Black screens with M17x

I have had this out of warranty M17x since last December, I got it from a replacement from my old M1730.

So one day, I get frusterated with Dell's drivers because many of my programs want the newer ones, so I download the new ones. Then after I install them, I clean out the GPU heatsinks. Turn the power on and it boots to Windows and the screen flashes black very fast on the welcome screen. So then I reformat, since I haven't done it since I got the computer and it ran fine for about three days. Now it starts black screening on me in Windows with doing anything. I can play a game for 3+ hours and it will not do this. However if I say click a button to launch a program, it goes to a black screen and I have to power the system down. I've gotten a few BSOD's before and one time the Driver "Recovers" then I see a few artifacts. I can avoid all of this freezing by switching the Hybrid mode to save power, but it gets really annoying switching back and forth.

Also, if I clean out my old drivers and reinstall them, it fixes it for a few days.
And when I play games it has only done this once, and that was when it was playing a video.

I have done GPU memory tests and they have passed, Furmark runs fine, and like I said games mostly run perfect.

I'm not sure if this is a hardware, or software problem.

BTW I am running Windows 7 64-Bit

Thanks,
Nonya

EDIT:

197.84 Beta Drivers are solid as a rock, two+ weeks and no black screens.

 

if by 'new' you mean the 10.7 Beta drivers you need to stop using them, completly uninstall and use the 10.5 Drivers for now until a whql signed 10.7 is released by dell. I'd be willing to bet money if you're using those they're causing the problem. 10.7's on mine wouldn't let it shutdown or restart properly for some reason, so strange happenings from these drivers is not out of the question.

 

I am using 258.96 from the Nvidia site right now.

 

I am having the same issue, just browsing and the screen goes black.

another member PMed me and said his did the same and he had to repalce the inverter which Dell did by replacing the entire display.

I have also had ramdom crashes which when rebotted I find my Sli config was reset to off.

Try running Dell diagnostics and see what comes back

 

But wouldn't it do the same with the intergrated graphics then? I've already done the diagnostics and everything passed.

 

not sure to be honest, I am still troubleshooting mine, just going by others info right now.

 

I am having the same issues. It can work fine for days, then just clicking a link in firefox can bring it down. Screen flashes for a second then goes black. Only way to get any kind of display back forces a hard reboot. I spoke with dell about it over a month ago. The tech said I just had to live with it. Each time this happens it gets logged in the windows event logs. I plan on contacting dell about it again now that I have about 30 separate even logs. I have tried all three versions of the nVidia drivers. The 258.96 drivers are the most stable I have found. If this is a software bug I wish someone could reproduce it at will. I am sure dell will offer to swap hardware around when I call. My M17x-r1 is only a couple months old and I want it to work 100%, not 90%.

 

lol, he said live with it? Anyway I can reproduce it by playing more than 1 video at a time on Youtube, it takes about 30 seconds then bam, screen is gone.

 

I'll try the multiple video thing and see if mine does the same thing. I have no intentions of living with a crippled lappy, I have just been on the road for the last six weeks and haven't had a chance to call dell. Just have to play the game with them.

 

my screen turns on and off quickly.and a few times in game i had to exit and restart the game.it started when i downloaded all the new drivers at once i would not know how to down grade.how would one go about deleting the new driver and placing it with a old one.

 

I already done a fresh format and install with the latest drivers still does it,.

My next suggestion would be to test the laptop on a external monitor when this happens again and if it is good on the external it kinda confirms teh problem is likely the display/inverter

 

You know, I am having much better luck just using the drivers from windows 7. I did download the ATI drivers (not the beta, that's what started this whole blue screen of death thing). Finally my computer is back to working and overclocked at 3.2ghz and even better is that I'm getting much better WEI scores (yes I know they don't count, but it does show a big difference between the Dell drivers and the generic windows drivers. The generic drivers are better.

 

I use driversweeper after I uninstall the drivers, then just install the new ones.

 

Hi,

First post, but generally a lurker, esp. when I have computer issues.

Just to say I am having the exact same issues covered in this thread.

Got off phone with AWCS, and they are going to replace both of my 260M's.

More to the story, but I just wanted to give the gist here and then comment that there seems to be another thread about this same subject here.

This was the thread that I saw first, so I figured I would post here first, plus it could use a bump.

Each of these threads are on computers with 280M's tho, unlike mine.

 

I'm having the same shutdown issues. With 10.7 or 10.8 (from Dell or ATI) the machine refuses to power off or sleep or hibernate completely. I need to force a power cycle to get it back.

With the shipped drivers (10.6) or 10.6 from ATI, I get the atiumdag.dll fault.

Have you managed to get the 10.6 drivers to work?

m17x-r2, 5870/1G, win7/64, 8G, i7 q720.

 

Pretty sure I just fixed it. Turns out I had the Ricoh chipset drivers installed. So I just uninstalled all Nvidia and Ricoh cleaned them out and reinstalled.

Man, I feel stupid.

 

I am having this exact problem stated by Nonya in the original post. I have a m17x r1 with a 260M.

I just formatted and restored with the master Alienware CD. My screen still randomly goes black when I browse a webpage or something. I see Ricoh drivers under IDE Controllers and the IEEE 1394 Bus Controller, do I uninstall and clean those?

 

I uninstalled anything that had to do with Nvidia or Ricoh (In Add or Remove Programs), and disabled the 1394 Firmwire (Not sure if that has anything to do with it). and used Driver Sweeper in Safe Mode, rebooted, then installed the Nforce drivers, then 258.96 Geforce drivers.

 

197.84 Beta Drivers are solid as a rock, two+ weeks and no black screens.