***EVGA Precision X and Windows 7/8/8.1 and especially 10 bricking systems***

Well boys It looks like my family gets to join the club.

One of the kids managed to brick BOTH her screens ( M18xr2 and a Samsung unit ) however since she only cares about Sims and isn't a power user and dear old mom here hates auto updates etc.... I can verify that you CAN kill both a Windows 7 pro 64 unit and a windows 8.1 unit both WITHOUT the ready to install updates to windows 10 ( GWX control is my friend ) but WITH her new boyfriend installing fairly current Nvidia drivers ( nope not sure which) and Precision X. that personally makes me lean towards wanting to crucify Nvidia as I even pulled her drives and looked at them and nope no windows 10 or install packages for it.... did question some of her bookmarks though. and I will try to find time to rewrite EDID's later this weekend

 

So now we can install W10 and face no problems ?

Note: My last screen died without using Precision X

 

Noone truly knows how the problem was caused in the 1st place. Only thing known right now is that Evga Precision will corrupt the LCD but beyond that nothing.

 

So just to let you guys know i have the 8 beeps issue with my m18x r1 expensive paperwork as well, took another display and it confirmed my fears, well at least i was hoping that it was just this, it all started aftet a gpu upgrade from 6970m to 680m latest nvidia driver al went well for a few hours did some overclocking with afterburner but also had evga installed but i am not sure if i used it, all this was done under win7 with no recent updates just the ones before october 2015 when i bought the laptop, i will try to fix the screen with the linuxusb stic from here , but it does not boot up yet it gives me some errors

 

so the ubuntu stick does its job if you follow the steps even for a noobie like my self, for everyone having the same issues and want to solve it yourself, instead of buying a new led panel get yourself a broken panel so you can boot your laptop and then connect it to a tv with hdmi and work from there

 

Just thought I would post an update to my earlier post. Although I was concerned at the risk of upgrading to Win10 with a Clevo P770zm, I did finally give in and installed Win10.
But I didnt upgrade my current 8.1 installation, I used the MS tool to burn an ISO, and did a fresh install on a spare ssd I had lying around, and just removed the ssd with 8.1.
I followed the guides posted in the Windows section of these forums and everything went smoothly

After a week of smooth sailing, I wiped the old 8.1 ssd and copied the Win10 install over to it. And activated Win10 with my 8.1 key.

Gotta say Win10 runs very quick, and stable so far!
Oh and running Nvidia's latest drivers, with MSI Afterburner installed, and XTU controlling the cpu.
Mick

 

been running my m18xr2 on windows 10 with latest windows updates, and PEG MOD v352.84 Win 10 drivers from
https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...ort-modded-inf/&do=findComment&comment=120339

without any problem whats so ever, i use
nvidia inspector for overclocking,
hwmonitor for manual fan controls,
and msi afterburner riva tuner combo for in game monitoring,

matter of fact my pc seems to be running much better then it was on the 8.1, but thats kinda because i did a fresh install and removed all the trash i didnt use anymore.

in short, its safe as long as you dont use EVGA Pre-x

 

How long have you been using it ? my last screen died after 3 months of W10

 

little under a month to be honest, hahah
but its safe to say i am so ready for when it goes bad, i have a spare screen lying around with an additional lvds cable waiting to be flashed, i really want to get to the bottom of this, so when, and god forbit it happens, i have all the drivers, files, software/hardware at my disposal.

but i highly doubt it will just happen like that with nothing changing from my end,

 

I'm using M18x R2 with 980m SLI
Driver 352.84 too with inf from j95@techinferno, apps I use are only nvidia inspector and Hwinfo + Rivatuner statistic server
So far so good, over 8 months
Should I try updating the driver?

 

Waiting anxiously for your experiment!

 

My Alienware 17's display became corrupt earlier this week. Has anybody been able to successfully fix this issue? I've tried to follow some people's instructions, but was unsuccessful in getting it to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Windows 10 or Precision X ?

 

It was both. Fortunately, I was able to get it running again after some further attempts with other users' suggestions. I've removed the software and rolled back to Windows 8.1 to minimize the risk of encountering this issue again.

 

So now I think it is safe to assume that W10 alone can't cause that problem

 

I have Windows 10 on my P377SM-A and on my P157SM-A, both have not had a black screen. I have tried almost every NVIDIA driver on them, and it has been perfectly fine. However, I have been avoiding EVGA Precision X like the plague and won't install it on any computer I own, EVER, and that's coming from someone who has an EVGA GTX 980 Ti and I love EVGA as a company.

 

Hi guys

I have reverted to Win8.1 a while ago as for the life of me I wasn't able to get my 980m mxm installed in Optimus mode on Win10.

I have no switched to dedicated and am planning to upgrade to Win10 again.
I will never install precisionX or even OC my gpu.

Am I safe from any suprise? I really really don't want my screen to die.

 

As long as you avoid EVGA Precision X on your laptop, it probably should be fine with any OS.

 

You should add in there "probably" to the be fine part. There have been a couple of reports of people never having PrecisionX installed and their screens still bricked.

 

You are completely right, I am sorry, I thought I included it there - I certainly meant to.

 

Any link showing this case? It's not the first time someone mentions this but I can't find any post about this.
Every single case I've read about involved precisionX...
Anyway, I updated successfully to win10 last night.
DX12 working fine but I got a driver crash while playing tomb raider. Found tons of similar cases online so not too worried as it seems to be an issue in Tomb Raider itself or Nvidia's driver (surprise, surprise) .

I am going to try messing with TDR settings and a couple other suggestions I found (playing in borderless windowed mode or disabling DX12 in TR to check if this is the culprit)


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Somewhere in the original thread there were two (maybe three) folks that popped in and stated that they never had PrecisionX installed and that their screens bricked. One was in Windows 7 or 8.1 and had recently run Windows updates and had gotten the Windows 10 ready updates installed.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...lienware-and-clevo-lcd-panels.779449/page-302 - it's a jungle in there, and I don't have the time to read it all through again.

 

I posted about it. The first screen on my Alienware 18 got bricked while doing a clean install of Windows 10. Everything was fine until I installed Geforce drivers and was prompted to reboot to enable SLI. That was all she wrote. I wasn't even finished with driver installations, LOL. EVGA Precision X wasn't installed yet.

You're right though. It is rare, but there are several reports of EDID corruption on systems that never had been touched by EVGA Precision X. I've read them and the people that posted are trustworthy members of the community that have no reason to tell stories.

EVGA Precision X is absolutely one of the triggers. When I had it installed on my M18xR2 the screen got bricked every day, at least once a day and had to be re-flashed sometimes more than once a day. As soon as I discovered EVGA Precision X was causing it, I removed it and the problem stopped. I reported it to Dell and NVIDIA, and they confirmed it... and here we are today. Now, you can use an old version of Precision X that was based on MSI Afterburner. I've not seen any example of that version causing EDID corruption. It's only the "new and improved" crapware that they developed that causes the problems as far as I know.

However, I'm still 100% convinced that Windows 10 feces and updates that prepare Windows 7 and 8 for infection by Windows 10 feces is what creates the vulnerability to begin with. My M18xR2 and Alienware 18 have not been allowed to receive Windows Updates at all. It has been at least 3 years since I allowed Windows 7 Automatic Updates on my computers and the Alienware 18 has never, since the day it was brand new, been allowed to receive Windows Updates. Plus, I was using the same "dangerous version" of EVGA Precision X every day on those machines without issue until I thought it would be cool to try out the RTM version of Windows 10, and everything unraveled on BOTH MACHINES the day Windows 10 cancer touched them. This worthless malware abortion is the worst excuse for an OS that the Redmond Mafia has pooped onto the public since Windows ME. Connecting the dots, I think it's a no-brainer that this problem is Micro$haft's fault.

 

What's even more despicable is neither Dell, nVidia, EVGA, or MS stepped in to fix the bricked LCDs in the affected models. That's really, really wrong.

 

Add Clevo to the list. @Prema has seen plenty of bricked Clevo LCD examples, too. Otherwise, I agree. It's all about the OEMs being a good heiny-smooching partner and not calling out Micro$loth for their incompetence. They have to do their part to help make Windows 10 Malware Edition a success. The OEM muppets are all a bunch of emasculated Kool-Aid drinking yes men. They should band together and put Micro$loth in its place. Micro$lop's products are an adjunct to the hardware the OEMs are selling and they should be afforded little or no input or influence about anything except for the software they sell. They've got no business being involved in hardware or firmware. Their involvement is an impediment and conflict of interest. Their role in technology should be an entirely subservient one at the OS level, that exists only to support hardware, not vice versa.

 

I am one of those who got hit by the brick storm without using EVGA Precision X. It took W10 around 3 month to hit my screen and it happened out of a sudden.

Nonetheless I just installed W10 last week to give it another shot. If that machine loses another screen I am fixing it, selling it and never buying an Alienware ever again

 

Right before you fix it, can you verify the refresh rate is still max of 120hz and not some wayout number like 168hz plus which your 120hz screen can not operate at. I think it was mentioned that this machine will boot with external display. If so, then in the nvcontrol panel settings, change resolution setting.... Check to see if there is a new custom one listed or your refresh rate is higher than 120hz. Thanks.


It may be different for 60hz screens....Something like 80 or higher which would stop the screen from showing....speculation of course.

 

lol if my screen dies and I really hope that it doesn't, I will make sure to check that out

 

It should not be totally dead. It would need to just be flashed back with the correct info....According to this thread.

The reason I ask is because my 120hz did this just the other day. And i was thinking that you can in fact brick a 120hz screen, but under further investigation....I found that it was because evga crashed and set a refresh rate of 168, which my screen can not boot into windows at.

 

That is certainly a real possibility of an easier fix for some folks and definitely a good step to include in the troubleshooting process of elimination. If the refresh rate is jacked up so far out of scope that certainly could produce similar symptoms as EDID corruption, like a black screen issue. The other thing is, what happened on your machine could be an important clue as to what is causing EDID corruption on Alienware and Clevo notebooks with LVDS displays. If eDP does not allow EVGA Precision X to write bad data to EDID and LVDS does, the same underlying conditions may be responsible for EDID corruption on LVDS LCD panels. Very valuable information presented here.

If the EDID is corrupted on an Alienware you will get 8 beeps and, and on Clevo or Alienware, the messed up EDID will cause the same problems if you move it to another system. Resetting stock refresh rate won't fix the problem if the EDID has been overwritten with garbage.

 

HA HA!
Having recently posted here about not having any problem with EVGA PrecisionX and kinda bragging on it a little, I downloaded the recent NVIDA drivers and the most recent EVGA precisionX. After 3 OC's of the system the Screen bricked, resulting in the restored boot going to the external monitor. The BIOS actually boots on the external monitor. I was able to restore my screen after about 4 hrs(total) of working on it with the assistance of @Mr. Fox , and
@t456 : http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...bricking-systems.781467/page-23#post-10170202 for the instructions and downloads for repair.
Although the booting to persistent Linux and creation of the USB bootable stick gave me the most difficulty. I kept trying to create the stick on the Reinstalled Win7 ultimate, it took forever and wouldn't work. I moved that to a Win10 machine and created the boot stick and bam!, followed the instructions worked exactly.

It should be noted that this brick also corrupted windows program files and systems files. even though I could boot with external monitor, I kept getting crazy start up errors. EVEN after I reinstalled WINDOWS7.

On that note I should mention that this issue is not just for win10 users. I believe from all I have read and the actual brick that I was able to reproduce (albeit not on purpose). The Laptop LCD was stuck in a screen rate it could not handle. I was testing an OC with EVGA PrecisionX, I had set the Screen rate to 120 for one monitor, then hit test, and I think that I had the wrong monitor selected or it maybe recognized the monitor I selected as a different one, idk.

This situation also corrupted windows files to the point that my most recent external back up would not install, causing me to have to do a fresh install.

BIG thanks to MR. Fox and especially t456's links and the tutorial.

Takaezo

There was no second screen available to go in and readjust the Hz.
I think in the record created it was stuck at 168Hz, being the 60Hz stock AUO 90% NTSC

 

I never get tired reading about your love story with Microsoft and Windows 10. Lol !

Anyway, I guess I just need to pray nothing happens for me...
DX12 is nothing to talk about for now I guess. I am reading countless stories about frequent crashes related to it. Not sure if the game developers are to blame or Microsoft themselves.
In my case, simply disabling DX12 fixed the crashing in Tomb Raider. One last thing I want to try is to play in borderless windowed mode as some people mentioned they were able to keep DX12 active that way...

 

Did anyone ever manage to make the Linux image to boot in pure UEFI mode ... I tried everything I could but the image only boots in Legacy for me ... It is getting very frustrating since I now use Windows 10 with zero fail safe plan

 

I have been using Win 10 on a new AW 18 for a couple of months with no issues. Games run great. I have kept it updated with the latest Nvidia drivers and the latest Win 10 beta builds. I never installed Precision X and don't overclock or mod the vbios. I have 2 high end desktops I built for overclocking and don't see a reason to overclock a laptop.

 

Doesn't linux need to be digitally signed to make UEFI boot it?

 

If you read all the instructions for the Linux boot persistent live, it says that it is designed for legacy or UEFI and will work on both.

 

I did read that and I followed the instructions and still it wouldn't boot ... I get stuck in a black screen after "Try Linux without installing" part

 

Yes, meaning to fix that (it's on the to-do list ...).

But don't think this has to do with uefi; it blacks out when the nouveau driver loads ( post boot). So it needs replacing with nvidia's linux driver, but that is tricky on a live stick and needs more (temporary) disk space. Since there's not enough left on this 1GB version, that means making a new, separate image for this specific situation. With only you having reported this and not actually having a bricked screen anyway ... well ... it's a bit low on the priority list, sorry . You could always brick it on purpose, of course .

Hmm ... think we covered this, but ... ' Secure Boot' and other assorted nastinesses were off, yes?

 

Yeah I always turn that crap off

 

Ok, I think I have everything I need to flash my Alienware 18's LCD. I think maybe I missed something in all the text but I should be able to boot to Linux from the USB and flash the EDID.... on the infected LCD? The only other beastie I have in the house is an 09' M15x. Which I will use to make the USB drive but, that LCD can't interface with the AW 18 mobo, right?

If my above assumption is correct, my plan of action is to flash twice. First time to evict EVGA precision and the second time, pending insta-corruption before I remove EVGA, to seal the deal. I never had problems fiddling around with Win10 and NVDIA drivers prior to installing EVGA precision.

or...

Is a second AW 18 LCD required?

Even if getting a new rig is more efficient at this point, I'd like to follow through. The experience at the end of all this would be worth it, imo.

 

I can't seem to boot from my linux usb. It boots just fine on my M15x but the 18 just starts beeping. The only thing that shows up is the vBios signature from Johnkss (spelling). Am I missing a step?

Edit: To clarify: The vBios only shows on the external monitor, when connected.

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Sounds like it's halting on the bricked screen and you need to hot-swap, unfortunately.

Most Dells refuse to boot without an internal display connected, but perhaps the M15x is different. My Clevos don't care and boot fine without an lcd, so perhaps the older M15x is like that and you could try disconnecting the lcd cable and boot using only the monitor.

Failing that and if you're feeling lucky ... you might try hot-swapping the M15x lcd; the interface is the same. Only thing is that its lcd voltage is only 3.3V instead of the 5V used for the 18's panel. This can certainly kill or damage the 15.6" permanently, so ... bit of a gamble, that.

Alternative, sans hot-swap panel, is an LVDS adapter. This can be hooked to the removed panel on one end and a programmer at the other.

Ah ... and this is a mux system, right? So tried switching to igpu yet?

 

That opens the door a smidgen, actually. I have my M15x's original display. I can gamble that one freely. I have tried switching to igpu, doesn't work. When i get off work i will try out that original 15x display.


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M15x LCD works like a charm. I sifted through these forums and found the right edid for my 18 LCD, I flashed it but it never displayed Mint. When i rebooted i still got the 8 beeps. Im guessing get-edid may have led me astray?

Edit: Followed your and Mr.Fox's instructions verbatim. Linux shows the tail end of the 15x LCD's part number even after entering commands while hotswapped. What do I need to do to get Linux to see the the 18? Is this write protection?


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It's can't be write-protection; you simply shouldn't ever see the 15.6" turn up when it's not plugged in. Unless ... your vbios redirects you to a part of the bios where edids may be stored. Lenovo does this, but unaware of Dell doing the same thing (apart from gsync-checks). Haven't searched the bios yet, but might do so, just in case.

However, can you copy/paste the output first?

Hmm ... you don't happen to have an SDC4C48 or SEC5448, do you? See, these specific pnp ids can't be trusted since they've been re-used for different panels (which shouldn't happen). If so; the 18.4" may have the same panel id as the 15.6", crazy as that may sound is.

 

Yeah, I have the SDC4C48. I will post the output soon.


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You can add me to the list of bricks! Just Bricked the Alienware M18XR2. Was running Windows 7 64 bit, evga precision X 3.10 and nvidia 358.50.

I was able to fix this issue thanks to this thread and a few others. Thanks @Mr. Fox ! Now I can leave on my trip. LOL

 

Did you install Win updates for a future upgrade to Win 10 on your laptop?

 

So, I ended up ordering a new LCD for the AW18 and LVDS cables for both of my laptops. I attempted to utilize my M15x since the 15.6" edid seemed to be saved in the AW18's BIOS some where. Well, the M15x ate the 18.4"... Burnt 2 pins on both connectors. The AW18's LVDS had a pin get pushed back. Easily 2M-able but our 2M lab has long since been removed :/

Some other thoughts i have...

When everyone here successfully flashed their edid: Did the corrupted LCD display anything after hotswap, before flashing?

Every time I made an attempt to flash, i had to prepare the command in Terminal before the hot-swap, then hit enter while blind. All i ever got was the backlight. So, would it be safe to assume the 18.4" was already too far gone?

Either way, I missed the boot options menu once with the 15.6" installed and went straight to windows. I had already removed EVGA using Linux but I fired up Steam and had it officially uninstalled. I think Steam specifically needs to have a warning issued before installing for us Laptop folk. I realize EVGA has a disclaimer but a more explicit brick-your-monitor post should probably be there too


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Yeah, worked like a normal LCD before flashing, but it is not bootable without 8 beeps. Once the machine has finished POST and you hot-swap it on the Windows or Linux desktop the corrupted LCD works fine.

On my EUROCOM Panther the bricked screen worked on the Windows (and Linux) desktop as well, but was black at POST and in BIOS and before reaching the desktop.