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    Strange M17x r4 7970M problem.

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by selz, Mar 9, 2014.

  1. selz

    selz Newbie

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    First things first, I want to say hello to the notebookreview.com forum, i'm in pretty desperate need of help. I bought my m17x r4 locally a week or so ago. It was all perfectly working etc. Anyway, long story short I had it in my bag and left my bag on the stairs (not a good idea), it fell down a couple of steps.

    I turn it on and I get 5 beeps...I then removed cmos battery and put it back in and it booted up. The problem I am having looks to be to do with the 7970M. I simply cannot run any hardware monitoring programs without getting a bunch of OpenCL errors. Even when I can open it (in the case of GPU-Z) I get system hangs and BSOD's. This definitely did not happen before the drop.

    I have tried to re-seat the graphics card 4 times now, 2 of the times the BIOS didn't even detect it! Scary!

    I can get all of my games working perfectly, I can use fraps and it all works just fine however if i run any programs that try to sense temperatures, core clocks, memory clocks etc thats it, system hang/BSOD. I did manage to get HWINFO64 running with VLC in the background (read on a random forum that VLC forces the 7970M to be used over the HD4000 and as such it allows HWINFO64 to be run, which I wouldn't otherwise be able to do).

    Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
     
    selz, Mar 9, 2014
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  2. selz

    selz Newbie

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    2.jpg

    This is a screenshot of the OpenCL error that I started to receive after the drop.
     
    selz, Mar 9, 2014
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  3. selz

    selz Newbie

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    gpuz.jpg

    Also, this is what GPU-Z looks like before system hangs (managed to create screenshot). Before drop it would sense all of these things properly. Interestingly HWInfo64 doesn't seem to have a problem detecting normal values.

    Furthermore, HWMonitor doesn't pick up 7970M, if I run it when the 7970M is being used however it displays the 7970M temperatures under the titles 'HD4000'. Strange
     
    selz, Mar 9, 2014
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  4. Alienware-L_Porras

    Alienware-L_Porras Company Representative

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    that's a strange behavior, have you tried a system restore?
    OR an HDD dignosis tool?
     
    Alienware-L_Porras, Mar 10, 2014
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  5. amitvig22

    amitvig22 Notebook Consultant

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    The fact that you can play games suggests to me that your GPU is doing fine, but it confuses me that the monitoring is not working.

    Try a restore on your system and see if that helps. you could also reload the GPU drivers, and to be sure press Fn + F7 to be on dedicated GPU mode and try monitoring and see if that fixes it
     
    amitvig22, Mar 10, 2014
    #5