17 R1, freezes when installing graphics driver

Tried your link for the driver and I froze again.

@crimsom The 8970M is the R9 M290x. It’s the same card but just rebranded with a different vBIOS. 

Hi @BobbyB999  the graphics card is not AMD Radeon R9 M290X, but AMD Radeon HD 7950M/8970M card? Why is there no Discrete AMD Radeon R9 M290X card? 

Alienware 17, Radeon R9 M290X - Notebookcheck.net External Reviews

Hi @mattyb3 thank you for the clarification. 

Does this explain why the AMD Radeon R9 M290X driver from Dell does not install? 

You can try but the M290x is the same card as the 8970M so I doubt it will make a difference. Drivers are usually released in packages that include a vast array of different GPU's so the driver for the 7950M/8970M should be the exact same one as the M290x, this is how Nvidia do it anyway. I don't have a lot of experience with AMD cards but I wouldn't imagine they do it differently.

Try as many driver versions as you can, just in case it is a software issue. Have you run the system for a decent period before attempting to install the driver? It is still crashes the laptop then it's 99% a hardware issue. It still could be even if it only happens during the driver installation

Thank you guys for all your help!

Should I be looking for an AMD Radeon HD 7950M/8970M driver?

Hi @BobbyB999 there could be a problem with the operating system files. Please run all the reliability diagnostics listed by user RoHe in Solved: Reliability History has many appcrashes - Dell Community.  

It’s me again. Did a search for a driver and saw it works with my card. Did the install and before I could click on Restart the laptop froze. Rebooted by using the power button and now when I turn on the computer I see nothing. Blank screen. Hoping I can boot into safe mode and remove the driver but I can’t figure out how to boot into safe mode!!

@BobbyB999 If you can get to the Alienware splash screen then you can try spamming F8 to get into the hidden advanced menu. You should be able to select safe mode from here.

If you get no display at all then you can try removing the GPU from the laptop to force the Intel graphics. Then remove the driver and reinstall the card and see what happens

Several times in safe mode I uninstalled the device and deleted the driver in Device Manager or uninstalled the AMD software and driver using RevoUninstall. But once the laptop was rebooted, the device and driver came right back.

Next step, I guess, is to uninstall the card.

Thank you so much for your help.

Next question is, if the card needs to be replaced, what am I looking for for a replacement?

Windows 10 will probably try to auto-install the driver every time you uninstall it. Probably the worst aspect of Win10 was the auto-updating that you couldn't turn off. 

I'm still guessing that the card is the problem, not the software, but hopefully you can sort it out. 

It all depends on how much you want to spend. If you want a card that will be plug and play then any of these cards are what you'll want;

Nvidia GTX 770M, 780M, 860M, 880M

AMD R9 M290x, 8970M

If you want something more recent than those cards then you can try the GTX 970M, 980M, 1060 or 1070. These will require a modified Nvidia driver to run (plenty of guides out there). 

There are also Quadro cards that will work like the M3000M, M4000M, M5000M, P4000, RTX 3000, etc. These will also need modified drivers. 

Hi @BobbyB999 please try to diagnose and fix windows operating system. See my post within Alienware m17 R3. Screen flickering and occasionally going black whilst awake - Dell Community.  

Mattyb, do you have any recommendations for where to buy a new graphics card? Looking on Amazon and Newegg.com and not finding any of those Nvidia cards.