Hello,
Back in September, I had a faulty AMD 7970M graphics which I have detailed in an earlier post. The summary is that it took 2 phone calls, an ill-equipped in home technician, and finally a return to the repair depot to get fixed. The drama started as the technician on the phone refused to do anything until I removed Windows 8 and restored Windows 7 (which had NOTHING to do with the issue). It was way overly stressful, and I lost the use of my laptop for almost 2 weeks due to this. After it returned from the depot, everything was fine, until yesterday.....
When I turned the M17xR4 on yesterday morning, the first thing I noticed was that it was taking a long time to boot (I didn't notice at the time, but it got halfway into windows, and then restarted again), and when it came up, it was in VGA mode (resolution was 800 x 600). I logged, in and Catalyst Control Center complained that no AMD hardware was detected. I rebooted (soft reboot), and when it came back up, the card reappeared, but did not load correctly, and was still in VGA mode. So, I hit Fn-7 to switch to discrete only, and when it came up this time, it looked normal. So, I hit Fn-7 again, and when Windows came up again, it looked like the attached screenshot. I rebooted it again, by hitting Fn-7 to switch to discrete only, and when Windows booted (again looked normal), I removed the Intel HD4000 drivers, and spent the next several hours driver cleaning and doing the Enduro driver dance. By lunch time, It was working normally, and fixed (or so I thought). Note, that the only cold boot during this was the initial one in the morning.
This morning I turned it on, and again noticed that the boot was taking a long time, and I saw it reboot this time (I missed this yesterday), and when the BIOS flashed again, I hit F2 to go into setup, and saw that the Discrete Graphics Card was "Not Found.". So I turned it off, and then back on, and went into the BIOS again, in it was again detected. So I booted up normally, with no issues. The problem is, that something is wrong, and I am not sure what it is. Since it seems to only be a problem with a cold boot, it sounds like metal contraction/expansion on the contacts, of the socket for the video card, but I am not a computer engineer, so it is just a guess. The work around it seems, is to just reboot after the first cold boot BEFORE windows loads, so that the drivers don't get into the weird state from yesterday. Regardless, I have to contact Alienware again to get warranty work done, but I dread calling. I do NOT want to have to restore Windows 7 again, just to have them look at it, when the operating system has nothing to do with it. So I was kind of hoping that maybe Alienware-L_Porras could offer some advice or something to expedite the support process, so that I won't have to go through the issues from September again.....
:-(
Rich S.
Back in September, I had a faulty AMD 7970M graphics which I have detailed in an earlier post. The summary is that it took 2 phone calls, an ill-equipped in home technician, and finally a return to the repair depot to get fixed. The drama started as the technician on the phone refused to do anything until I removed Windows 8 and restored Windows 7 (which had NOTHING to do with the issue). It was way overly stressful, and I lost the use of my laptop for almost 2 weeks due to this. After it returned from the depot, everything was fine, until yesterday.....
When I turned the M17xR4 on yesterday morning, the first thing I noticed was that it was taking a long time to boot (I didn't notice at the time, but it got halfway into windows, and then restarted again), and when it came up, it was in VGA mode (resolution was 800 x 600). I logged, in and Catalyst Control Center complained that no AMD hardware was detected. I rebooted (soft reboot), and when it came back up, the card reappeared, but did not load correctly, and was still in VGA mode. So, I hit Fn-7 to switch to discrete only, and when it came up this time, it looked normal. So, I hit Fn-7 again, and when Windows came up again, it looked like the attached screenshot. I rebooted it again, by hitting Fn-7 to switch to discrete only, and when Windows booted (again looked normal), I removed the Intel HD4000 drivers, and spent the next several hours driver cleaning and doing the Enduro driver dance. By lunch time, It was working normally, and fixed (or so I thought). Note, that the only cold boot during this was the initial one in the morning.
This morning I turned it on, and again noticed that the boot was taking a long time, and I saw it reboot this time (I missed this yesterday), and when the BIOS flashed again, I hit F2 to go into setup, and saw that the Discrete Graphics Card was "Not Found.". So I turned it off, and then back on, and went into the BIOS again, in it was again detected. So I booted up normally, with no issues. The problem is, that something is wrong, and I am not sure what it is. Since it seems to only be a problem with a cold boot, it sounds like metal contraction/expansion on the contacts, of the socket for the video card, but I am not a computer engineer, so it is just a guess. The work around it seems, is to just reboot after the first cold boot BEFORE windows loads, so that the drivers don't get into the weird state from yesterday. Regardless, I have to contact Alienware again to get warranty work done, but I dread calling. I do NOT want to have to restore Windows 7 again, just to have them look at it, when the operating system has nothing to do with it. So I was kind of hoping that maybe Alienware-L_Porras could offer some advice or something to expedite the support process, so that I won't have to go through the issues from September again.....
:-(
Rich S.