Graphics Card and Windows 7 problem!!

Hey guys

Now I bought my Alienware M17x in the summer of 2009. I understand that there are two graphics cards in the laptop, the 260m and the 9400. Now recently in about January I upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. As soon as i upgraded I noticed the gaming was not as good as it used to be. I went to device manager and saw that my laptop was running the 9400 graphics card, not my 260m. I pressed FN+F7 to switch over and nothing happened. I have upgraded the drivers and everything straight from Dell's site as well as Nvidia's site and still nothing. I went to the Bios setup and went to Graphics settings and saw that the option for Hybrid graphics isn't enabled and said its only for Windows Vista. If i disable integrated my screen simply goes black. I have come to the conclusion that Windows 7 does not support my Hybrid Graphics card. Does this mean that in order for me to game with my laptop I will be forced to revert back to Vista? If you guys have any solutions for this it would truly help, i have spent weeks trying to solve this problem, laptop has been great past 2-3 years and now this happened. Thanks for any help.

Basically from what I am seeing, I am stuck using the integrated 9400 on Windows 7, i simply cannot get my laptop to boot using the 260m. When I go to bios and Enable the Hybrid Graphics the screen stays black upon loading windows. If anyone can help with this issue it would be greatly appreciated, I do not want to resort to going back to Vista.

 

Windows 7 does support the hybrid graphics. It will take a while for it to boot the first time while it installs the drivers necessary for windows to run, you should go into bios and disable the hybrid and integrated graphics and force windows 7 to use the 260... then once it has booted, reinstall the latest nvidia drivers for your card and everything should be good to go.... then you can re-enable the hybrid graphics...

 

Thanks for replying, now how would I "force" windows to run the 260. When i enable hybrid graphics the screen goes black. If you could give me maybe step by step directions i would appreciate it. Also concerning drivers, should i go to Dell's site or rather Nvidia's for the most recent one?

 

I would first download dells drivers, unless you are familiar with using the modded inf's to install the latest nvidia.... take a look here for help with the driver Nvidia 296.10

To make windows only use the 260, when your computer boot and the alien head pops up hit F2 to take you to bios....

The go to your graphic settings and disable everything... there should be four things in the list... hybrid graphics, integrated graphics, pc*something, something... and another one.... make sure everything is disabled, then press F10 to save and exit and let it reboot and install the drivers....

 

Okay So I did like you said and disabled everything in the Graphics Settings for the Bios. I downloaded the driver you linked me to and when i proceeded to install it, it said that " The graphics driver could not find compatible graphics hardware". From there it will not let me install the drivers. Any other suggestions?

 

Yeah... you need to donwload and replace the inf file before you install the driver... take the nvdm file from post #15 in the forum link i gave you earlier and replace the inf in your C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\296.10\WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver folder.... then backup one folder and double click the setup.exe file and the driver will install

 

Okay so the driver just finished installing and it is asking me to restart now or later. Is there anything else i should do before restarting? What should i do after the restart?

 

After the restart you can go ahead and go into bios and enable the hybrid graphics, if you want to use it... if not just restart...
Also once you have restarted, and windows opens and settles out..lol... you will need to open the nvidia control panel to set your sli and physx... and you should be good to go..
enjoy...

 

YES!! My gtx260 shows up now in my device manager as well as the Boost Performance for the Hybrid SLI. Thank you sir you are a genius. I seriously appreciate it, i tried for weeks on forums getting help but thank god you came. Once again thx man you are the best!

 

haha... no problem... glad to help

 

You could thank him, by clicking the little icon on the middle under his avatar to "give him credz"! He will appreciate it greatly.


Just sayin'

 

hahaha... thanks spaz...lol... made me laugh.. awesome avatar pic...
Im just glad i could help

 

You're welcome Slate and I love my Avi too! ;-)

It's soooooo ME!