Alienware M17xR2 and 860m 4GB GK104 issues with integrated audio (IDT)

[Gibbynator]

I was directed over here by notebookreview forums because apparently you guys are way better at this kind of stuff. Here's my original post and data.

I have asked around in other threads, and I have partially fixed the colored screen of death with the 860M 4GB edition. Here is a summary of all relevant posts and what I have tried so far:

A10 unlocked BIOS (only disabled high definition audio)

i7 720QM

8GB RAM (stock clock)

2x500GB HDDs (no RAID)

1200p RGB LED monitor

5 minutes of battery life

Long story short, I had faulty 4870x2s that kept needing reflows because they used that cruddy eco-friendly solder that doesn't go well with AMD components. After 8 reflows, even using flux, I decided I needed to get a new GPU. After seeing a few posts on various sites saying the 860M works in the M17xR2, I decided to give it a whirl. It boots to BIOS just fine, and it attempts to load Windows. I get random colors like attached after the windows logo draws, which is odd since the logo is drawn at the 1200p resolution before the screen goes like this. I have to unplug the battery and power cable to reboot it. I am 100% positive this card is a Dell manufactured Kepler 860M (it's the 4GB model). My install steps and logs, for reference:

1. Fix broken 4870x2s (reflowed by removing heatsinks and powering on, surprisingly worked in 10 seconds)
2. Reapply heatsinks using Arctic Silver 5.
3. Boot into Windows safe mode, no display abnormalities during BIOS boot.
4. Run DDU version 15, autoselected AMD drivers.
5. Chose option "Clean and shutdown"
6. Removed 4870x2s, installed 860M in left slot (primary), reapply heatsink using Arctic Silver 5.
7. Boot into Windows safe mode, no display abnormalities during BIOS boot.
8. Extracted [345.20 WHQL Desktop GeForce Driver] to C:\ drive
9. Added [Mr. Fox's zip file contents] to the Display.Driver folder in there, overwriting 3 files.
10. Ran setup.exe from folder
11. Chose 'Express Install' option in NVIDIA installer
12. Selected 'Install Unsigned Drivers anyways' on Windows popup.
13. Install completed without errors, restarted computer.
14. Tried booting into Windows with following options from F8 boot screen:

• Normal (white screen), no display abnormalities during BIOS boot.
• Safe mode (display runs from Intel HD, Device manager does recognize Nvidia GTX 860m Display adapter, but device is disabled as per safe mode) , no display abnormalities during BIOS boot or during Windows Safe mode usage.
• Disable driver signature reinforcement (cyan screen) , no display abnormalities during BIOS boot.
• No F8 pressed, (green screen), no display abnormalities during BIOS boot.
• Recorded test boot video through cruddy phone camera, viewable at

I have tried Mr. Fox's 345.20 drivers, no difference.

I have tried a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.04 and a pendrive version of it, same symptoms after the logo draws.

I tried outputting to external 1080p monitor via HDMI, monitor swap hotkey did nothing (still went to colored screen of death on the primary monitor).

Finally, I disabled IDT audio using BIOS mod. But I couldn't get sound.

Then I tried the instructions in both of these threads.

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m17x-aw-17/4829-780m-gtx-m17xr3-integrated-soundcard-working-again-no-more-usb-soundcard-4.html

http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m15x-aw-15/10883-gtx-870m-installation-guide-w10.html

Both have gotten me no further, as re-enabling the integrated audio puts me at the colored screen of death again (yes, I did try the power management option in IDT too).

I dumped the vBIOS ROM using the DOS version of nvflash, attached it here in case one of you geniuses knows how to read/tweak these things. I'm not sure why these cards just don't like the integrated video, so maybe there's a way to fix it through vBIOS (or futher BIOS tweaking).

GPU Specs:

GTX 860m Kepler (GK104)

4GB VRAM

Dell model, revision A1

Stock vBIOS 860M_GK104_4GB.zip

Also, I am only seeing 2GB vRAM through GPU-Z. Is there a reason for this, and a way to fix it? Because of this I am skeptical of using svl7's vBIOS, which is why I uploaded the dump.