555m driver issues

[phelophus]

Hi everyone,

I got an m14x recently which has been repaired from a 7 beep code. A Dell technician came and replaced the mobo and cpu. Everything looked fine until I decided to upgrade the GPU driver from 267.21 to 285.62 in order to play GTA4; since then, I can get any nvidia driver being recognized by windows even with modified inf ones. I tried reflashing to A05, A08 and the Ao8modded from svl7 (thanks for that, excellent job!). Bios recognises the GPU as Nvidia gfx. Besides, GPU-Z shows different information for the GPU

I really appreciate if someone could help me here. I would like to fix it before calling Dell.

Many thanks in advance:Banane01:

[Ninjahunter]

Just off the top of my head herre are a couple of things worth trying:

1. Do a clean driver install (uninstall driver, clean with driver sweeper, install new driver)

2. Remove the battery from m14x, then hold power button down for 5-10 seconds. (this resets the bios, It is more effective than installing new bios)

3.If you are overclocking your GPU remove the overclock. If you have a computer problem, overclocking should be the first thing to suspect.

This is pretty basic stuff, So if none of it works you can probably expect a better response from a more educated member shortly.

[phelophus]

Thanks Ninjahunter,

I tried all the basics you mentioned without good results. My GPU is not overclocked and never has been, at least not by me (the mobo where the GPU is, is a replacement from Dell and as far as I know Dell replaces parts with refurbished ones).

I find a bit odd the GPU-Z results which shows 4096MB of memory size. I do not think this is normal.

[phelophus]

Today, I wipe out my HDD and reinstalled Win7 to be sure there were not driver leftovers. But, I can get windows to recognice my gpu and GPU-Z results again shows 4096MB of memory size. It is possible the GPU bios get corrupted?

[Stevenxowens792]

@phel - the gpu - is probably the 116GF and therefore you can only use the later bios offerings from Alienware (meaning a08). I wouldn't try a03 or a01. This may be part of the problem.

[Stevenxowens792]

Does GPU-z show you the chipset? 106gf or 116 gf? That will be the key as to what to use.

[phelophus]

Thanks steven for your answer,

GPU-Z shows 106GF and I'm using A08 bios. Here are the GPU-Z results:

I am suspecting the GPU had a failure, but I really dont know...

[Stevenxowens792]

if its 106, then you may want to stick with a05. Some feedback from others would be nice. I still use a01 (non-volt mod) because I game at 750/1000 and thats plenty for me. flash a05 (stock) for now. Then completely remove all the driver software. Install the intel display driver, then the official driver for alienware, then see what happens. Please understand you may have to actually go into hardware (device) manager, choose the display, update the drivers and manually choose the INF thats appropriate for the driver. Im sorry your having so many problems... Worse case scenario, call them back out fast if you don't get this resolved. This is eating into your gaming time!!!!

[phelophus]

I will reflash to A05 a follow your advice. I will let your know how it goes...

Again many thanks for your support.

[mw86]

I'm sorry for your troubles. Steven your suggestions are great so do use the suggested bios first before starting on the drivers. I can recommend using this Driver Sweeper before installing the new intel and dell driver. once you have uninstalled all drivers uninstall the drivers by going to the device manager like Steven said.

it should look like this and do check the box for "deleting the driver"

next start Driver Sweeper which is free and can be downloaded at Guru3D Guru3D - Driver Sweeper

you should see a straight forward interface check all the Intel and Nvidia. Hit analyse

once you've hit analyse you should see a bunch of registry keys etc... perhaps a few or even none... if there are no files found or displayed like in my example then no need to proceed farther. If there are simply hit clean and follow the prompts till you hit yes to restart... now you don't have any of the drivers or leftover files upon restart and on Stevens suggestion of uninstalling from the device manager like shown you wont have that pesky install of the stored driver in the windows directories.

Once restarted the screen may be in a low resolution for now... run driver sweeper and make sure no files are found. If no files are found, close it and proceed with install of the latest Intel GPU driver direct from Intel and then the Dell latest Nvidia graphics driver.

[phelophus]

Hi nw86, thank you for your answer.

I have been trying all I could do to make it work but without success.

I used driversweeper even in safe mode and I cleaned all drivers leftovers but, it didnt work; the GPU is still showing the yellow warning sign in the device manager list. Also, at the end I decided to reinstall windows and install latest intel driver followed by Nvidia Dell's driver without desired results.

So I called Dell, and today somebody is comming to check what is going on. I'll post whatsoever the outcome is from this .

Once again many thanks for all your support.

[phelophus]

At last I get it working! Despite a terrible service from the technician who came to change the mobo, I got a refurbished one with a GF116 GPU on it. I loaded the 295.62 drivers and it worked without any problem.

The service from him was really bad: As soon as I could confirm the GPU was ok and the laptop booted, I had to tell him that I could continue by myself and reasemble my m14x again. He left the touchpad and speakers unpluged and two screws missing under the laptop. Also, I had to add thermal compound to the CPU and GPU as he didnt have any at the time of his visit.

After I loaded all drivers, I run GPU-Z and it showed the 3Gb of memory size I was expecting and not 4Gb it was showing with the previous mobo. Similar results can be found posted here: techPowerUp GPU-Z Validation mgpmc

I would like if somebody could confirm the 4Gb memory size results from GPU-Z as a damaged GPU unit. From my experience with this issue, it was a bad GPU chip.

If any other person has the same GPU-Z results, this could avoid him or her all the job of testing the number of driver versions for this GPU.

Anyway, I hope this mobo last...

Once more, many thanks for all the support received. I'll be happy of contributing with all what I know to the people of this forum.

[mw86]

Wow that's a strange glitch... I am very glad that you finally have the system working again. A few of us had similar experiences with in home techs from Dell. Its hard to say if you'll get an experienced one or not.