The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Alienware 17 video card upgrade issue!

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by armyoftigers, May 16, 2014.

  1. armyoftigers

    armyoftigers Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hey everyone!!!

    So I just installed an Nvidia GTX 680m in my Alienware 17 r5 (upgrade from a 765m). Since I am using Windows 8.1 I had to disable driver signature enforcement and download the modified .inf file for the drivers, but all else went smoothly.

    Now when I start playing a game, after a few minutes of (defliciously smooth) gameplay they all freeze, and most recently my video card seems to have lost its driver out of nowhere. GPU-Z doesn't detect it, neither does GPU temp or Device manager.

    Speaking of temps, at peak it's only around 65 degrees C....so that's not the issue.

    Does anyone know what may be going on?
     
    armyoftigers, May 16, 2014
    #1
  2. thegh0sts

    thegh0sts Notebook Nobel Laureate

    Reputations:
    949
    Messages:
    7,700
    Likes Received:
    2,819
    Trophy Points:
    331
    Maybe the card is not compatible?

    Sent from my One using Tapatalk
     
    thegh0sts, May 16, 2014
    #2
  3. armyoftigers

    armyoftigers Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    I actually had it working, and I was in a game of titanfall then it froze and lost the driver and the card was not detected. I reseated the card, and it was detected again and was able to successfully install the drive, but in device manager there's a code 43 on the card now :/

    I found that this means there's a driver issue 90% of the time, and even went as far as a fresh windows install. Same symptom. :(
     
    armyoftigers, May 17, 2014
    #3
  4. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

    Reputations:
    3,658
    Messages:
    6,874
    Likes Received:
    969
    Trophy Points:
    281
    If the issue persists after a clean install I'm 99% sure it's the card that failed for some reason.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, May 19, 2014
    #4
  5. MickyD1234

    MickyD1234 Notebook Prophet

    Reputations:
    3,159
    Messages:
    6,473
    Likes Received:
    1,165
    Trophy Points:
    331
    What driver are you using? Code 43 has been a recent issue and is somehow related to programs that use VM's.
    snip/

    A hotfix driver is available to address the following two issues.

    -Half display or no display on Dell UltraSharp UP3214Q/UP2414Q LCD monitor - [1453685]
    -Code 43 error message after installing driver 337.50 on a PC with Hyper-V enabled - [1495541]

    You may download these drivers directly from our knowledge base article below:
    NVIDIA GeForce R337.61 BETA Hotfix Display Driver Release
     
    MickyD1234, May 19, 2014
    #5