*** Windows 10 + NVIDIA WHQL Drivers are Killing Alienware and Clevo LCD Panels ***

@t456 I was trying to read my display firmware with the tool you linked, but encountered a problem. The tool does not boot in UEFI, so I enabled legacy in bios. As soon as I did that, laptop stopped posting again with 8 beeps. I can't remember what I did the day before, which let it post again and I was able to go to the bios and enable eufi so that I could see the picture and later boot into Windows. I tried cmos reset multiple times without success. Currently the laptop is still in unusable state, without post and gives 8 beeps.

I will try to get the laptop to post tomorrow evening as people in my house are going to work tomorrow and those beeps are quite loud.

 

No problem, brother Fox. I just know about your story with throttling cards so I couldn't forget what I read about similar situation. I didn't know that the problem is in SLI reaching some new power limit but still have some little hope.

 

Did you remove hdd with OS? That way there's no security check.

If the usb stick booted and wrote edid (and testfolder 'AUTOEXOK' then it's possible to make an autoflash stick, which would clear nvram completely.

 

It had Samsung stickers and part numbers on the back of the LCD display.
Here is the LTN number.

LTN173HT01-301

https://www.laptopscreen.com/English/screen-part-number/LTN173HT01-301/

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Samsung...3-LED-BACKLIT-FHD-Compatible-3D-/400592178320

 

That's an LVDS panel. So, small comfort, but eDP is still safe. These four are it, so far:

• 17.3" LVDS / SEC5044 / LTN173HT01-301
• 17.3" LVDS / LGD02DA / LP173WF1-TLB3
• 18.4" LVDS / SDC4C48 / LTM184HL01
• 18.4" LVDS / SEC5448 / LTN184HT02-S01

Very different screens and all failures on Dell systems only; some of those panels can be found with different brands, but no reports there, as of yet. One odd thing; SEC and SDC are both manufacturer's id for Samsung, yet SEC has also been used for Seiko Epson, which isn't supposed to happen; Alienware m18x with a 'Seiko Epson' panel , yet it's bit-identical to the Samsung:

Spoiler: edid SEC5448 'Samsung' vs. 'Seiko-Epson'

Code:

edid SEC5448 'Samsung':
00,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,00,4C,A3,48,54,00,00,00,00,00,14,01,04,90,29,
17,78,0A,C8,95,9E,57,54,92,26,0F,50,54,00,00,00,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,
01,01,01,01,01,01,01,29,36,80,A0,70,38,1F,40,18,10,25,00,99,E6,10,00,00,1A,
1C,24,80,A0,70,38,1F,40,18,10,25,00,99,E6,10,00,00,1A,00,00,00,FE,00,48,47,
54,33,4A,80,31,38,34,48,54,0A,20,00,00,00,00,00,00,41,01,9E,00,00,00,00,02,
01,0A,20,20,00,A8

edid SEC5448 'Seiko-Epson':
00,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,FF,00,4C,A3,48,54,00,00,00,00,00,14,01,04,90,29,
17,78,0A,C8,95,9E,57,54,92,26,0F,50,54,00,00,00,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,01,
01,01,01,01,01,01,01,29,36,80,A0,70,38,1F,40,18,10,25,00,99,E6,10,00,00,1A,
1C,24,80,A0,70,38,1F,40,18,10,25,00,99,E6,10,00,00,1A,00,00,00,FE,00,48,47,
54,33,4A,80,31,38,34,48,54,0A,20,00,00,00,00,00,00,41,01,9E,00,00,00,00,02,
01,0A,20,20,00,A8

@mariussx , @andrewsi2012 ;
If you send me the eeprom I'll be able to fix a corrupted edid, if that is indeed what's causing the trouble. Make good photo of the pcb immediately near the connector and it should be possible to point out the proper IC to desolder. If diy; use needle and wedge it like a lever under one row of four pins. Otherwise it's nearly impossible to melt all four points at once (or use heat gun). Shop can do it too, either for a very small fee or no charge at all.

Yes, excellent, very useful indeed . Thought 10's monitor.inf looked 'off' too, will look into that. Might take a few days; have to deal with fanless 7970M system first .

 

what about LTN173HT02 - P01?

Pages are saying it's an EDP screen and not LVDS.

 

Hi everyone, mi name is Felipe, I own an Alienware 17 R1 single 780m 60hz panel with Windows 10 home x64 activated running the 353.62 nvidia driver for the last two weeks with no problems so far... but im scared, so right now i`m gonna go back to Windows 8.1 and i was wondering which versión of nvidia drivers i should install. Please forgive my poor english because its no my first language.
Saludos

 

Since 120Hz now are being affected I guess S**t hit the fan. I'm downloading Win8 now.
If ONLY windows 7 worked with pure UEFI. I swear it used to work for me in PURE UEFI ! until I used DDU to install the 980M then Win7 stopped booting.

 

you can only use the 980M in optimus mode with win 7. that also means no 120hz displays.

 

But I had the 120Hz from factory, and with the stock 680M, Win7 + pure UEFI worked flawlessly!

 

but that's the thing: it's designed to work with stock GPUs and only stock GPUs, the 980M is not a stock GPU and the 980M clearly interacts differently to the rest of the PC.

 

Hola Felipe! Bienvenidos, Amigo.

You should be OK with any driver as long as you are not experiencing throttling. I would avoid 353.62 just for good measure.

I use this one: Mr. Fox's GeForce 345.20 Desktop Driver Mod for Alienware and Clevo Mobile GPUs

That's correct. Maxwell behaves TOTALLY different with all Alienware laptops and using UEFI absolutely required except with Optimus. It won't boot using discrete GPU except in pure UEFI mode. The machines will only boot with Legacy BIOS or UEFI with CSM/Legacy Option ROM using the Intel iGPU if a Maxwell GPU is installed.

 

Wish I saw this earlier. Lcd just died on my 2013 17 with windows 7(8 beeps). Will catch up on thread tomorrow after sleep. Any fixes besides lcd replacement?

2013 m17x
4700mq
880m
Windows 7
Latest Nvidia drivers.

 

Still running Windows 10 on my Alienware 17 (120 Hz display). I'm in pure UEFI, no legacy, and with secure boot enabled. I haven't had any problems yet, been running windows 10 since 29th of July.

Could this be caused by having legacy enabled? As in, legacy allows some more stuff to be written, where only UEFI wouldn't allow that.

 

It might be, but that begs the question... Why on earth would there be any reason for anything from Micro$haft or NVIDIA to be written? Short answer is, there is no reason for it. They shouldn't be making any attempt to do that.

 

Hey @Mr. Fox , would you recommend me to give windows 10 another try? I had no major issues at all with it during the time I used it. I went back to win8.1 purely to wait for a fix but as I see things going now, it'll take them a lot of time. I liked windows 10 a lot more than win8.1 which is also one of the main reasons why I can't wait. A lot of games will be exclusive to windows 10 too. Have you got a response from Alienware or NVIDIA? Have they given some sort of timeframe?

 

It raises plenty of questions, and this one probably stands at the forefront. Ironic isn't it? Progressively speaking, our control is being taken away, while these new and extravagant systems by way of drivers and operating systems are handing control over to the manufacturers. A grimly insidious plot line.

Well, Brother Fox can chime in with his wisdom and knowledge, but on that initial question, I think it all comes down to you and your patience level. You have to weigh these factors out for yourself and be rational about your choices. Look at the practical variables and make a choice. You have warranty going forward, so if something goes wrong with your system in the near future, Dell will help you out. On the other side of things, as a result of the same warranty, you might end up with a system replacement, which to some people, isn't a nice deal because the replacement has a likelihood of being one of the newer Alienware units.

Your own enquiries raise a pressing question. What's the harm in waiting? What do you -- or anyone else -- stand to lose in the meantime? You say that a lot of games will be Windows 10 *exclusive*, which sounds like a very strong assertion. Now I don't know what motivated that assertion, but even if one were to assume, for the sake of argument, that this is indeed the case, it is most certainly not the case at present. Having that said, what compulsion do you have to run Windows 10 right now? Again, rationally speaking, there's no reason that I can think of as to why one can't wait for the initial hiccups and issues with the OS to be resolved -- issues that do apply to our systems in particular -- before adopting it for proper usage.

 

This is the scariest thread I have read in a while.
My sincerest condolences to those who have suffered hardware failure due to this upgrade...

Pure shenanigans from Microshaft....

 

guys one thing, cause i thought i am safe with windows 10 and without using external monitors on my alienware 17 laptop.770m geforce

Do this failures happen to external monitors or to the actual screen on the laptop?

I made clean windows 10 instal so i got no chance to move back to 8.1 as i dont have any previous backups.

 

It will destroy your internal display so bad that you may not even be able to boot laptop using external display. DON'T RISK. You've been warned.

Several posts before one guy also thought that he's safe with AW17 3D 120Hz screen. He had a surprise with destroyed screen (my apologies)

That's probably an nVIDIA fault but as almost no-one uses AMD GPUs in new Alienwares it's hard to say.

 

I mean this in a totally polite way, but "are you nuts" bro? Maybe in 6 months after Alienware/NVIDIA/Micro$lop have pinned down the problem, made it to where it doesn't happen any more, and there are no new reports of LCD casualties, then yes... by all means. If you like it enough to ruin good parts, then there is nothing stopping you from playing Alien Roulette, but I think the risk is too great right now.

FYI - we are not the only people with serious Windows 10 problems. There are other laptop models that are getting bricked in other ways as well. For example, there are some Inspiron laptops that are having their system BIOS buggered up and fail to POST after a Windows 10 "upgrade" (if we can actually call it that). Micro$haft really dropped the ball... failed super hard and in an epic manner this time, in multiple ways. We need to stop being so forgiving or they'll give us more of the same.

Two days ago I would have agreed NVIDIA is to blame, and they may be. But, when I see stuff like this (and these have AMD GPUs) I keep going back to Micro$haft and Windows 10. When I think about their demonic push for UEFI Class 3, it makes sense. They think they have a right to molest us. We need to put them in their place. I'm willing to see them go out of business over this. We don't need Nazis telling us how to do things. We can use Linux and tell these fools to bite our bottoms. I don't want to, but I value my hardware and autonomy to do what I feel like doing with it at least 1000 times more than I value their existence. Their existence is totally optional. Turn off the lights, power off the servers and send everyone in Redmond home... don't care, just keep your filthy mittens off my kittens.

Windows 10 bricked my Dell Inspiron 14Z any advice?

Microsoft: We are not your chattel and neither are our computer systems.

 

I had windows 10 running in another AW17 with a AMD GPU and the "New" "Improved" CCC v15.XX.

I don't know if it was win 10 or the new CCC but temps rose by almost 20% with the new "stuff" and scored a lower score on 3DMark Vantage, so I upgraded the laptop to windows 7

I couldn't use the old CCC v14.XX in win 10 as it kept crashing "Display driver has stopped working and recovered"

 

Definite proof would be the specification sheet, but there's a score of reasons to think it's LVDS as well:

1. Older panel and discontinued.
2. Has a 40-pin connector, yet it's only 1080p. An eDP would've required no more than 30-pin for this (4K needs 40, which isn't possible with LVDS).
3. Has a 40-pin connector, yet all other 17.3" eDP 3D panels have 50-pin connectors.
4. It's an optional panel for the Asus G75VX, the stock panel of which is the AUO B173HW02 V1, an LVDS type.

Now, there is a very slight chance that the Asus features two connectors, one LVDS, the other eDP. A few Clevos and Dell M**** workstations have this. Asus most likely doesn't; if it had then it would also feature DisplayPort-out, but it only has VGA+HDMI. DP and eDP are the same thing; if you have the conversion capability, why no have a DP port? So ... let's say chance it's an LVDS is 99.9%, or thereabouts (and thus; not safe).

Only internal display; external runs over either hdmi or DisplayPort, which is eDP. VGA is different as well, the only external monitors at risk would be those connected over FPD-Link I and II (III eliminates edid control pins).

There's something to rule out, though; from what I've seen regarding logs and registry export, all afflicted system had external monitors hooked-up and those without issue had internal display only. Perhaps someone can confirm/deny this difference?

Quite so, what is it ... nvidia:amd = 9:1, if that? If it's a switching problem mishandled by MS, then AMD systems should be affected as well.

That seems common.

That's a lot of systems !

AMD though ... but also switchable graphics, Dell and LVDS again ( replacement panel). Seems panels are fine there, only bios corrupted. That thread linked to Dell's Enhanced Pre-boot System Assessment (ePSA) Diagnostics page, which gave a hint as how to bypass POST with faulty panel:

So ... what if you hit "power" button and very quickly closed the lid? With the display off there's no way to run a system's check on that thing. Only question is whether 'no-signal' is acceptable for post. Might have to hook up external monitor to make that work.

 

I tried that about 10 times and never could make it work. It might with UEFI, but it did not with Legacy/CSM.

 

I just had a thought, what if the combination of Win10+NV & fast startup caused this issue?
Since 80-90% of affected displays were damaged after shutdown/restart. Except for Mr.Fox's M18 where he heard a click with the system on.
Also, were any of the affected computers running Win10 insider ?
If not, then we can say that the issue lies with the final version + NV.

 

Haha, mittens & kittens - haven't heard that before! I do struggle to see the real added value of Windows 10, especially considering the intrusiveness of the way the operating system has been designed. I have it installed mainly for the novelty factor, as well as the DX12 factor, and luckily enough Windows 10 hasn't buggered up my hardware and I'm not fussed about the privacy issues cited.

 

I use Legacy BIOS and no fast startup.

What may have made my 18 click and shut off was Windows 10 trying to alter my CPU overclock. I've had it do this a couple of times on my Clevo, which is extremely annoying. The 18 failed to boot with 8 beeps on startup, the same as everyone else. That part was not different.

When I was installing Windows 10 on my Clevo, every time Windows 10 required a reboot, the system would open the BIOS Setup main menu on restart. After Windows 10 setup was finish, it stopped doing that under normal use. But, whenever I push this machine to its CPU overclocking limits it sometimes still opens the BIOS Setup main menu automatically at the next restart if Windows 10 was running when it shut down. If Windows 7 was being used before shutdown, it never happens. I find this very disturbing, and it makes me extremely suspicious of Micro$haft. It's almost like they are telling me in an intrusive manner that they don't like what I am doing. Phase two is they start deciding for us, and I'm not OK with either approach.

I used the first 3 build of Windows 10 Technical Preview with the M18xR2 and Alienware 18 and never had any issues like those we are seeing now. There were some 11th hour changes that look pretty nasty... bait and switch, LOL. I quit participating in the Insider Technical Preview and reclaimed the wasted disc space because I felt Windows 10 sucked too much to burn any more calories on it. My opinion hasn't changed much.

 

I'm on Win10 with a m17x R4 with HD7970M (direct Upgrade from Win 7).
After the Upgrade I installed the latest available AMD Driver.
Conclusion:
- Temps are lower
- Graphic switching finally Works. Before it didn't worked properly
- 3DMark Vantage slightly better
- approximativ 30 minutes more battery life.

I'm using this rig approx. 9h each day. No probs so far.

 

My congratulations. Really, happy for you. Wish everyone else was in the same shoes.

 

I thought same. And I thought that because I did windows reset after an upgrade, disabled auto updates in policy settings, disabled hibernation that caused to turn off Fast boot, disabled a paging file and still not affected by this nightmare.
Maybe those who survived with win10 did same or similar things?

 

@Solo wing and @RaSeven - those are logical questions to have, but the problem is I have done all of those things and by default configured my systems that way for years. And yet, I have three display panels with the EDID information corrupted. And, others (such as @Daniel1983 for example) had the most intrusive UEFI/Secure Boot configuration possible and his LCD got messed up the same as mine with Windows Updated disabled, sleep and hibernation disabled, pure Legacy BIOS, etc. Honestly, I don't know of anything we can point to that makes one system safe compared another. My personal opinion (which is probably worthless) is that the damage starts at the point of upgrade, migrating settings and configuration options during the upgrade process. It would have been nice to see if a clean install to a secure erased drive with no prior upgrade and product activation in place would still cause it, or whether it is so random we cannot tell for certain why it happens to some, but not all.

 

i installed W10 on 2 aliens, as upgrade: only "1 click procedure" (no clean install)

all perfect. i don t like w10, but it s faster and there are no problems at all (all alienware sofware are perfect and no problems with games at all)

i just clicked the "Upgrade" button ad waited on both aliens

- Alienware Aurora R4 ALX

- Alienware 14

 

Same here, no issues with windows 10 for the most part. XTU was disabled for access on my alienware, but not on my desktop? The only other real issue that has happened was due to Secure Boot being enabled. Once I disabled secure boot I have had zero issues, and with the new Prema vbios have seen a nice improvement in benchmarking the 980m

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/5745367

 

That is really great and I think everyone here is pleased that you have not experienced any issues, but the Aurora, Alienware 14 and 17 R2 are not examples of affected models. So, this is an apples-to-oranges comparison. My Clevo P570WM is OK as well, but that doesn't mean Windows 10 or the latest NVIDIA drivers are not screwed up. It only means the mistakes haven't manifested in problems for your machines or my Clevo. The fact that some machines end up damaged and others do not doesn't validate the quality of Windows 10 or NVIDIA drivers. All it does it validates you haven't had problems and it may be safe for others with a machine like our unaffected models to go ahead with the upgrade. As you may have noticed, I posted a link where some Inspiron notebooks with AMD discrete graphics are getting bricked with BIOS issues during an upgrade to Windows 10, so things are definitely not all sunshine and roses.

 

Have not finished reading the full thread yet but I have an alienware 14 (2013) showing black screen problems since upgrading to windows 10.

its a clean install with all dell drivers except NVidia drivers and intel igpu as a windows update overwrites it.

when I bootup 30% of the time the screen stays black. and I need to force a reboot for it to work correctly.
EVERYTIME the screen switches off when I'm not using the laptop but its still on it fails to revive the screen and I'm forced to reboot.
Every now and then the screen brightness dims and brightens on its own accord.
everything worked perfectly on windows 8.1 before installing windows 10.

NVidia drivers are 353.xx

Note. newer NVidia 355.60 are doing the same also.

 

Intel updated xtu last week with a new version for windows 10. Worked flawlessly on the 17r2 now. No issues yet (knock on wood). I have an 8.1 disc ready to instal if something goes crazy however.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Sorry that Windows 10 is causing issues for the Alienware 14, bro. I just posted that it was not an affected model, but maybe it is.

Edit: Dang! You have 4 Alienware 17? Are any of them upgraded to Windows 10 and having issues?

I would be willing to guess that there are likely tons of examples of issues we don't know about that are either not posted online, or posted in other places with other brands, and probably examples of Windows 10 failures on consumer machines where people are clueless about what to do and they are just going Best Buy or Walmart and buying some piece of inexpensive junk to replace machines that got messed up.

 

I have a different Alienware system (but I don't think there's many M17xR3 owners who have upgraded yet to Win 10), and I had hibernation & page file disabled from start - I disabled Fast Start-Up (which I believe is not disabled just by removing the hibernation file - instead it's disabled in Windows - see attached pic). I disabled Fast Start-Up because it was causing cold boot issues with freezing on the Windows loading logo. I don't have failed LCD screen either, since 29th July no problems, but that doesn't really prove it was because I disabled page file/hibernation/and Fast Start-Up, but it is the same process that you did on your Alienware that is also unnaffected (apart from I didn't disable Windows auto updates).

 

Disable ' adaptive brightness' (if 10 will let you, that is ...). While you're there; set " Turn off display after ..." to 'never'. That should 'fix' both issues, but not the 'black screen on boot'.

Guess your issue is that gpu-switching isn't working properly (display hand-off is stuck). Seems to be related to issues in this thread, but at least you have an eDP panel. Please try this: 'shift+right-click' on some folder, select ' Open command window here', copy/paste these lines and drop the resulting .txt files somewhere:

Code:

regedit /e classes.txt "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\"
regedit /e driver.txt "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\"
regedit /e edid.txt "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY\"

 

All my alienware laptops now have windows 10 on them, and I'm starting to panic !
sorry for delay had to take the dog for a walk in the park.

 

my alienware 17 r1 with gtx980m ( when gtx was alive(my fault no vbios or ws10), with modded driver, all was perfect. 60hz screen. Even now reinstalled without any gtx its still good.

 

"Alien roulette" LOL Anyways, thanks a lot @Mr. Fox.

 

Well, with that many Alienware laptops, if none of them develop problems from Windows 10 you will be our poster-child and living proof that the problem is random. It's like the Grim Reaper, LOL... never know when that bad boy is going show up, but it's never a happy day when he does.

 

i don't think's random if a pattern emerges.

 

I would agree if we had enough data available to establish a real pattern. Every time we think we know which ones are affected, along comes a wildcard. So far the closest thing we can see to a pattern appears to be Windows 10 + NVIDIA, mostly SLI 780M and 880M, with one Windows 7 and one Windows 8.1 machine with NVIDIA, two single GPU machines with Windows 10 + NVIDIA, that seems to have the same symptoms, but we don't know why. Maybe Windows Updates to get them "Windows 10 Ready" or something else? And, I think the count (of machines we know about) is around 10 or so. That's not very many, so I can see how this might be looking for a needle in a haystack. It's a very real and terrible problem, but we have so little to hang our hats on right now. And, on top of that, what appears to happen with EDID corruption is pretty unusual as well.

 

i wonder what's the longest a laptop has gone before the panel goes bust?

if amd has no issue then it must be nvidia's dirty little doings.

 

So is it possible to have a non-eDP 3D 120Hz screen?

 

so what's the point of having an EDP port if it's just going to be a modded version of LVDS?

 

It took just 10 minutes for my second LCD. But of course it only happened with a restart, so it could have likely remained powered on indefinitely and worked until a restart.

 

that's quick