The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    *SOLVED* M17x R3 Boots to black screen.

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by Repsac83dk, Nov 6, 2012.

  1. Repsac83dk

    Repsac83dk Newbie

    Reputations:
    6
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi all

    I really wanted to share this with everyone, so I created my forum account purely for this.

    I have a Radeon 6990m and Intel HD Graphics Card.

    Ever since upgradering from Windows 7 to Windows 8, I've had issues with the initiation of the graphics card upon booting into Windows. Be it from hibernation, power off or whatever.

    I would get the Windows loading screen and then just as it was entering Windows, the screen should briefly turn off and then back on again... however it just didnt turn back on most of the time.

    The solution:
    I tried all sorts of stuff with the Graphics drivers, but in the end, the issue was resolved by downloading and installing an unlocked bios revision a12 (I'm sure later revisions will work just fine aswell, you can find it easily by googling). Then I went into bios and just changed primary graphics from SG to PEG, which wasn't possible on the locked standard version.

    For better performance I then later installed Leshcatlabs UnifL driver, so I could use Radeons official drivers on top. Dell drivers are just really bad in regards to performance, because they are never updated. However these drivers didn't seem to have anything to do with solving the issue with black screen upon booting into Windows.
     
    Repsac83dk, Nov 6, 2012
    #1
  2. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

    Reputations:
    3,658
    Messages:
    6,874
    Likes Received:
    969
    Trophy Points:
    281
    Thanks for sharing the solution with everyone. +1 Rep for that.
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Nov 7, 2012
    #2
  3. shabe

    shabe Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    30
    Messages:
    26
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    6
    I also had this problem.

    In my case it was with the GTX 560M. I think that there is a problem with switchable graphics and the MS provided driver for Windows 8.

    For me, what solved this issue was a re-install of Windows 8. I also disabled the automatic updating for Windows Update in order to prevent it from downloading the MS drivers for video. Then Installed the Intel driver from the Intel website, reboot, install the latest driver from nVidia and done.

    Also, you can disable switchable graphics like you did but I didn't want that.

    And for the touchpad, I just used the drivers provided by dell for the M17x R4. They work perfectly.
     
    shabe, Nov 8, 2012
    #3
  4. Alienware-Luis_Pardo

    Alienware-Luis_Pardo Guest

    Reputations:
    1,141
    Messages:
    1,459
    Likes Received:
    8
    Trophy Points:
    56
    Nice alternate solution for people who often use their iGPU. Thanks for sharing +1
     
    Alienware-Luis_Pardo, Nov 9, 2012
    #4