m17x-r2 black screen

I just closed a lid for a few seconds to take some photos. Next time I opened it the screen is just black (the LCD is on though) and I can see the mouse cursor but nothing else.

Tried Power Drain, nothing.

I can enter Windows in Safe mode....and will try to reinstall graphic drivers. :-/

Any suggestions?

The Windows have booted up as I can hear the sound and can play around but can't see anything.

 

It seems ATI driver bugged when I selected "Do Nothing" for "What to do when the lid is closed" (I wanted to take some pics, the comp was just idling in Windows). After I opened it it was just my background pic then after I pressed CTRL+ALT+DEL I had black pic with only my mouse cursor.

Fixed.

OK looks like I fixed it by going into Safe mode, Uninstalling drivers, then booting normally and then reinstalling 5870 drivers from Dell website. Btw, they are not included on the recovery DVD, only 4870 drivers were there.

I also had an external monitor standing by to join the party when needed and ofc my most reliable m11x.

 

I just had the same problem. Black screen and no response after I closed the lid and opened it again. I unplugged everything, took out the battery and did a power drain and I can enter Windows normally. Not sure what happened but it works fine now.

 

Oh thanks.

Btw, what's your protocol for the "All Powerful" Power Drain?

Mine:

1. Shut down.
2. Take out AC power.
3. Take out battery.
4. Hold Power for 20 sec.
5. Release.
6. Toss battery back.
7. AC power back.
8. Poke the Alien head (turn on).
9. ???
10. Profit!

P.S. This happened on single 5870 (CF disabled) since I was just in WoW.

 

Hahahaha. That's exactly what I did after lurking around these forums for a while. Mine happened after I closed the lid when I moved it to another table.

 

I had that same problem on startup only safe mode wouldn't let me uninstall so I had to reinstall windows

 

ouch, that blows...

 

is there any difference between stock DELL driver and 5870 driver from DELL website. same version? if they are same, why do we need to reinstall it. or u guys all did a fresh win7 install after u received it.

 

It's the same (and the only) version that I had. As to why I reinstalled them, read the original post.

 

u mean it might be a common issue and to fix it i'd better reinstall the driver as the first task when i got mine right?

 

This is pretty stupid as I see it. Warning!!! If you turn off crossfire(because it doesn't work in a few games.) Do Not Close You Lid! It causes ur drivers to bugg with this black screen. This seems like something that might of been picked up with the release of 5870's in other countrys maybe the first day.
I'm having to look this stuff up on my phone and still hany goten mine working again.

 

I did a fresh reinstall after I got the laptop because the HDs were in Raid 0 and I wanted them as separate entities. The drivers on the resource disk are 4870 I believe, and I went to the Dell website to pick up the 5870 drivers.

 

Mine does the same thing, each time it took a boot up in safe mode, deleating the 5870 drivers and reinstalling them.

LeeU

 

Had the problem again this morning.
Hit ctrl+alt+delete
hit enter
Logged in.
...?

I'm waiting for it to happen again to try this again.

 

God, this is so frustrating. I have my m17x-r2 do nothing when I close the lid. Woke up this morning to a black screen. I can boot into safe mode and bios, but can't get past the Windows flag loading animation. All the lights go on except the two Alienware heads. I've tried the power drain method. I even tried resetting the CMOS and it still didn't work. I get an error when I try to uninstall the drivers in Safe Mode. Does anyone else have something for me to try before I reinstall Windows? Please help!

 

well , i have the same issue , and here is the root caused

when we closed down the lid , the system was set to sleep.
when you open up the lid again , it will be in the projector mode, ( external display only ) that means the signal has been output to the ext monitor even tho there is no connected, weird.
if you were to hold down windows + P and hit on enter, that should change the screen back to primary display

 

has anyone had the black screen after making changes in the bios, I did some overclocking yesterday, just from curiosity and went back into the bios to default my system, pressed F10 to accept the changes and nothing.......lights were on but no splash screen or anything so I powered it off and it came on again but I dont understand if you can make changes to the bios why wouldnt it boot up again?

 

did you disable wwan/bluetooth/lan devices ?

 

yes, I have disabled some functions wired/bluetooth but that is all.

 

that's the reason.. it's A05 bios bug. If you disable some of those devices the laptop won't post.
we discussed it before, and it's a known issue.

 

wow, thank you for the info I thought i just had a bad OC experience lol.

 

here's one of the discussions about it :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-a05-now-available-m17x-r2-5.html#post6248709

there were more ...

 

Another fail BIOS update... starting to wonder whether they make a decent BIOS for any unit.

 

I also am convinced that A05 screws the fans with time. This full speed from zero spin of the fans is damaging them. I have recently changes both fans after hearing noises from both fans. The new fans were completely silent for a while but now they started making noise again.

 

Hello,
I am still having this issue. i have install the 10.6 and the latest drivers and its all still the same. I have tried uninstalling/disabling the Free Fall sensor/Accelerometer, have re-installed ATI drivers updated the bios and done everything i can find online to try. is there anything else i can try to get this working? i can still Ctrl-alt-Del and get back to working. But its very annoying that i have do that every time i open my lid. any help would be great. thanks

 

Someone mentioned the display may be redirected to something else rather than LCD. Did you try Fn+F6 ?

Then there's also The "All Powerful" Power Drain [shut down, take out battery, hold power for 20 seconds, release, battery back, turn on].

Mine is finally working wonderfully right now, I am not updating or installing anything system/driver related at this point.

 

I have tried all of these things. i have even uninstall the ATi software and just installed a driver. But i am still having this issue. Not sure if there are any other ideas i can try. I installed another drive and reinstalled the OS. i went over the list of installed drivers and fallowed the online list. and even on this install i had the same problem. this is starting to be a real pain in the . thanks to anyone who can give me any help. thanks to all.

 

Ok, So I think i got this working. i had to go into safe mode two time and uninstall all the drivers and ATI software. Then restart. the OS (Win7) installed its own driver. After this i reinstalled the ATI 10.5. and restarted and all seems to be working now. no more black screen. hope this helps to other. i did this before and for some reason it did not take, but this time it did. sorry i dont have anymore to help with.

 

This problem is very intermittent on my R2, some nights it'll sleep and wake up to the login screen just fine, other nights like last night it'll black screen every time and there's nothing I can do short of holding the power button for 5 seconds and shutting it completely down and restarting. It was 5 for 5 last night with a full reboot between each of them.

Nights like last night are very frustrating, thankfully the reboot cycle is very fast on my machine but I can't help but thinking that emergency shut downs like this can't be good for the OS.

 

Im having exactly the same problem after trying to upgrade to ccc 10.6 m display drivers . Im forced to reinstall os and revert back to the drivers on my resource disc.

 

lol.. this is retarded =_=... i had this problem as well.. havent really shut my lid since so i dont know if it'll happen again.. but when i experienced it i just restored from back up.. not a solution.. but btr than uninstalling and installing everything all over again.. if anyone has a permanent solution please share T_T

 

Argh I had this exact same problem the other day.

Black screen appeared, I could see the mouse but it was going off the screen.

Pressed enter to select my user account and typed in my password.

Windows loaded, there was no start menu just my background. Right clicked and went into catalyst, and found that crossfire was turned off :?

Enabled it and changed some info in display settings about which display to use and it seems to be working fine now.