BSOD & 3D Driver Fix for m17x R3s with SSDs

OK, I am making this for anyone who is receiving a BSOD with there windows 7 install on a SSD & for those who have got windows installed but cannot get 3D functionality, Follow my steps and you should be golden.

1) Go into BIOS(F2) and set the hard drives to RAID

2) Hit F10 to Save and Reboot

3) Insert Windows 7 Disc and Boot from Disc(F12 - Boot from DVD)

3) Install Windows 7, After installation completes Install the network card or wifi driver from the file I included in Step 6 or Support.Dell.com and then install ALL windows 7 updates. OR place updates on a Flash drive and install from there.

4) Install These Drivers: Nvidia 270.61
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service
(Darcoder Originally made these up to be able to "Hot Swap" the 460m and 485m)

5) If you experience your SSD "Hanging" use this to fix it:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3D78TIEG

6) Install Remaining Drivers (I included updated dell drivers but You can also get them at support.dell.com):
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QAOYMXWM

7) Enjoy!

This worked with Both a Vertex 3 240Gb and Vertex 3 120 MAX IOPS Drive so far.


EDIT: I got a BSOD on my 240GB drive But I think this time it might actually be related to My ram, Ill post back when I know for sure.
EDIT 2: Followed my own instructions and it fixed my BSOD lol

 

Another bsod? Not good. What were you doing when it happened?

 

sitting on this computer(my desktop) chatting with LVneptune, and my R3 randomly dropped into a BSOD and gave me a "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" Error. I wasn't doing anything on the R3, It was Just sitting there, I thought maybe it went to Hibernate and that brought it into a BSOD but It never recovered, just went into a loop and gave me that error so I am currently Running Memtest to see if one of my HyperX sticks has an issue

 

Everything still running smoothly for you?

 

Interesting.. I'm guessing we will need two guides one for those with 3D and those without since Dopebhoy had success with ACHI. Glad you found a solution.

 

Just confirmed this again to work on The vertex 3 240gb, I was geting the BSOD again and I did another clean install following my method and it worked

 

No bsod for me since those drivers were installed. I can't close my screen while having it set to do nothing as sometimes when I open it, I can't get screen to come back on and hav to force shutdown.

And can't scale company of heroes to full screen when using lower res. I even checked control panel for nvidia.

Both aren't deal breakers so overall very pleased I can stay with the vertex 3.

 

5) If you experience your SSD "Hanging" use this to fix it:
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service

@Zerg run that, should fix that issue

 

Thanks LVNeptune, I'll give it a try and see how my computer holds up.

 

I was having issues even after following your suggestions. After looking through all of my dump logs I did the following:

1. Upgraded to BIOS A04 (this caused my m17x R3 using an Intel 510 SSD to constantly crash with error sdbus.sys 0xD1)
2. Turned off the SD Card Reader in the BIOS

Since then I have not had a single BSOD. I'm hoping that this clears everything up. Thanks for the post and links to the upgraded Nvidia drivers btw it was very helpful.

Oh yeah I'm using RAID instead of AHCI. I might try to switch it over to AHCI later.

 

Well I tried LVNeptune's little registry fix and so far I haven't had any lock ups when closing my screen. Thanks and +rep to you! (hopefully it doesn't start messing up after I mentioned this)

 

Edited - wrong thread.

 

is the registry fix you used the one I originally posted in the guide? I had given LvNeptune one the other day to use

 

Whoops, it is in your guide, rep to you too!

 

Thanx, I just wanted to make sure if it was different that I included it in the guide

 

Yea, was about to say it was in his guide

 

Does this apply to the ati 6970m version as well? I am getting BSOD with error of irql_not_less_or_equal on mine with my intel 510 120gb ssd. I set AHCI mode and tried a clean install. I noticed hanging and then eventually bsod. I am not sure that it was any particular driver.

edit: I went back to raid mode. Installed updated m18x updated drivers http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/580144-m17xr3-owners-driver-updates-i-suggest-using-05-20-a.html. So I can't say for sure if it was the ahci to raid mode change or if it was a driver or install issue that affected it. Anyhow, in raid mode with the new drivers (same install order) things look good so far.