am sick of drivers at the minute lol.

i really don't want to format and reinstall everything to stock, this would be rather extreme i think.

have linked a screen of my current drivers, if anyone has switchable graphics working with the same display card as mine could you please post your driver info for me, or email them to me at

<ADMIN NOTE: Email id removed per privacy policy>

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

Hello Chili1496,

The drivers for both the Intel and the AMD card can be found on the Dell site. Click here to view the "drivers and downloads" section of the page. Enter your service tag to view the drivers for your system. Both video drivers should be listed under the "video" category. If the FN + F7 command is still not working, you can also try reinstalling the OSD application (this application controls the function key commands). The OSD download link is also in the "drivers and downloads” page, it should show under the “Application” category.

Please let me know if this works.

chili1496 · Answer

have just reinstalled the osd and at the moment there is no change :(

just tried the drivers too and still the same, think i will try to put it out if my mind.

link to my current drivers installed

http://gyazo.com/e4f8e041a64518fcad3b9540911755a4

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

So nothing at all comes up when you press FN * F7 correct? Can you check the other function keys to make sure they are working.

chili1496 · Answer

Hi and thanks for taking an interest in my problem.

all Fn keys work as they should the Fn F4/F5 keys do not dim the display as i think this is also connected to my driver problem, They did in the past adjust my display. Fn F7 brings up the switchable graphic box and if i click yes it does not do anything (it did prior to my driver update)

so i went into device manager and uninstalled the hd 6900 card/drivers and tried numerous other drivers all to no avail :(

i will just have to live with it the way it is as i am not going down a format and clean install road, maybe dell need to look into keeping their drivers up to date with the rest of the worlds drivers :)

thanks

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

Hello CHILI1496,

In device manager, under the “System Devices” category, check if you show something like this: Intel(R) Xeon(R) processor E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core processor PCI Express x16 Controller. If you do, right click on it and uninstall the driver. Then try the FN * F7 command again. Can you also confirm what exactly shows in device manager under “Display Adapters”?

chili1496 · Answer

Under display adapters i have

AMD RADEON HD 6900M SERIES

INTEL(R) HD GRAPHICS 3000

as for the other thing you refer to in system devices i do not have that at all, i have linked a Gyazo shot of my device manager screen

i may aswell also complain about my usb3 slots everytime i plug a usb3 device into them i am told, "this device will work faster if you use a usb3 slot" no big deal but just another disappointing flaw with dell drivers.

device manager screen

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

Thank you for providing this information. Can you also confirm what Bios version the system is using? The latest version is A12. If it is an older version, you can try updating it, click here for the A12 Bios download link. There is also an option in the Bios under the advanced menu that says “Primary Display”, make sure that is set to “SG”.

Please let me know how it goes.

chili1496 · Answer

Thanks for the reply, I'm late today had a long day at work.

My Bios is A12, however as per my original post my graphic switching issue is not bios related it is driver related, everything was fine till i updated my drivers. You could always google "alienware switchable graphics not switching" and see that this is a pretty common problem, caused by driver conflicts's.

as for my usb3 issue i would not know what the cause of that is, all i do know is that my m17x r3 was supposed to have 2 x usb3 ports on it which it does but every usb3 device i put into them is not run at usb3 speed and i am told by a little box to put the device into a usb3 port. Again i suspect the problem is old outdated drivers.

as much as a like my m17x i would never buy another one.

sg is enabled in the bios the other option is peg

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

You're welcome, no problem. Are both the Intel and AMD cards detected in the Bios? If they are not, this could be a hardware problem with the motherboard or the video card. We would recommended you try to also reinstall the chipset drivers and then the video card drivers again. It could be a driver conflict but considering everything you have already tried if it still doesn't work, you may need to reinstall Windows.

chili1496 · Answer

yes both graphic cards show up in the bios, as i originally posted it is a driver conflict between dell and amd. As for doing a clean install i am not that desperate to use Fn F7.

maybe its time to build another custom desktop. Thanks for attempting to solve my problem

Alienware - Rodrigo · Answer

Thank you for confirming this. Please let us know if you need further assistance.

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M17x-r3 graphics issues ........ sort of

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