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    Calling all greys. The mothership has crashed

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by jono123, Jun 11, 2011.

  1. jono123

    jono123 Notebook Consultant

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    Hi all,

    My beloved R2 is legs in the air.

    I was playing Shogun 2 when all of a sudden it made some nasty noises and then the colour went wonky. So, I did a manual reboot , to get the blue screen of death stating the obvious (critical failure). I have done a system restore to no avail and its looking like curtains.

    I think its obviously the g card but I dont know what the problem is. I will reinstall the drivers and hopefully I can resolve it. Unfortunately my warranty has expired.

    I have had the system for nearly 20 months , is this a norma life cycle? If it is IM going back to desktops. Any help welcome.
     
  2. codesx100

    codesx100 Notebook Consultant

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    well 20 months is not a normal life cycle, (since dell offers up to 4 years of hardware warranty when you order your system.) It is fixable, ive never heard of a laptop or desktop only meant to live for like 20 months. Time to call up dell if yu have a warranty.
     
  3. katalin_2003

    katalin_2003 NBR Spectre Super Moderator

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    Can you give us more details jono?
     
  4. LVNeptune

    LVNeptune Notebook Virtuoso

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    The average life span of consumer electronics is about 1 year...The extended warranties will soon not even be sold because it is now costing them too much :)
     
  5. jono123

    jono123 Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for some of the responses.

    Essentially, what has happened is that whilst playing a game the sound stalled and then the screen went all Jimmy Hendrix. I rebooted and windows failed to load. An error (critical failure) screen which was blue also appeared.

    I have rebooted in safe mode. I have noticed the GTX 260M driver is no longer present. I DL'd a new one 186.81 I believe. When I rebooted again the windows screen is totally blacked out. The machine functions ok with the proprietary G card but the GTX doesn't work.

    I have run out of ideas.