m15x video lock up

Hi guys,

recently I have been experiencing this problem with my m15x (the old one). I've been using 188.40 driver with no problems for some time and then one day, straight after the login screen to windows, the screen went completely black without even a cursor on it and I had to hard reboot. After then about 70% of the time I turn on the computer this happens. Ususally just after loging into windows the lock up happens. However 30% of the time everything works fine. Generally the lock ups always appear within the first 5 minutes after going into Windows.

I noticed that starting in safe mode or integrated graphics solves this, so decided to try new drivers. Now this was a pain. I could not get any 19x.xx drivers to work, sometimes because of code 43 (device reported problems and had to be stopped), sometimes because of BSODs on startup after instalation. I tried reinstalling 188.40 and it worked, but the lock up problem then appeared again. I finally managed to instal the official AW drivers (179.xx) and am now using them, but the lock up is still here!

I am sure that I am installing the drivers correctly. I do all the necessary registry clean up, restart computer stuff.

So what do you guys think? I don't want to believe that this is just my 8800m gtx failing, cause I only get lock ups on startup. Also this card is like 4 months old, cause my old one died and started producing artefacts, while this one just makes the screen go black.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

EDIT: I'm using Windows 7 64 Bit
EDIT2: just got a lock up randomly after opening a youtube video. So doesn't always lockup just after windows loads.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=440105&page=9

Hope this helps last page. I'm using a 9800 GT.

 

Thanks for the answer, but I think my problem is a bit different. Its good to know that I'm not the only one who is not able to instal any 19x.xx drivers, but this still does not explain the lock ups I get (its not the same as a BSOD).

I understand that you had to format your windows and make a fresh instal to make it work for you?

 

Yeah I just moved to a Solid State dive all together. And I see alot of Gains for the SSD drive for the area-51 m15x. There are multiple reasons.

Heat appears to be an issue along with how the right side palm gets hot after extended usage, so moving to a SSD can help solve or at least help out in this issue.

The solid state drive also uses less power, and it boots up fast. The fast booting is more then just a convenience factor when you decide to boot up intel graphics every time you're not gaming, to reduce the usage on the NVidia card, which is what I currently do. Call me anal, but the last thing I want to do is burn out my 9800m GT. And with 3-5 second boot up times it doesn't bother me at all to switch out GPU's often.