Broken Nvidia Card? Maybe?

Hey guys!

Looking for some help here. I tried ringing Alienware tech support in the UK but they are currently closed (I thought the helpline was 24 hours???)

Anyways, I've always had an issue with the Nvidia graphics card GTX 770M (driver 335.23) in where I would get screen tearing if I play any games on full screen, if I played it on border or on a small window it would work fine, Battlefield 4 was especially bad. Top be honest I just thought it was an issue with the games themselves until I started to use my laptop more and more. I use a video converter to obviously convert videos for my ipad but lately it doesn't detect the Nvidia card until I use the FN to swap to dedicated card....hmmm strange again, but kinda no bother.

However, I'm now convinced there's something wrong as I couldn't even load a simply CAD drawing without screen tearing or glitching. My work's laptop (a small dell inspiron 13" 3rd gen core i5) views these CAD drawing's fine with no problem. I then made the CAD drawing use the integrated intel chip, and the drawings worked fine.

I think I know what everyone will say, just throwing it out there whilst tech support is closed about what the issue might be? Usually I would point at a hardware problem, but truth be told this is my 2nd alienware laptop from them in space of several month's, so I'm a bit skeptical. Is it me by being that unlucky?

With that being said the 700 series graphics card's have been replaced. So am I likely to get the same replacement? Or will they now ship a 800 series card?

Thanks for you help!

 

Hi there .

The AW support is UK business hours only (8am to 6pm I believe).

The tearing problem has been widespread on the 7xx series desktop cards with this and the previous driver. Just to eliminate this install the driver dell publish for your model, I recall they recently updated it.

The problem appears to be related to v-sync which NV have been messing with. You could just try forcing it in the global driver settings? On my machine I cannot turn off v-sync so it always caps out at 60FPS - but then again it has just started failing and Dell are replacing it on Monday!

The support will want their driver anyway so always good to start there before calling

As for unlucky? I'm on my fourth NV card and second M17x

 

Have you tried rolling back the driver?

 

Hi guys,

Just tried what you both suggested and rolled back the driver's to Dell's offical ones (331.65) and it seem's worse now. Screen tearing on most games and the CAD drawing's crash and break as soon as I start to scroll.

I'm open to other ideas

 

oh well, I wasn't hopeful but at least you've saved a little time on the support call. It does sound very much like a failing card - mine is doing all sorts of weird stuff right now!

Does it happen in windowed mode?

 

Not yet it doesn't Micky! Just whenever something is set to fullscreen

 

That's very interesting. I only asked because all the people screaming about tearing have said it does not happen in windowed mode. Kinda points again to v-sync I think.

If I had heard of more mobile 7xx card having this problem I would have said driver all the way. You might find an earlier one (314.22 is great but you'll need a modded ini to install it) will work for you but this is just getting around something bad going on IMO.

If you've really got nothing better to do you could even go back to factory. A real PITA but you'll know for sure if the HW has failed .

 

Use AlienRespawn and restore your computer to factory state.

 

+1 to this option. It will help to isolate the issue.