M17x Q9000 260Mx2 freezing in Windows 7. Help?

Okay so I ended up wiping out my Windows 7 install after I got tired of the horrible sound stuttering and going to Linux. I came back and did a clean install of Windows 7 and didn't install any of the Dell crap, installed the latest nVidia drivers, and the computer keeps randomly freezing or the screen starts flashing different colors.

I've tried three different nVidia drivers and nothing is working.

I've got BIOS A03, no Alienware/Dell software or drivers installed and I've got nVidia System Tools installed.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm about ready to chuck this thing out the nearest window... It doesn't even have to be doing anything. I woke up today and it was asleep when I went to bed. Woke up and it powered itself back on and was frozen with all the fans spinning on high.

I am not overclocked - that's a whole other issue (if I overclock the FSB, the system thinks that the multiplier is 6 instead of 8.5 - even CPU-Z shows it running at like 1991MHz when the BIOS says its running at 2.4GHz but I'm not as worried about that as I am about the freezing).

I can't have this thing freezing when I'm working. It sucks when I'm gaming, yeah but when I'm just doing productivity and it freezes, that's unacceptable.

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (per the upgrade program through Microsoft so its not hacked software)
nVidia 285.38 beta drivers currently (tried stable and two other driver versions and its still freezing)

Ironically, I have NO sound stutters at all anymore... go figure...

 

Read this, it applies to you:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/613724-m17x-r1-stable-drivers-gtx260m-sli.html

Also flash directly A07 BIOS, don't bother with A04 and A05.

I'm running a stable system and can't part with it.
Come back with feedback.

Cheers

 

I didn't even realize there WAS a new BIOS... I figured Dell stopped supporting the R1 when the R2 and R3 came out.

 

Well the flash went fine... Of course it re-enabled PCIe Gen 2 but I knew it would so I went back in BIOS before Windows rebooted and turned on Virtualization and turned off PCIe Gen 2.

It seems my sound stutter may now be back though. Damn DPC Latency... I'll run some tests and report back in 24 hours or so. Thanks so much!

 

Did you properly removed the old video drivers and clean installed new ones?! It is important.
You shouldn't be getting any red, heck even yellow DPC spikes .

 

I think after the BIOS flash I'm going to have to go through and remove the drivers and reinstall them again. I'm also going to shut off hybrid SLi... I don't really think it gives that much of a performance advantage anyway does it?

Anyway, websites are scrolling slowly and graphics performance seems to be shot so I'm going to go through the whole process again.

 

Redid the process and all is well again. I noticed that VGA is actually still smoother scrolling than the nVidia drivers though LOL.

 

By all means do it if you don't need it. I have everything disabled on the Graphic Settings page.

You really have to follow those steps to clean old drivers bits.

 

I did follow all the steps. To the letter. Its performing much better now but its the same driver version anyway. 285.38

I've noticed that Windows' standard VGA driver is ALWAYS faster with scrolling than nVidia drivers... its an nVidia thing - does it on my desktop too. ATi doesn't have that problem.