ServusFidelis

2 hours ago, Brian said:

@Khenglish could probably tell you what to do. Those are capacitors and the card will probably still work but if you take it to a local electronics shop the can probably solder those back on for you.

I appreciate your reply.   Those capacitors have two small holes on the bottom line they just press down on the two metal pieces sticking out.   

But yeah  I’ll try taking it to our local electronics shop.   

Bought this and came apart in shipping.    Can this be salvaged?    Two transistors are off but looks like they can be reattached.      Also a glue type substance held it together.  

Weird design.    

Temps max out at 76c in bf1, Xcom 2, and fortnite.  

7 hours ago, naightmehr said:

Does your gtx675m show lines after you installed the correct drivers? If 3 gpu's show lines then it might be something else

I just installed a 765m and it works flawlessly.  No artifacts or lines.   The brand new 980m must be faulty.    I will put it back in one more time but I don’t think the 980m will work.    Here is a picture of the 765m.  No lines, no squares, no artifacts.   Looks great.  Can use the computer too!      So I just need a working 980m now.  

27 minutes ago, naightmehr said:

Looks like a faulty graphics card, where did you buy the 980m from?

Mokkin on eBay.     However my 675m was showing lines as well.   2 bad gpus?    I have a 765m I’ll throw in there after work to see.      

Ram couldnt cause this right?

Since my gpu is showing artifacts and this is the second one to do this either the card is bad or the mxm slot is bad or needs cleaning.      That’s my best guess.        I’ve reseated it 3 times already to no avail.             Can the actual mxm slot be cleaned that I put the card into?      (Alienware m18xr2).  

15 hours ago, Klem said:

Unfortunately i don't know what the problem in your case, motherboard or your 980M. But you can try  to flash Dell's vbios for your 980M, and then check if it solve your problem.

 

I tried to install the modded driver and this happens.   The screen lines go away and everything looks perfect for a couple of seconds,  then these squares pop up , the computer locks up, and then blue screen, always before the driver installs completely.             Sometimes the computer just locks up with squares and no blue screen.  

12 hours ago, G.R.A.M.P.S. said:

Those clips are easy to break. Replaced my motherboard when it it happened to my R2. You might search for a fix but Dell did not make these clips replaceable. But If you do find a fix, be the first to post it. Thanks.

Well, it’s a fix I guess.  I cut plastic from an items (a flash drives clear plastic packaging)  I bought.  Then I wedged it in front of the cable to hold it in place.  Hard drive reads again , but I’m not sure how stable or consistent it will be.   I’ll probably also put a short piece of electrical tape over it.    

Right now though I’m busy trying to get my gpu to work right in another m18xr2 forum.  

14 hours ago, Klem said:

Try to disassembly laptop, then clean all gold contacts on MXM graphics card, then reinsert graphics card.

Klem... i noticed when i turn off PEG and put it back to the intel graphics the screen looks fine, but when i switch to peg the lines appear and sometimes fluctuate...and the computer normally locks up.  So i guess peg mode using the gtx is giving issues.   The bios does show that the GTX nvidia is installed when i restart in PEG though.   I wonder if it's the card (unlikely since the last card showed the same lines), or the motherboard?

Or could their possibly be a loose cable behind the screen?   But if that were the case wouldn't the integrated intel 4000 graphics also show lines?

8 hours ago, Klem said:

Try to disassembly laptop, then clean all gold contacts on MXM graphics card, then reinsert graphics card.

Well I did that and I still get the lines in peg mod and then it either locks up or shows me a solid colored screen.      The last card in it was a 675m and it started to show lines as well.     Do you think the motherboard is bad?   

37 minutes ago, Klem said:

Try to disassembly laptop, then clean all gold contacts on MXM graphics card, then reinsert graphics card.

Thank you sir.  I will do that after work.  You’re a big help. 

6 hours ago, Klem said:

Go in bios setup menu and set graphic from IGFX  to  PEG.

If it’s not one thing it’s another klem.  Now after a few seconds of seeing lines in Windows the mouse will freeze and a message about the video card comes up and sometimes the screen goes purple.   When the computer does start you see these lines as well.      Do you think I got a bad card?    

On 7/14/2018 at 1:00 PM, Klem said:

Hi!

Just flash mod bios:  

 

Well no more 8 beeps and the screen comes on and boots into Windows.    The only problem now is the Alienware doesn’t detect a discrete graphics card in the bios and simply loads the intel 4000 graphics.        Any idea what could be the issue?    

Sorry for lighting up the forums lately.    Installed slv’s wonderful bios.      Everything is now going good except bios says no discrete graphics are detected.     

Any any help would be wonderful.    

Got it figured out.    Thanks anyway.

Dont know why, but i have a solid state 250gb and a 750gb regular hard drive that are not detected when i boot the computer in the raid setting from the custom a11 bios which allowed my 980m to work.      I have taken this computer apart multiple times but can't seem to find the issue.      So as far as my computer is concerned, their is no hard drive.   When i boot windows (because its on a 32gb eflash i believe in the computer) i can go into disk management but no other hard drives are detected.           I ran a dell diag, and it doesn't detect a hard drive either.     I was booting in raid, then i changed it to asci and all that did was not load windows.     Any advice would be appreciated.

Does anyone know where I can get a plastic clip so I can put the hard drive ribbon cable down?       Or perhaps do you know of a substitute for it?   Electrical tape isn’t holding the hdd ribbon cable down.      Thanks!        (Bought this m18xr2 from eBay and they failed to mention it was missing plastic clip).  

Thanks Klem!  I will download that into a flash drive with the 675m in , go into bios, and update it.   Then I’ll put the 980m back in.  Will do tonight.   Will report my progress.   Thanks!

My 675m showed lines all across the screen but did let me go into bios.  I decided to go ahead and upgrade to a 980m and finally got it in the mail.   

I installed the carf and i now get 8 beeps.   So I reset the CMOS and still 8 beeps.      I’m now tearing it back down to put the 675m back in. (I’ll finish after work).   I have bios a12 currently.  

What at exactly do I need to do?   

Any my help would be greatly appreciated.   Will post on YouTube when and if I can get it to work with your help.  

Thanks.  

I know i need a modified inf.... however, this is windows 10.     I remember seeing an easy method that worked on my m15x that said this (thanks to whoever typed this up),   "-Dell 3gb gtx 770m -Download latest driver. - Extract driver 7-Zip/winrar to a folder. - Display.Driver folder -> open nvdmi.inf (notepad) CTRL+H -> Find What: 05AE Replace With: 02A2 -> Hit 'Replace All' -> Save. - ...International folder\ run setup exe. -Allow unsigned driver."

Is there an easy 'find what' and 'replace with' scenario i can use with the nvdmi for the m17xr2 with the 675m?    

36 minutes ago, Zoldago said:

give me a Minute to have a look

 

edit: i had the same, power on the next day and everything was fine without doing something

 

edit 2: so you can try to power off and power on , not restart, i have no idea what happened and why it works the the day

Commander Zoldago!  Reporting in sir!   apparently your orders worked.   I shut it down, and turned it back on.   Now the sound works again and the games play very nicely!

8 minutes ago, Zoldago said:

give me a Minute to have a look

 

edit: i had the same, power on the next day and everything was fine without doing something

You have been a big help Zoldago.... thanks for that.

So maybe mine will do what yours did and fix itself when i turn it off and turn it on again.

Under sound drivers under device manager it gives 2 options, Nvidia HD audio and Nvidia virtual audio.... sound works as long as i have USB headset or have it plugged in to an external device with a sound driver.

Well it restarted with the sound driver deactivated.   The games work like they should now however, but without sound.  

10 minutes ago, ServusFidelis said:

That doesn't happen.... wonder what is wrong with my M17xr4?    It clearly recognizes the 970m in device manager.   And then i installed a 6 month old or so driver with the modded inf for the 970m.....   but I can't solely use discrete graphics, and as a result I'm forced to use cpu graphics possibly for everything.       

I may have found the problem... you have to download Dell's   ON SCREEN DISPLAY driver.      I just restarted so we'll see if it works.