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

@Mr Fox, t456 and Prema.

I found this website, it seems to have quite a bit of interesting tech.
While reading the description, some of it rang a bell and things you guys have chatted about here.
Some of the tools may be handy in either diagnosing or re-writing some of the components talked about in the last 2-3 days

http://dangerousprototypes.com/

 

U.S. of A.

 

Upgrade to class action. There are tons of us that could benefit. Way easier to win with different combinations of hardware showing that "A" it wasn't a fluke, and "B" it narrows down to just Nvidia and Micro$haft.

My money is still on Nvidia. Their silence is infuriating and highly suspicious. Plus the fact that this doesn't happen with an AMD card installed is a huge flag.

@Mr. Fox- have you gotten your bricked screen back from either company?

 

So finally @Mr. Fox screen brick didn't happened with AMD/Intel?

 

To all M17 owners, stay in Optimus mode... If you move to dedicated with these new cancer drivers and OS you will get the brick... That is what happened to me in my R4...

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Edit: deleted post...

 

How long did it take before your EDID bricked? I'm running dedicated, haven't run hybrid since 10 I should add.. My graphics drivers to allow hybrid was only ever installed on 8.1 on 10 no drivers where installed

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Can someone dump all SLI profiles from newest driver? especially Rainbow Six siege one?

 

Well it was over a month and as @mariussx can confirm, the minute we switched to Optimus, in 1-2 days EDID bricked...

 

Mine is on day 4, so just have to see how it goes. I do wonder though, someone mentioned the newer driver containing the G Sync code.. I wonder if that has anything to do with it? From 10 which had no drivers installed I went back to 8.1 and installed Mr Fox's old drivers which may not have yet had Gsync code.. Just a thought. But so far so good the laptop is running great only problem I've had yet is today where it said my AC adapter couldn't be recognised but unplugging and re inserting follows by a reboot resulted in a clean boot.

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Just a quick correction - it was when I switched from Optimus to dedicated and installed nvidia drivers my LG L173WF1 TL B3 got bricked. It did not take long, mostly after the first restarts or power off and on.

 

Odd, that ties in with what Mr Fox experienced and what a few others said. It just makes me wonder.. why can people like me go days/weeks/months without a brick but some people follow the pattern of bricking after the first restart of the machine. The one guy on here just a few pages back was on Windows 10 with newest Nvidia drivers for 2 months before stumbling upon this thread and has only recently reverted to Windows 8.1

 

Here's a silly idea. Maybe this rootkit/bit/whatever the hell cancer this is can be cured with an AMD card? Whether it be a 7970M or a 4870M, can somebody swap in an AMD card, and install win 10 drivers and see if the LCD still bricks itself?

 

@Mr. Fox had that on his to do list a while back, think he already did it?

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Negatory. He asked if anyone had some spare AMD cards that he could borrow to test just that - he does have the AMD heat sinks already.

Right now he is checking to see if just using the iGPU causes the same issue.

 

355.98 installed in my M18X R2 no problems yet. Unistalled via DDU

 

I'm on my 5th Screen and running for 5 days now ........... on Windows 7 Ult. LMAO hahah .. I am sticking to Windows 7 for now , with " Auto Update " off ... I am not going to take anymore chances.

 

I've run Win X HE from August 15 to September 2 also with 353.62. Run two/three rounds of Disk part/clean before I installed Win 7 Ult (Did not re flash bios/vbios). My Aw17 + 120hz 3D screen still works as it should now soon 1 month after new installation of Win 7. We'll see how long the laptop works.

 

I'm still on windows 10 on my 120Hz R1. No problems until now.

 

Hi, i need some help here guys. Just now i was using my alienware 17 r1 connected to a Dell U2414H monitor through minidp to displayport with no problem until now. I restarted the alienware and no more signal to the external display anymore. The lcd panel on the alienware is working fine, but no matter what i do, i cannot get signal to my dell external monitor. I am on windows 8.1 x64 , but i did install windows 10 when it was launched, however i reverted a few weeks later after i saw this thread. No problems until now. The external monitor is detected as generic pnp monitor and gets no signal. AIDA64 shows corrupted data in the monitor profile. The strange thing is that if i connect the monitor to my macbook pro through minidp to displayport using the same cable and ports i have no problems, the monitor works fine, the problem is only with the alienware.

It is possible than this failure affect external monitors too??? If so, why only affect the minidisplayport of the alienware and no the port of the macbook? Please help me to fix this, i even reflashed the bios and did a clean install of windows with no luck.


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Can you try HDMI to HDMI connection?
If the monitor does not have an HDMI port maybe you can try connecting the alienware to a TV or a monitor with HDMI port.

Also are you using optimus or just the nvidia gpu?

 

Omd I hope the EDID can't be flashed through HDMI I been hooking up my 60" :O

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I really hope that Dell and NVidia up the priority of these issues & get to the bottom of these problems - (Mr. Fox sent in his bricked screens to them). This whole thing is causing a lot of concern & confusion for Alienware (& even Clevo) owners!

 

I imagine the bigger the problem gets the more likely it is that either company will try to avoid at all costs. Until we (well actually the small portion of users that are able to trace the root cause) can prove where its coming from I can only see them turning a blind eye and as recently shown just dismiss and blame the other company (nvidia/microshite) vice versa

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I will try that today after work. To me it seems like the monitor is fine, but somehow the alienware is detect it as corrupted. I dont understand why is working fine with the macbook pro and not working with the alienware... If the edid was corrupted it shouldnt work with either of them or not? The only different thing i was doing before this happens was using the moninfo to check the alienware lcd edid in the edid web reader... Could this be the cause? Does this program can write the edid of the external monitor through minidp interfase??? .

Excuse my poor english, clearly is not my native language.


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Yes apparently the monitor is fine. Just curious to see if the problem has occurred only in miniDP or in HDMI as well. Before the screen going black and not be recognized did you notice any weird colors flashing like small dots on the screen? Needless to say there are many tools and things you can check if you go back to previous pages so you can give us more details about the situation.

 

I've been following this thread and upon doing some other research in general about EDID detection and corruption (i wanna say more specifically was looking at BAD_EDID registry keys and their removal/they if normally exist). When you mentioned your specific monitor I recalled another thread I had read pertaining to your issue albeit it was a bit more to deal with multi-display setups. But regardless it was for your monitor and when connected via displayport Windows can mess up it's detection but the thread had some changes to follow in the registry to supposedly correct it. Hope this helps!!
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19580375

 

Well finally fix the damn thing!... It turns out that the f****** monitor was somehow configured for chained displays and setted the displayport in Dp 1.2a mode, i reverted the damn thing to Dp 1.1 and everything worked fine now... Sorry for the offtopic, i was so worried.... Anyway, thanks for the advices and back to the main topic!


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Another update from an Nvidia rep:

"Yep i know this occurs after the driver installation, but its not failing due to the functions the driver installer are performing.

We have already debugged the issue as far as we can on our end, and know its not something we can fix ourselves which is why Dell/Alienware need to figure out the plan of action here to move ahead."

If this is true, we need to start in on Dell - I would hazard a GUESS it's the BIOS, specifically the UEFI tables that are jacked and cause the corruption once Nvidia drivers are installed. That is IF we can trust Nvidia on this (sad that I even have to qualify that).

EDIT: Just for reference, here is the previous response that sparked my assertion that it only happens after Nvidia drivers are installed (passing the buck? Maybe, since Nvidia is NOT forthcoming with specifics):

"Still waiting on my end too, few things pending on Dells side before I get anything I can pass along to you. We sent one of the failed panels to Dell for them to look at recently. The issue is with the EDID of the display and it becoming corrupt, something we cant fix on our end and need Dell/Alienware to get a plan together to address this. "

 

so you think it might be due to a bad implementation of UEFI in older models? if so then they better release a new BIOS for models they support for win 10...including the AW17 R1!

 

I'm not the expert - just trying to put together all the information that we've seen so far since Nvidia hasn't actually released any information other than "it's not our software."

If it IS the implementation of UEFI in our "older" laptops, then it would fall to Dell to release a fix. And if they don't, take 'em all to court I say.

 

Well doesn't this song sound familiar.
In AU, we call this handballing (passing the buck)
I've seen this sort of behaviour a lot with large companies, they try to blind you with smoke, mirrors and confusion.
I think we would have to all agree, if we want anything done about this, it's going to have to be us that does it.
At this stage and with the limited number of units affected, there's no way any of those multi-nationals are going to admit responsibility unless we here find proof of how, who, what is doing this, why would they. Much easier to play dumb and see what happens than volunteer any info or services, that's just admitting corporate mistakes and would possibly have legal ramifications, and there's no way ANY company any will do that unless FORCED too.

When (And if) we get to the root cause, then we can load the gun and shoot, or drop the bomb - Whatever analogy floats your boat, but until that time, NO-ONE is going to listen to us.
NO -ONE is going to be interested UNTIL we can point the finger, when that happens, watch the vultures (or Seagulls) start circling. Mr Fox and/or t456 might end up doing a few guest appearances on "Goodmorning America" or "Opra" or "Ellen"

 

No matter whose fault it really is the solution (for better or for worse) has to come from Dell/Alienware for the simple fact that they are the manufacteur.Even if it was a new nvidia driver that would fix the problem, it would be packed and released from Dell just like with the default drivers that come with the laptop and found on dell's support site.

IMO that means we are pretty much screwed for two reasons:

1. Dell will not get off their backs to release a new BIOS and
2. even if they do they will break something else in the process.

PS: It makes sense that dell has screwed somewhere, otherwise every machine with an nVidia card and in win10 would present the same problem as ours

 

they do have a list of laptops that they support win 10 on and it is in their best interests to get a fix out.

 

Isn't their best interest to sell everyone a new AW 18 with dual 980Ms than to have us keep updating the old ones we have?

Homer

 

i'm talking about an updated BIOS.

 

If it is for their best interest they sure don't seem to give a crap because last BIOS version for AW17 was released in 2014.

Unfortunately i wouldn't hold my breath for a new bios due to the reasons i stated above. Whoever got lucky and didnt install win10 got lucky. The rest of us got screwed unless a community fix comes in.

 

Maybe its certain panels made in Alienware and Clevo. T456 has a list of panels which he is keeping on top of to note which models are bricking, likely to brick and all the all the rest. Maybe is panel specific? I do agree someone needs to sort it out, but if Nvidia are making these low level hardware soft brick bugs I wouldn't blame dell, after all its been mentioned previous to this that modifications at this level are not normal or acceptable therefore it should never have been on something for dell to take into consideration.

Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken Mr Fox is actually talking to someone from Dell, we have his email address and he's asking for all people with bricked panels to send some information to gather data.. Not much but you don't see anything off Nvidia or Microshite at the moment
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Isn't every panel with LVDS not write-protected affected?

 

Yea I don't think we have come across a screen that is impervious, have we?

With full fan control as well thanks Dell

 

Has this been a problem at all for any Alienware desktops?

 

I don't think so, if I'm not mistaken it was narrowed down to specific panels? Although I stand to be corrected..

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I got Alienware m18x R2 which I just upgraded to GTX 970M, which wouldn't post, until I switched the BIOS to UEFI / Legacy off (otherwise it would do 8 beeps). Good thing I found this forum before upgrading to Windows 10.

I called Dell tech support, who refused to provide any support because the laptop is out of warranty. I tried to push the question about Windows 10 burning LCD screens, and if there's any updates on this problem. He said that he never heard about this issue. I tried to get him to transfer me to a higher level tech support or the manager, but he refused. I'm going to write a letter to CRTC since I'm in Canada and see if they have anything to say on this. I think people in US can do the same with FCC.

 

Its not burning the LCD as originally thought mate, the LCD has an EDID which contains all the information such as refresh rates and everything.. Something is corrupting that EDID which fails the startup check resulting in 8 beeps.

I like how you tried to escalate the problem.. I'd love the man to visit this thread and say he's not heard of it because there's plenty of information all over about it.

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Yes you're right about EDID, I was using the wrong term.

 

Regardless its really crap to hear Dells response, without customers they're nothing so they really shouldn't dismiss problems like this.. Scars there reputation. Ill phone tomorrow, I live in the UK.. AU, US and UK complaints looks good I suppose

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Why is this taking so long? Maybe it's true that it's somehow related to windows rootkit and NSA?

 

Like you guys have uncovered something they never intended us to see? I can't wait to watch the Made for TV Movie based on this and it's repercussions down the road.

 

Mr Fox is away on work and he has been doing quite a bit so progress will stall slightly... However, there is something really really fishy done by Micro$haft and NVIDIA....

 

What about @t456 any progress? And we need @Mr. Fox here :O this thread has just made an abrupt progression loss

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