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Question

Alienware black screen help.

Aug 30, 2016 2:35AM PDT

Hello everyone. so I've got a Alienware M17XR3 with a 6990M GPU that stopped working (I have been working on my Intel on-board for a while) and have finally decided to replace it, in my case, upgrade it.
So i have purchased a GTX880M after a deep research and used guides on the web (see video description for the full upgrade "to do" list). When things went a bit wrong with my windows 7 refusing to load up (BSoD), I thought i should load the windows up somehow and see if i could work things out from that point, so I've decided to play with the bios settings ended up activating back the internal graphics (which were disabled and by the guide suggestion should have stayed disabled), accepted the changes and boom, black scary screen, no beeps, no bios, just 1 big abysmal black hole.

Hope i am able to challenge a few of you.
Best regards.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Here's what I do.
Aug 30, 2016 8:35AM PDT

I reset the BIOS to defaults and try a factory OS restore. If that fails I boot and try a few Linux OSes. If all that fails, I call it hardware and get the hardware fixed.

There are some that want it to be settings or try to get by with bad hardware but at the shop, office and home, it's too much work to keep broken gear.

-> I can't guess the state of the machine now but if you can't get the BIOS or Dell to show (and do try the D button on power up) then it's really gone. Get estimates.

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Good news, up and running again
Aug 31, 2016 2:03AM PDT

Hello and thank you for the response, so the state of the Alienware was no boot at all, black at startup. I got it fixed, here's what happened for future troubleshooting:

In order to upgrade the GPU on the M17XR3 from ATI/AMD to Nvidia, one must upgrade the bios to an "unlocked" version that will allow you to enable/disable the integrated graphic device.
Before replacing the GPU to the newer one, you must disable the IGD, enabling it at any stage while the new card is placed, will result in a black screen. The fix is simple, install back the original card and disable the IGD once again. In my case, i did try it with no success, simply for not placing the old GPU right, I then took it away, placed it back again with much more concentration this time and it worked again (people that are used to dealing with notebooks' hardware, sometimes forget the basics - be patient, gentle and respectful). The blue screen is still showing with the new card with the stop error 0x0-------7B which indicates a driver issue. I did try to use a GPU uninstaller tool to get rid of everything that has to do with my old AMD but it still didn't fix the blue screen. I will try a fresh installation of Windows 7 with the new card and hope it will be all.

Best regards.

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BSOD when changing video cards is
Aug 31, 2016 4:50PM PDT

Expected.

There are graphic driver uninstallers so yes try those.

However I usually find a boot to SAFE MODE WITH NETWORKING to be useful to get into device manager to remove the old video card driver. Since I'm an old school use what the OS provides type person, you can imagine that's how I roll.

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Tried it all
Sep 1, 2016 2:43AM PDT

Including a DDU tool in safe mode, but i wasn't able to get the windows running, so i did a fresh installation which resulted in another issue. See everything is ok, the nvidia is installed (had to modify a few .inf files in the nvidia installation folder to get it to work) but there was no sound due to disabling the IDT in the bios, the issue is, enabling it makes my computer freeze with some blueish screen (not the BSoD). I have recently learned that i should actually enable and install the IDT BEFORE installing the Nvidia graphics, i will see if that works and update once again.

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Here's another nugget.
Sep 1, 2016 8:25AM PDT

My background is more about electronic design, embedded design and now code. Along the way I ran computer repair (pre-PC and to now) so here's my old way.

When I change hardware I try the BIOS defaults and then a clean install. I may have to try a few install methods and driver install order to get it right.

On laptops you may have machine specific apps (Dell's Quickset for example) to add.