Graphics card not working after Windows re-install

Hello everyone.

I've got a M11x that I bought a few months ago. After dealing with regular reboots and bluescreens, as well as daily Windows errors with the Win7 Home Premier it came with, I formatted the hard drive and installed a brand new Window 7 Professional I had lying around. (On another note, Dell's technical support has been really bad - ignoring me entirely.)

So far no reboots or other errors, but I can't seem to get the Nvidia graphics card activated. Graphics are set to "switchable" in BIOS, and I installed the newest graphics card drivers from Nvidia's site. What else do I need to do to be able to use the dedicated graphics card when playing, rather than the integrated Intel chip?

Also, which drivers and/or software do I need to get the F1-F12 etc function keys to work?

 

If you have an M11xR1 (which I assume you do since you mentioned switchable in the bios) you will need to download the drivers from dell ( latest being 197.72). The M11xR1 uses Hybrid Graphics which uses a driver package with both Intel and Nvidia drivers in it. Standard Nvidia drivers will not work.

 

Thank you very much, I wasn't aware of this. I uninstalled the Nvidia drivers and installed what you linked.

However... the first time I tried to swap graphics cards, I ended up getting a black screen and had to force a restart. After a reboot, the same black screen remained. The F6 hotkey didn't work so I couldn't try to swap back to Intel.

I uninstalled the drivers in safe mode, ran Driver Sweeper and deleted everything to do with Nvidia, then re-installed Dell's drivers. However, now they don't seem to "stick" - I reboot and Windows remains in 800x600 mode. Dxdiag reports no drivers installed.

Any idea what's wrong, by any chance?