M17x R4 Failure -Help!

today i received my M17x, as most of AWer will do. I opened the bottom lid and upgraded a samsung SSD. I also re-installed a clean windows 7 System.

After all dell driver installed, my machine started to crash, lead by screen go funny and black. doesn't matter how many times i reboot. It will eventually crash again.
after some investigation, i noticed the GPU heatsink is much much hotter than the CPU heatsink. (which make sense because the screen always go funny before the system go down)

I don't know what is going on. has anybody counter similar problem before?

Edit: It seems ok to use the Intel 4000 adaptor. However, once i press FN+F7 and reboot. the problem occurs.

 

are you getting any artifacts before crash?

 

Do you have an nvidia gpu?

 

remove your ssd see if it works again

 

Artifacts, Yes, It also appears during system bootup. (Not everytime, but most of time, even when cold.)
I am re-installing windows 7 at this moment.
I don't know if the 7970m driver is messing up all these..

 

you could try reinstalling all the amd drivers, i use stock driver dated march 7 and everything runs fine.
make sure you driversweep all the amd drivers as well. are you familiar with installing gpu driver?
did the right side fan working properly? hot air gushing out?

 

I am re-installing the windows 7 right now. I am doing it as i am typing here.
I also suspect the catalyst driver is the messer..
right side fan seems working, right heatsink seems a lot lot more hotter than the left side.
after installing the catalyst from the dell CD ->reboot the machine -> stuck at "Starting Windows" stage...

 

gpu always runs hotter under normal usage and especially true under games.
so its perfectly normal, thats also why gpu got 3 tubes instead of 2 for the cpu.
hope this time everything works.
btw make sure you fully update your windows before switching to DGPU only.

 

After four unsuccessful attemps, i gave up yesterday and called AW customer service and booked an on-site engineer to fix my laptop.

based on the problem description, the 7970m card was suspected to be faulty, so the engineer came today with the replacement card and heatsink. My new baby is working now...I am going to run some benchmark later today!! thank you all for the advises.

 

Did you boot up and make sure everything worked before installing the SSD? If not, you could have saved yourself a day of frustration.

 

I did boot up and the system was ok. I didn't test the dedicated hoy before install the ssd. as said, saved one day of frustration.

 

if all is well now, then congratulations!!!
enjoy your new beast.
and update your sig

 

You are very fortunate. My 7970m started failing last Friday so I called in immediately and got issued a replacement. After calling in again on Monday to find out why I hadn't been contacted by the tech for an appointment, I was told the card is on backorder and it won't be replaceable until at least the 19th.

So enjoy that laptop! You were lucky to get a replacement so quickly.

 

sorry to hear your machine is failing too. I know exactly how you feel.
19th is not too long away. Keep up!

 

Thanks for the kind words. I guess they got a few in, because I got the call this morning and a tech stopped by with the new card a few hours later. I had to repaste it myself after he left, but it's running on average 3-4 degrees cooler than my old card and scores almost 100 pts higher on 3dmark11, but most of all I can play my GAMES! Glad to be back up and running.

 

awesome ithian, nice to hear. happy for you. go kill some mobs or noobs

 

Well done! I did the same thing-repaste!
Mine is running at 68-69 at full load @ 930/1400. Yours oc setting?

 

Thanks I haven't tried overclocking this one yet. I got wrapped up in the Steam summer sale downloading games (and killing mobs) haha. But this morning I decided the GPU was running so much cooler I might as well repaste the CPU also. So I did that and gained a good 6-10 degrees! I was thinking about making a thread showing some pictures I took, it was super easy.

Anyways I'll let you know how the overclocking goes. I have high hopes

 

6deg drop sounds amazing!
I did re-paste both CPU and GPU. But im afraid i did it too early, even before testing stock setting machine, so I don't know have the bench mark to compare with.

Looking forward to hear your OC results.

I have been playing civ V recently. the system crashes once per day. (game pop out, not complete system crash) I don't know whether that's normal in modern std.