M15x won't boot Windows 10 with Modded Nvidia Drivers

Been a long time since I've posted. Hope everyone is doing well!

Unfortunately, I've run into a problem getting Windows 10 running on my M15x. Once I have done a fresh install of the OS, I reboot and disable Driver Signature enforcement, modify the .inf and install my Nvidia drivers for my 680m. Resolution automatically bumps up to 1080p, etc. If I immediately install and launch a game, the 680m is utilized like normal. All seems well until my next reboot.

From here on out, Windows 10 will hang at the Microsoft logo/spinning dots and will never finish booting. The dots continue to spin infinitely. The only way I am able to successfully boot is by booting into Safe Mode, bypassing the display drivers. If I completely uninstall the drivers in safe mode and reboot, I can boot right into Windows 10 like normal again.

I've tried changing the Section # on my GPU string in the .inf to 001, 002, 003, 004, and 144. I've also tried multiple clean installs, hard drives, Win10 isos, and Nvidia driver versions. I also tried reinstalling Windows 8.1 and installing/modding Nvidia drivers just to see if it would still work as it did before and things went flawlessly. So this is exclusively a Win10 problem on my laptop.

Any insight on this issue would be extremely appreciated!

 

Have you checked if Win10 replaces the driver with one from windows update? It has happened to me a few times lately, even if I disabled automatic driver updates.

 

Good point! I had the same issue with my m6000 as I was trying to get screen brightness to work. It would work with specific drivers from AMD, then all of a sudden it would stop working. Checked Device Manager and found that MS had replaced the drivers I installed manually.

Check your driver update settings:

http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/stop-automatic-driver-updates-windows-10

https://www.howtogeek.com/223864/how-to-uninstall-and-block-updates-and-drivers-on-windows-10/

 

Wow! I was not aware that Windows 10 could replace your drivers so quickly, especially for your GPU. I decided to start clean and uninstall the drivers and then reinstall them. I checked the driver provider, date and version after the setup completed.

Before it rebooted, it got stuck on Windows updates for about 30 minutes which led me to believe these drivers were getting replaced for sure. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case. I checked the 680m's properties and saw that nothing has changed. Regardless, I've now taken the steps to ensure that the drivers aren't getting overwritten.

Edit: Decided to take a look at the Event Logs for for the device. Does this look normal to you? I see "null" all over the place and its got me curious. http://pastebin.com/UJwHgQL3

 

Decided to hop back on 8.1. Not only are my Nvidia drivers working flawlessly, but overall performance of the OS just seems MUCH faster. My M15x might have a lot more issues with Windows 10 than I realized, considering Disk Usage seemed to be spiking to 100% quite often.

Not a super huge deal, but I would love to have something to play Forza Horizon 3 on when Im not home. In the meantime, guess I'll stick to what works.

 

Hi!
How fast do your system boot with windows 8.1 from power on until you can use everything on your desktop?
Mine with Windows 7 and SSD takes about 40 seconds. ( about 10 seconds is only the custom vbios for the GTX680M, before the alien head appears)

 

I have had Win 10 replace drivers almost immediately after I manually installed a new driver. In the past few months I have been playing with desktop hardware. Some of them would hang during a fresh Win 10 install. The solution was to unplug the Ethernet cable. This prevented Win 10 from updating drivers during the installation. Now I do this by default when working with my desktop hardware. I haven't tried this with laptops yet. I suppose the WiFi would need to be disabled in the BIOS or via hardware switch if available.

 

Im at work so I cant test it right now, but I can confidently tell you that it boots in less than 20 seconds from the moment the Alien head appears on. My Vbios only shows up for about 4 seconds prior. And Im currently running a 5400RPM HDD.

Im going to try this. If theres is a setting to disable the wifi in BIOS then that'll be my first step. Then just bring the drivers over via USB. Thanks for the tip!

 

The best insight I can provide is, that the 15x (Ye olde one) is not supported for Windows 10. Sorry about that!

 

Not supported does not mean "won't work". Many people here and elsewhere have Win 10 running successfully.