Dead HD7970M ?

Dear all,

I bought an Alienware M17x-R4 at powernotebooks.com
It has been 3 months now, and the computer has been working perfectly.

Yesterday night, while using my Alienware, it suddenly crashed, giving
me a black screen and a very annoying noise. I thought it was not a
big deal, and I just had to restart the computer : I was wrong. The
computer would turn on but the screen would remain black, without any
light on it. I read on the forums about several people having the same
issue and I was very scared about what people said concerning this
issue. I decided to go to bed and solve things today. I often saw
people advising others to do a BIOS reset, with the CMOS battery, and
that's what I did. As a matter of fact, the PC could turn on, but it
was very buggy. It was back to the integrated GPU but it wouldn't
actually use it, videos would be really slow and on the resolutions
option I wouldn't see any recognized graphics card.
Everytime I reinstall the drivers properly, either the computer
wouldn't start or it would give me a black screen with the _ blinking
icon on the top left corner of the screen. I then decided to format
the computer, hoping it would solve the issue : it didn't. I tried
everything : installing different versions of drivers, including the
official dell ones, using Driver Sweeper in safe mode, etc. Nothing
would work and either Windows won't start (stuck on Starting Windows)
or it would give me that _ blinking icon.
All in all, I tried to install drivers the whole day, and it's clear
that the AMD HD7970M won't work whatsoever.
I'm very surprised, considering I never overclocked it, it was never
ever physically damaged. Furthermore, the computer is brand-new (3
months old), I don't know how the GPU could die this fast. I've taken
very good care of this PC, it's in good shape. I'm very sad that the
integrated GPU won't even be properly recognized, because videos are
very slow. This isn't normal at all.
Basically, I can't play nor watch any type of videos.

Dxdiag is attached to this thread.

I appreciate your time and hope you will be able to give me some advice. I already contacted powernotebooks and plan on calling Alienware very soon.

Best regards,

 

I don't really know how to help you but... my 680M died after around 3 weeks of owning it. The problems grew to a point where when I tried to boot up the laptop, screen stayed black.. .but I could still hear the Windows login sound.. And eventually when I tried to turn it on it just started giving me beeps GPU died..

I think that might be whats going on with your 7970m /:

 

Almost sounds like your PCI-E lane does not power the card enough......either way the problem is definetly dedicated GPU related.
The reason why the onboard gpu won't kick in is beacuse the driver cannot be used because windows won't boot normally and the driver kicks in the integrated gpu so you are in a stalemate situation.

Try to get your hands on a cheap AMD replacement (just to swap out) and see if this fixes your problem.

 

A freind of mine had e similar for a while with a ATI5870m and in the end the MXM slot was broken, but I hope yours is not!!!!

 

I had my service tag transfered to Hong Kong (where I actually live now), furthermore I called the Hong Kong Dell support and they'll be sending me a tech guy tomorrow to figure things out. He will notice that the GPU is probably dead or something. How long does it take for them to replace the GPU ? Or at least receive it in their office ?

Thanks for the support !

 

Today, a tech support guy came along with a brand new AMD HD7970M and a new motherboard.
I was happy to see that the parts were already available.
He proceeded to replace the old GPU by the new one. After we started the computer, we couldn't even install the drivers or detect the GPU.
He then proceeded to replace the old motherboard by the new one. Same thing.

This is very strange... He told me he will order 2 motherboards and 2 GPUs for the next time, just to be sure.
This is very confusing because what are the odds ? I don't even know what's wrong now.
I guess I'll have to wait in see. At the moment, with a new motherboard and a new GPU, I still have the same issue.

 

That is really strange :S Hope everything gets sorted fast!

 

Yes this is quite odd - considering you now have a new motherboard and GPU (and you stated that you reinstalled Windows). Maybe check your HDD - hope that there are no sectors damaged.

 

We did an HDD check and everything was clean :/
Looking forward to their call tomorrow morning.

Thanks for the support.

EDIT : I tried the factory image thing + formatting and installing a fresh Windows 7 again... Nothing. Every single AMD driver (dell official ones too) won't recognize my AMD HD7970M at all.
I hope it will be fixed with another new GPU/motherboard.

 

Get a replacement..

 

I asked the tech guy this morning what will happen if next time he won't be able to fix it, he told me he will order a replacement for me.