XPS M1730. Driver issue, restore point issue, video card issue(?) Some help would be great!

Hello everyone,

Thanks for taking time to read this.

I have frequently been looking at several threads here on notebookreview and other forums in my attempt to solve my problems, but so far nothing has worked. There also seems to be a plethora of information regarding problems related to M1730 in particular and graphic cards in general, so I apologize if I have overlooked something.


I have been experiencing countless difficulties with my M1730 ever since I got it a little over two years ago. Firstly, my physics card literally melted while browsing Facebook at my high school in Costa Rica, yet this was replaced within my guarantee. After the replacement, I left the computer at home while going back to school, as I didn't want another overheating (melting!)

The following year I came back a couple of times for breaks and it all worked perfectly. Yet when I came back last Christmas, the graphic cards didn't work. I had what seemed to be the standard "error code: 43". I've read this is caused by a common hardware failure, yet the problems were very inconsistent. One day both cards would be affected, the next day just one. Sometimes both would be fine. In my stupidity I left it as it was since I didn't want to spend Christmas break calling tech support.

I came back after graduation a couple of months ago and suddenly what used to be a minor nuisance became a major frustration. It was augmented by the fact that my support guarantee had run out two days before I came home...

So I tried everything:

1. Uninstalled NVIDIA drivers
- Uninstalled through selecting the video cards and pressing uninstall drivers
2. Ran Driver Sweep in safe mode
3. Installed proper drivers I read would work.

I also uninstalled through "remove programs" and selecting nvidia, when the former did not work.

None of this worked. Paradoxically, a driver update usually meant things getting worse.

I finally got one of the cards to work, and everything seemed to be pretty stable. But upon reading that NVIDIA had released the new 260.99 drivers, I decided to give it a try. So I created a system restore point and downloaded the notebook 260.99 NVIDIA drivers. I uninstalled the old ones and rebooted my computer in safe mode. I realised Vista had began installing drivers without my consent, so I disabled the automatic installation feature and did it all again.

Once back in safe mode with the drivers uninstalled, I used Driver Sweeper on NVIDIA chipsets, video drivers, PhysX drivers and ATI drivers (a big question mark for me - why would I have ATI drivers on a computer that has never had ATI video cards?), rebooted the computer again and ran the installation of the notebook 260.99 drivers.

Once rebooted, error code 43 was there on both cards.

So after trying once again to make it work, I decided it was of no use and praised the gods I had followed good advice and created a system restore point.

I loaded it up and now the cards are not even showing up in the device manager, other than as "unknown device".

What I find the most interesting is that every time I used Driver Sweeper it didn't seem to make a difference: the "ATI", "NVIDIA" and "Physx" catalogues were still there.

I am also pretty sure this is a driver issue and not a hardware failure. I tried using "Direct Refresh" (a program used to change screen refresh frequencies) and force a 60 Hz refresh rate for Battlefield 2 gaming, but I had error messages and no resolutions showing up when running the software - another reason why I was bent on fixing my problems this morning.

I am perplexed. Could anyone be so kind to help? Could, for example, the melting of my physics card over a year ago have caused this? In that case, am I entitled to a replacement? What can I do?

Thank you so much in advance, and I apologize for the long post.

Specs:
Dell M1730
Vista Home Premium 32-bit
2x NVIDIA 8800 GTX SLi

 

I forgot to mention that both cards did work in safe mode on the old drivers - another reason why I think Driver Sweeper doesn't really work.

Any ideas?

 

Theres a bug well known with driver sweeper under 7 x64: if you remove Nvidia HD Audio/chipset/drivers and physicx combined with Creative - Sound and ATI WHEN you dont have those peripherals, DS will remove important system files from windows folder.

On the next reboot, the os will basically die, it can bsod, freeze or not load anymore peripherals and cards.

The thing i did to recover back was to load an old restore point, my cards start working again with the old driver set, and the drivers removed by DS were reinstalled.

But thats just luck; come to think of it alot of peoples have been forced to reinstall the OS from scratch, because someway it messes up with the hardware abstraction layer of Win 7.

If you know that the problem is related to the drivers, then i doubt you can do anything you already tried up this point.

I advice to get rid of VISTA asap, install Win 7 x64 (for the 4gb ram, since vista 32 and other 32bit oses runs on 3,5 only) and reinstall everything.

The fact that the cards works in safe mode doesnt mean anything, because the driver isnt even loaded and theres just a plain vga driver loaded on the fly to get them working.
Hence, none of card resources are used, and if your card is defective, you cant really notice it under safemode unless its dead and not diplaying it at all.

Always remove only Nvidia Drivers (not even physix or chipset) under Driver Sweeper, for god sake dont touch anything else.

 

Alright, I think I'll backup my files then and start from scratch. Thanks for your help!