AMD 7970m and Intel HD 4000 not listed in bios

First this is in the bios on the main page screen, Windows 7 is actually seeing them both properly.

Alienware M17xR4 - A13 bios, AMD 7970m factory installed, 8gb ram, Intel 3720QM, all other parts (except an mSATA Samsung 1tb 850 Evo) are factory installed. I have no hacked/unlocked/custom/modded bios/vbios or other changes to system innards.

I had tried to save a win7sp164 install that had worked for 2yrs plus, but failed, after 2 weeks I gave up on saving windows install and reinstalled and started working on fresh copy. However with fresh copy, once amd drivers install, system will freeze up at the windows 7 box (I call it that, it glows and glimmers). I then have to go into safe mode, ddu and restart. I have every driver on system up to date. Tried Leshcast 14.4, 14.12, 15.7, 16.2.1, no luck. Upon reading elsewhere I noticed that my system has one of those nvram bios, where taking out battery isn't enough.

What has bothered me is that on the first screen of the bios (Main), when you go to entries for Integrated Graphics and Discrete Graphics 1, they use to say Intel Hd 4000 and AMD 7970m, respectively, now just Integrated Graphics Intel Ivy Bridge and Discrete Graphics AMD Gfx. Even if I remove the graphics (amd) card, I can't get the bios (a13) to say Intel HD 4000 (or some combination of those words). I does detect and name the CPU type on the main page. So this is why I am starting to wonder if I have a bad nvram or corrupted data in the nvram (as all of this occured when my SSD install of Win764sp1 froze in game about 3 weeks ago - yes I am a determined type).

Now I cannot find a guide that is exactly for the M17xR4. There are guides that say to short out the Cmos Clr location. Others call for the RTCLS to be shorted. Still others say look for a password bridge. Yet still others say move a jumper or pin (which I don't think laptops have because of being moved around).

So I guess the question is, how do I get the bios screen main page show Integrated Graphics Intel HD 4000 and the Discrete Graphics 1 to show AMD 7970m (this also is a possible way it was shown, since I haven't seen it since I can't give the exact name it used but close to what I just called it, you will know you have a 4000 and 7970m in your system). As mentioned stuck at A13 bios, they flashed bios during repair to A12, so can't go backwards without major risk). Everything else is being listed with its proper name in the main page ( ssd, optical, cpu, etc.). That is when I jumped on the NVRam issue in terms of not truely clearing the bios (with the old fashion way of pulling the cmos battery, laptop main battery and ac adapter, power on once, then go back and replace battery, etc.).

Note after rebooting with amd driver in win installed, first attempt at system repair says "bad driver" but second and on just say no reason. I have even disabled the hdmi audio and other audio from Intel in device manager to make sure the AMD driver for audio isn't clashing with intel/Microsoft version. (Intel driver v 10.18.10.3958)

Please put me out of my misery over this.

 

Let me explain a few things:
1: M17x R4 BIOS should NEVER explicitly tell you the model of the graphics card, it is perfectly normal for it to tell you Intel GFX for integrated, and ATI GFX for discrete 1 if you have a AMD card, or nVidia GFX if you have an nVidia card.
2. Your 7970M is most likely dead. If you can get into safe mode, but not under normal boot, it is because Windows cannot initialize hardware accelerated graphics on the 7970M (aka, black screen of death or splash screen of death if you can't get off the Windows 7 logo). I had the same symptoms that happened when I had my M17x R4 with the 7970M, and I knew the card was toast at that point because no matter what I did with fresh Windows 7 install or DDU + fresh latest driver install, it would never get past the splash logo or immediately blackscreen after the logo. Replacing with a good known graphics card solved the problem immediately.

3. The M17x R4 does NOT have NVRAM, and you should not be shorting anything out with a screwdriver or anything of the sort. Simply remove the main battery and the coin battery, hold the power button for a minute, then replace everything and turn it on. NVRAM was introduced with the Alienware 17, not the M17x R4.

So your options are as follows:
1. Remove the 7970M, reset bios, boot safe mode, install only Intel HD 4000 drivers and use as-is
2. Try to bake the 7970M with liquid flux, although this has a low success rate since the 7970M failures typically happen within the die itself, and not the mounting of the chip to the MXM board.

3. Replace the 7970M with another known working 7970M
4. Switch to 680M, 780M, 970M, or 980M. Note the 970M/980M will require a full UEFI environment. All except the 680M will require nVidia INF driver modifications to use in the M17x R4

If you wish to go the 780M route, I have a couple for sale

 

Better buy nvidia gpu if AMD one is dead. Everyone uses nvidia now.

 

Interesting new change. I reseated the card, pushing it in hard and then screwing in the 2 screws that hold the AMD MXM card in its socket. It got past the windows logo, alienware red image came up saying loading windows and then went to black screen with cursor in the uppper left. Would that still be a dead card or did the card get my hopes up to have fun with me and mental state

Next attempt at booting, back to the stuck on the glowing windows box logo.

 

Did you read what I said in my earlier post? I told two one of two things will happen: get stuck on the windows 7 splash screen, or if you get past it, you will be greeted by the black screen of death almost immediately afterwards (black screen, LCD backlight on).