M17x Black screen after boot

I have been having problems with my computer's booting recently - specifically, about 30 seconds after I log in, while everything is still starting up, my screen just goes black and won't 'wake up' (I think it was Batboy that had a similar issue to this after waking from sleep - well mine is right after boot)

I remember reading a post about this a long time ago but I can't find that thread now..

Anyways, this used to happen just every once in a while, so it wasn't too big of an issue. However, now it happens all the time. It takes about 5 tries to boot my computer, and since it fails to start so much windows tries to run the disc checking utility about 3 out of those 5 times... sometimes I let it run to see if that will fix my issue, but it never has.

I thought it could be an issue with my gfx cards, so I tried unplugging it before boot (to disable discrete graphics) and it boots fine every time, but I can't use my 280's that way without restarting (which never works...) So is there any way to boot onto the 9400m and still be able to switch to the 280s w/o a restart? That could solve my issue although it would still be a hassle to switch to discrete every time I boot, but still better than not being able to use them at all

Can anyone help me out with this?

BTW I am running A02 BIOS and 186.81 gfx drivers, latest version of OSD etc...

Thanks

EDIT - Is it possibly that there is some unecessary service involved with the hybrid SLI feature I could disable or something? It seems like it starts everything fine but then gets to a certain point and everything s down. I'm not sure if it could be involved with the SLI though because I can always see the icon in the taskbar for my "save power/boost performance" setting before the screen goes black

 

Have you tried fully cleaning out the nVidia drivers and reinstalling?
It sounds like when windows tries to initialize the drivers as its booting, it craps out.

 

How exactly do I do that? I think that is probably my issue because I booted fine once but Vista was installing some drivers to my cards right as I was logging on and I don't think that was supposed to happen....

The only way I can get my computer to boot is with the 280s disabled and they aren't even showing up in windows device manager...

I think I can boot into safe mode just fine so is there a way to fix the drivers from there? The "roll back driver" button is completely grayed out for some reason so how can I revert? Do I have to update to another driver?

 

Try hitting FN+F7 to switch to the 9400M and if you get a picture, hit it again to switch back to the 280M SLI.
Other than that, I wouldn't recommend the 186.81 drivers, they are a little buggy. Try the 186.82 (or the 186.12 ones from the Dell site) drivers instead (but do a complete uninstall of the previous drivers and driver sweeper cleaning beforehand to make sure any remains of the driver are gone). Also, make sure to install the new drivers with Hybrid Graphics enabled in the BIOS.

 

I had the same problem. I have it fixed though. I have to write a guide but I want to make sure it works before posting. I'll do more testing tonight before anything.

 

Thanks, that seems to have fixed it

In safe mode it allowed me to "roll back driver" but once i restarted it said I had the same driver anyways so I uninstalled the display driver from "programs and features", ran a driver sweep, and installed 186.12 and now it seems to be working fine

I had a feeling it was a driver issue, I just couldnt figure out how to install/uninstall the drivers since my cards wouldnt even show in device manager

 

Cool, I still have to test mine some more too but right now I'm at least running on my 280's, something I couldn't even do before

I had also tried pressing fn+f7 right after login like Glzmo suggested, and that worked for my 9400m but whenever I tried to switch to the 280s it would go black, and i could press it again to switch back and get a picture

So somehow it must've been a driver issue with just the 280s, not the 9400m

I also haven't tried many reboots, but so far I've booted successfully each time

 

good stuff. glad we could help
now enjoy gaming nirvana dude!!!!

 

The process I have always used to uninstall the NVIDIA Display driver is as follows (added in steps for the M17x):

1. Unintall driver via Programs & Features Control Panel
2. Reboot into Safe Mode (F8 @ BIOS screen)
3. Once in Safe Mode, run DriverSweeper and choose NVIDIA DISPLAY DRIVER.
4. Run CCleaner's Registry module and remove any left over traces in the registry.
5. Reboot normally (with HYBRID ENABLED)
6. Windows will recognize all 3 GPUs and install its Standard VGA Adapter driver. Note: The Standard VGA Driver for the discrete cards (260M or 280M) will report there was a problem and that reboot is necessary. This is normal.
7. Reboot the system
8. If you dont trust DriverSweeper, then you can re-run the NVIDIA Chipset driver installer. If you feel all is fine, then proceed with your NVIDIA Display driver install.
9. Once the driver is installed, you ill be prompted to reboot. Reboot and once back in windows, you should see the NVIDIA Chevron icon in your task tray notifying you Hybrid is enabled and functioniong. At this point you can reboot and disable Hybrid/Integrated in the BIOS.

Has always worked for me.

 

Thanks, thats pretty close to what I did (minus the CCleaner registry part, and I was basically in safe mode the entire time) but that should be useful for future driver updates

I usually keep hybrid sli on though because I like to run on battery a lot so I can always be ready to switch to my integrated

 

Agreed on the Hybrid/Battery thought. What I ended up doing was disabling the 9400. When I know I am going to be on battery for an extended period of time, then I will enable it. Its a pain in the rear since it is an extra reboot but as others have mentioned, why bother to have it enabled when on AC - its just more heat.

I'm going to add to my post shortly, have a couple of extra thoughts on the process. No time at the moment.

 

Ok, so an update on what is going on....

I just updated to Windows 7 and all seemed to be going well until after my second reboot, the same problem occured. I did the same thing as before (uninstalled ALL nvidia drivers, driver sweeper, install new ones) and now the problem is just different.... Now instead of a black screen, my screen goes dark blue and flickers...

To even be able to use my computer I have to either boot to integrated or boot with hybrid SLI and switch to integrated before it craps out.

Any other ideas on what to do??

I'm thinking the next thing I try will just be to remove EVERYTHING nvidia (control panel, physx, system tools, chipset/display drivers, everything) and then run driver sweeper and just install the drivers and if that works then continue to reinstall the other stuff

But other than that does anyone else know what I can do? Has anyone else had this issue and successfully resolved it? If so how?

 

A couple of days has passed. How is your lappy now?

 

I'm not really sure atm.....

Everything seemed to be in order, except that I had to switch to integrated right after login, wait a couple of min then switch back, and my 280s would work.

But then after I left my computer on for a while when I came back windows had automatically restarted (installed updates) and my wireless adapter wasn't working, so I went into device manager and it said "this device won't be started because its information (in the registry files) is not complete or damaged" or something like that... So, I tried just updating my chipset again (no driver uninstall or sweep, I was too lazy) and that made it worse... After a restart, the screen went to a dark blue flicker almost immediately, and I couldn't recover (not even FN+F7 did anything)

So now I'm in safe mode and my wireless is working fine, but I think what I'm gonna do is clean out my chipset drivers and try a different version than the one on the Dell site, because those seem to be giving me some issues...

The GFX wasn't so much of a problem anymore since I could just quickly switch between cards to avoid the B-flickering-SOD but the chipset drivers screwed that up...

I'll post my results when I am done changing my chipset drivers

 

install version 15.49

 

Yep, that's what I used

So far everything seems to be working, I got rid of all Nvidia drivers, used driver sweeper, and installed 15.49 chipset and 186.64 video and it seems to be working fine now, although I have only booted once so far. But at least I got directly to the 280s and my wireless is now working as well