Alienware M17X-R3 Nvidia GTX 660M Windows 10 Driver

To cut a long story short........

I have a customers M17X-R3 the graphics card had failed, we replaced the card with the only alternative I could find which is a Geforce GTX 660M, the laptop is running Windows 10 64 bit, it sees the card but has a generic graphics driver installed. Tried installing the drivers from Nvidia and Dell and neither worked, I also tried installing the driver manually (have disk) and that wouldn't work either......I have seen some other posts that you need to modify the INF file for it to installed and wondered if anyone could shed some light on what exactly I need to do before I totally lose the will to live with it.........or if you can create the INF file for me for the latest drivers I would appreciate it......

The hardware ID in device manager for the card is: -

PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0FD4&SUBSYS_04901028

The ebay listing we purchased for the video card is: -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/182107207781?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Thanks in advance......

 

Hi, I can't help with the detailed modding needed but I have seen quite a few guides. There will be a specific inf file mentioned and the strings you need to search and replace. If you get to the install selection the mod has worked and any further problems will NOT be mod related.

I do know that in win 10 you have to turn off driver validation for a modded driver to install. This might be available inside windows 10 by now but it used to require a quite complex command to be issued (research needed). If this is not done the driver install silently fails.

Good luck, seeing it as a generic card and windows booting fine you are almost there!

 

Thanks for the reply.........I still feel no closer to the finish line, I found another thread where someone was installing this card on windows 7/8 and using older nVidia driver......I used that INF but the driver failed to install, so I think this could be because that INF isn't correct.

Anyone else able to help?

 

SOLVED IT.......

Here's what I had to do: -

1) Update the BIOS to the latest version A12, and set the main display to the PEG graphics.
2) Install the new graphics card..........Installing the GTX 660M video card requires a copper shim, the heat sink for the existing video card doesn't fit very well at all and doesn't fully contact the GPU dye, due to the fact that the old dye is a lot bigger and sticks out further.......so I had to install a 0.6mm shim, (heat sink paste spread evenly on the GPU dye > copper shim on top > then heat sink paste on the top of the shim, best done before u place the shim on the GPU). I tried a few to find which was the best fit. This isn't my ideal solution but in this situation I had no choice, I also had to shuffle around some of the heat pads to make it fit.

3) Turn off driver signing: -
Step 1. Open the Windows command prompt as “Run as Administrator”.
Step 2. Run “bcdedit -set loadoptions DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS” (without the “”).
Step 3. Then Run “bcdedit -set TESTSIGNING ON” (without the “”).
Step 4. Reboot.

4) Download the latest NVidia driver for your O/S and card (660M), run the driver and either cancel the install after its extracted or just let it fail.
5) Navigate to the installation folder for the driver (C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\375.63\Win10_64\International\Display.Driver) and open the file NVDMI.INF in notepad.
6) Search the file for the Device ID for the video card in this case its 0FD4, the first result you get this is one of the lines you need to edit, at the end of the line it says SUBSYS_05501028, you need to replace all instances of 05501028 in the file for the SUBSYS value for your card which is 04901028, easiest way is to use the replace option from the edit menu, save the file but don't close it yet.
7) Scroll right to the bottom of the file, you will see a section like the following: -

NVIDIA_DEV.0FD4.0550.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M"

This line above is the exact one you need to change, you see the SUBSYS value 05501028 but split with a dot, change it to: -

NVIDIA_DEV.0FD4.0490.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M"

Save the file.

8) Run the installer setup.exe from the International folder as administrator, select perform a clean install and click continue, you will get a security warning asking if you want to install the driver, click continue. Everything should install fine now.

9) Turn on driver signing: -
Step 1. Open the Windows command prompt as “Run as Administrator”.
Step 2. Run “bcdedit -set loadoptions ENABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS” (without the “”)
Step 3. Then Run “bcdedit -set TESTSIGNING OFF” (without the “”)
Step 4. Reboot.

You should now be fully working.....

 

Great to hear and thanks for the detailed reply. It should help others struggling with this