alienware m17x cat 10.6 HEEEEEELP

Hi all,
Ive been scouring google for the past 3 bloody hours trying to work this out. Its doing my head in.

I have an m17x-r2 with i7 and 4870x2...specs are in my sig i think.

to cut to the chase...why the hell can I not install catalyst 10.6 drivers? I managed to get 10.4 driver to work when i first got my my laptop, but now I cannot uninstall them, i cant upgrade them, and every time I try i have to use system restore to get things back to working. The catalyst installer tells me that "messages occured during installation" and a big yellow exclaimation mark. it fails to install the actual drivers, and the CCC.

I think its ing rediculous tbqh. this is the first ATI i've owned, and so far i'm thinking "never again"

I never had any problems with drivers like this with nVidia cards!!

does anyone have any suggestions?

thanks in advance,

Matt

 

Download driversweeper (google it for a download link), clean all the ATi software and then reboot. After that, follow these instructions to install Catalyst 10.6:

Common issues & resolution - Alienware M17x Wiki

 

Thanks for your reply joker,

I've tried that (driver sweeper, and editing that config file in ati drivers), and i get the same problem. "warning occured during installation" then i get a load of errors about WMI and NET redist, and some "ATINKxxx failed to load" (or something like that) on reboot

changing that value made no difference to the install process. when I view the log, this time it shows "catalyst install manager" and thats it.

but no aero, no gfx, no CCC, its like the driver is not even present after a reboot. its frustrating as hell same thing again, i'm gonna have to use system restore and go back to 10.4 which is stupid because any new games / crossfire profiles in the newer drivers aren't available to me...almost a waste of time spending the money on the crossfire cards if i can't even use them in new games :S

 

you need to extract the driver then cancel installation then go to the folder the driver was extracted to open the install manager cfg file and change the WorkaroundInstall=false to
WorkaroundInstall=true that should work.

 

Thanks man, thats actually what I was referring to in my previous post. I think I forgot to save the file after I edited it. I did it again and performed the install. it appeared to go smoothly, and everything installed.. it finished with a green tick / check mark. I rebooted..

...Booom..... Blue screen of death, in some ATI related file. I give up. this is complete bulldust. No gfx driver install should be this convoluted.

Ati / dell / whoever the hell is responsible for this needs to get a bloody grip.

I can never recommend another ATI to ANYONE after this experience.

ATI performance is beyond reproach, I have no qualms whatsoever with how games run... they run beautifully and look excellent...but this driver install rigmorale is the single most rediculous thing I have ever experienced.

If anyone has any fixes for the BSOD problem, i'd be interested to know. since i'd prefer to run the more recent drivers..

For the time being though, it looks like i'm stuck with the 10.4's :-S

 

Somewhere between the "truth" and a "Lie" the Generic Catalyst Mobility work with all 4870's or any mobile GPU for that matter. Have been beat with a proverbial noodle too many times on this subject trying to provide a balanced view. What has probably happened is that you have corrupted your registry. I would be more inclined to edit the registry yourself if you feel comfortable than go back and resinstall the factory drivers. Alienware should be able to help you on the phone to point out which registry entries need to be deleted. Get your system running properly again under the stock drivers and than try the 10.7 should they come out on Monday. There are many versions of registry tools so make sure you use one that is tested on Windows 7 64 bit. The Stock drivers were created in May so not sure why people think a generic April driver would be better. The only way April would be better is if Dell is holding the drivers back deliberately.

P.S. make sure you are using the Catalyst express uninstall option from the add delete software as Catalyst has two different options to delete. A registry cleaner is more powerful than a sweeper. The sweeper just deletes files, whilst a registry cleaner will fix broken links. When you run it a second time it might delete a link you no longer need. If all this fails and Alienware are unable to fix the problem over the phone you are faced with reinstalling the operating system. Don't forget about the factory partition and don't forget about other restore features.