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    NVIDIA Card No Longer Turns On

    Discussion in 'Alienware M11x' started by MoshPitDweller90, Oct 3, 2011.

  1. MoshPitDweller90

    MoshPitDweller90 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey everyone. About a week ago I noticed that games like Black Ops, Civ 5, and Starcraft II were getting really laggy and I couldn't play them. Upon some investigation I found out that my GPU wasn't activated when these games would come on. However, even when I right-clicked and manually chose to run each game with the NVIDIA card, it still wouldn't come on. I've tried to reinstall both the Intel driver and the NVIDIA driver multiple times, still no change. I called Dell and they simply want to do a OS reinstall to fix it but I figured I'd ask around before I have to go through that painstaking process.

    I want to add that the NVIDIA control panel and stuff still function. The GPU just simply won't activate itself.

    Any idea what's wrong?

    Thanks!

    Here's some specs:

    Alienware M11xR2
    Intel Core i5 @ 1.07 GHZ (OC to 166)
    4 gig RAM
    NVIDIA GeForce 335m version 275.33
     
    MoshPitDweller90, Oct 3, 2011
    #1
  2. deadboy90

    deadboy90 Notebook Evangelist

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    Lol optimus problems! That's the only reason why I don't like the r2 and r3 but there's a biiiiiiig sticky thread at the top of the forum about optimus problems check that out
     
    deadboy90, Oct 3, 2011
    #2
  3. MoshPitDweller90

    MoshPitDweller90 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yeah I've checked it out but unfortunately most of the issues raised in it aren't the same as mine. Are you sure it would be an Optimus issue? I only ask because my understanding is that Optimus is for the automatic switching component of the card. Is it still in use when I manually select to run a specific program with the NVIDIA GPU?
     
    MoshPitDweller90, Oct 3, 2011
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  4. deadboy90

    deadboy90 Notebook Evangelist

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    It should be if not Optimus is likely being stupid, sorry i cant be of more help but my r2-r3 knowlege is limited
     
    deadboy90, Oct 3, 2011
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  5. MoshPitDweller90

    MoshPitDweller90 Notebook Enthusiast

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    It's no problem, thanks for the reply. Does anyone else have any ideas what might cause this issue?
     
    MoshPitDweller90, Oct 3, 2011
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  6. bz80

    bz80 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Sometimes the Nvidia driver crashes without any notification, I've had it happen a couple times.. a simple restart will fix it.
     
    bz80, Oct 4, 2011
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  7. MoshPitDweller90

    MoshPitDweller90 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Unfortunately it seems to be much more complicated than that. Thanks for your reply though!
     
    MoshPitDweller90, Oct 4, 2011
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  8. MustangDJP

    MustangDJP Notebook Consultant

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    I assume you have tried driver sweeper and restarting in safe mode and re-installing clean official (from dell) drivers?

    You never specified... are you using Dell drivers or Nvidia? I would think that reverting back to dell drivers (if thats the case) would be much better than a clean OS install.
     
    MustangDJP, Oct 4, 2011
    #8