p170em Windows 8.1 graphics drivers.

Hi, so i am having quite a few problems with the way my drivers are setup. I have been using Windows 8 before this and it had similar problems although not as severe as this.
What happens is that on random events work (Maya 2014), games (BattleField : Hardline), my computer seems to randomly freeze it just stops whatever it was doing and i cant move the mouse and i cant ctrl+alt+del anything. The only solution is shutting down the computer using the power button.
It seems to me that it's a GPU issue, and the biggest problem of al is sometimes the computer reboots fine but on occasions it refuses to boot after freezing up. The computer at first looks to be booting just fine but when the spindle is done spinning and you normally would get the lockscreen it just stays black with no Hard Drive activity. Forcing me yet again to hold the power button.

After booting in safe mode and un-installing the Intel HD drivers the computer boots fine, however when i install those drivers again it refuses to boot with the same black screen symptom as before.
Any recommendations?

Is there anyone with the same problems and if you're using Windows 8.1 without any issues i would love to know the driver versions for both cards.

Laptop specs:
i7-3630QM
16Gb DDR3 ram
7970M Radeon (Enduro)
2 Hard drives

 

https://mega.co.nz/#!VxFwDZzb!Rz9cM7loEvHbsFJ6k097jv28dvf4bTtsbrqDmfaMT8U latest Intel HD driver , works fine on windows 8.1

and latest AMD beta drivers works fine too AMD Catalyst 14.6 Beta Driver for Windows

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/beta/amd-catalyst-14.6-beta-v1.0-windows-may23.exe

 

it seems hardware problem...

 

Thansk for the responses.

I'm slightly doubtful about the hardware issues considering this has been happening from day 1 that i got the laptop. And it really depends on the software situation as it was fine for at least half a year (laptop is 1 year old). Especially considering that it boots fine in safe mode and it also boots fine when only installing the ATI drivers and not the Intel Drivers. However enduro stops working. I'll try the drivers you provided on a clean install and report back. If anyone else has some info or confirmation of no problems on either Windows 8 or 8.1 that would be great.

Edit:
Boots fine when i select diagnostic boot in the msconfig settings. It just seems that the moment windows is booted (after the spinning part) something loads and it disables the screen. Because the moment i start spamming the enter button i can actually see the lockscreen going up a split second after the screen turning black. Btw forgot to mention this but the hard drive indicator also stops blinking when this happens.

 

I had random freezes during gameplay and video playback from day 1 and sent the laptop to technical support (MySN.de), as a clean reinstall of the drivers didn't work. They fixed the problem with these steps, maybe it could help:
* Cleaned the vents from any dust and applied new thermal paste on the CPU + GPU. You can find a tutorial here, and steps to open up your laptop in the p170em service manual p.44.
* Made a clean reinstall of Windows
* Installed the latest Intel and ATI drivers

edit: typo

 

Thanks for the reply i'm in the process of re-installing Windows. I repasted and cleaned the GPU and CPU a month ago so don't think thats the problem. How did you guys install the intel drivers? Using the setup.exe or by going to device manager and installing by letting it search the folder for compatible drivers. I tried both but i think my current Windows install is to tainted for any of that to work but i just wanted to ask before i re-install.

Thanks again guys for responding so fast , now my only hope left is to get rid of this problem.

EDIT: Are either of you using a GPT partitioning scheme or MBR?

 

Going through Device Manager to install drivers is usually plan B. Using the setup.exe should work fine.

 

Clean install gives me the exact same result, works fine up until i install both Video card drivers (intel first, ATI second). After installing both it locks up after the Windows boot screen (Windows logo and spinning circles), the screen stays black and the hard drive indicator stops flashing. I'll try a different version and hope that it's just a faulty windows installer.

Have checked the hard drive for errors but nothing, have also full wiped it several times. So it's either the hard drive the video card? Any suggestions? Otherwise i'm sending it in for repair.

 

You installed the Chipset driver prior to installing any other drivers, right? If you're getting this problem using the driver from the OEM, it's probably an indication of a bad card.

 

Yeah they where the first things to get installed. I've already send the laptop in for repair, its gonna take a long time though considering there are no more 7970m and the 8970m appearently doesn't work on my motherboard. So it's gone for repairs at the factory.

 

They might be able to repair the card, but there's no telling how long that will take either. Best of luck to you with the whole process, though!

 

Thanks, yeah i'm hoping i get it back soon as my desktop really isn't up to the task....

 

I believe if they cannot repair the card and you're under warranty still, they must give you something of equal value/power to replace. If that's the case, they could either hit up Prema for a BIOS update mod that'll let you use the 8970M/R9 290MX or they would have to flat out give you a new machine that can handle the later cards.

 

They better haha, yeah but we will see what happens. Are you sure that you only need the prema mod bios and that it doesn't require you to flash a vga bios on the 8970m to be able to use it?

 

The problem is that the motherboard BIOS will reject the new video card, where other manufacturers do not have the issue. The video card BIOS has nothing to do with if you put it in a computer or not, really.

 

Ooh ok i always tough it was the video card bios rejecting the main motherboard not the other way around. Don't think however that this suggestion would work as flashing the bios basically voids my warranty.Nonetheless i'll see what comes from it and if all fails i see if this is an option.