I think I killed my m17x

Hey there guys, I'm in desperate need of help, but I'm going to list my problems here and exactly what occured.

So I was lucky enough to receive a review unit of an m17x from Alienware (loan). I was doing some basic benchmarking, when I noticed that the scores I was getting were not the scores an m17x should be. In fact, they were far worse than my ASUS G50V that I own. I figured that I would update some drivers, see if that would fix anything, and then move on to formatting if it didn't.

Searching for drivers, I stumbled across this forum, and saw a thread with the latest updated drivers. I thought this was sweet - so I started at the top and worked my way on down. First I wanted to make sure that mine was an R2, so I googled 'what is the difference between an m17x r1 and r2' and found that it was mostly CPU related, and that since I had an i7 mine was an r2.

So I started with the first driver, an updated BIOS driver. I ran the EXE, clicked next a few times, let it install in its default location, and then reboot my machine. It was then that all hell broke loose. After the usual loading screens, it flashed up with 'Operating System Not Found'. I thought it was bizarre, so decided perhaps the BIOS upgrade had reset the way the Laptop boots, and changed which hard drive it used first. Same error. Sighing I pulled out the Windows 7 disc and proceeded to install it.

With Windows 7 installed, things looked to be pretty good. I noticed that when I looked at my hard drives, one needed to be formatted, so I did so. I figured I would use the resource discs to install everything I needed, and one of the first things (after chipset drivers) I installed were the videocard drivers. The problem was that I remembered this machine having 5870's and not 4870's like the resource disc said. Still, the resource disc said that it had detected I had 4870's so I let it go ahead and install it. At the end of the install, I noticed it didn't ask me to reboot, and nothing had happened on screen, so I gave it a reboot and checked device manager - where I noticed it hadn't installed the drivers.

This lead me to figure that the laptop did indeed have 5870's inside, so once again using the threads here on the forum I grabbed the latest drivers for them. Installing them, I got prompted quite successfully with the 'we must restart your machine' which I let it do. Unfortunately, that's where upon windows loading the screen would go black and I couldn't actually do anything. I tried another reboot, same thing. Pushed into safe mode and uninstalled the drivers - which worked fine. Tried reinstalling them again, same issue. Uninstalled via safe mode and tried to install 4870's, which wouldn't take (even via have disk options). I am currently using safe mode with networking in order to get this to work properly (though I could uninstall the videocard drivers if I wished)

So - I'm curious if the BIOS update I installed was the root cause of all of this, or if the laptop was screwed when I got it. It was getting passmarks of 400 on both CPU and VIDEO before reinstall (the average m17x I saw on passmark was getting 1500 plus on both). It couldn't even run Sims 3 without lagging all over the place. Would the BIOS update have stayed post windows reinstall (likely) and if so, how do I roll it back (if possible).

Anybody who could help here would be really appreciated Usually I'm pretty good with tech.

 

The BIOS update will take you hard drives out of RAID. That happened to me as well, but while fooling around in the BIOS trying to find out if I could do anything, I stumbled across the hard drive settings which had reset to AHCI or something. So that's what went wrong first, but I don't know about the other stuff.

EDIT: After reading a couple times, I have lead myself to believe after the BIOS update and reinstall, you were left with half of your drivers, making them unusable. Just a theory, someone more knowledgeable should confirm.

 

Thanks for the quick reply!

I think that makes a lot of sense, and explains why I couldn't get it to boot in the first place. I think it's fairly unfortunate that I formatted that when I got into windows for the first time, as I might have been able to fix it otherwise.

Now one half of the problem down, one half to go

 

have you made sure it is not in stealth mode.

 

I love this response to everything

I haven't installed the drivers for it to have a stealth mode yet

After some more delving I think I might have my problem solver - In that I haven't done the VBIOS upgrade (which I thought was purely optional) which could explain my failure to boot properly. Going to give that a go.

 

Being in stealth mode, not having the Power supply plugged in as well as not re-enabling RAID after a BIOS update are among the most common issues that haunt new and uneducated M17x users. That's why people ask about it so often. By the way, it's a good idea for a reviewer to know to check all the BIOS settings, especially after performing a BIOS update. These things should be part of the review after all.

Anyhow, make sure you have the proper video card model(s) for the VBIOS update, otherwise you could brick them.

 

Heh, I did flick through the BIOS but unfortunately wasn't instantly familiar with anything being out of place (Like I said, I thought maybe the boot order was the problem).

I know that I have the right graphics cards, but now I can't put it on any USB I own because all mine are over 2GB -_- Also amusingly it doesn't let you use the utility if it doesn't detect you have the right graphics cards, which means I have to do it post driver install but pre-restart. Fun fun.

Now to scavenge for blank cd's

 

You need to update the Video Bios because those drivers are best suited to the latest 5870m Vbios.

 

Done and Done, and guess what - I think the m17x now works like it was supposed to Thanks to everyone for their help!

Time to finish installing drivers and then finally get to the review stage.

 

Everything is re-setup and fixed, I have no frigging idea what the last reviewer did to the laptop to make it run so incredibly slow, and I'm not sure I want to. I did notice McCrappy was fully installed on it, so maybe that was the issue

I haven't set the RAID up yet, so that is why the disparity in Hard Drive results, but I thought those that helped might enjoy seeing what I had before and what I have now



once again thanks