M14x R2 GPU Issues?

Recently I have been experiencing issues with running certain games, where I will run them, my screen will flicker, and either they simply don't start or I get an error message of some sort. (for Skyrim it says: "Failed to initialize renderer. Unknown error creating the renderer." For certain other games I've had messages about DirectX.)

Some games work fine, although I am unsure if that is simply because they are using integrated graphics- I would assume so as the frame rates are not especially high.

Certain things also seem to almost not be detecting my graphics card, such as Nvidia's auto-detect gpu for driver installations.
Unfortunately I don't have an exact timeline for when the issues started occurring, but I noticed it mostly after downloading the latest drivers from Nvidia (320.18), especially when GeForce experience couldn't detect any games on my system.

Things I have tried:
-Restarting
-Uninstalling and reinstalling 320.18
-Uninstalling 320.18 and reinstalling older drivers that had worked.
-Running dxdiag- nothing seems amiss
-Installing latest DirectX drivers from microsoft-says they are current.
-Keeping Windows updates up to date
-bashing my head against the wall


Alienware M14X R2
i7-3610QM
12GB Ram
Nvidia 650m 2GB
Windows 7 Home Premium

Thanks!

 

Try this article, also... try using the DELL drivers only and see if the issue happens with those also.

 

lol

I had a similar problem in the beginning. Try running heaven benchmark and see if it detects and uses the 650m. That's what dell had me do and guess what the 650m wasn't being used and I got a new motherboard.

 

Re: Porras:
Had tried going through the control panel already, after installing from the website the issue persists. (Also as the drivers on the website are out of date, would mean I'd be losing out on optimizations from latests releases, though I understand if it's something that helps diagnose the issue.)

blind: Was this always an issue though? It's been right around the 1 year mark for me and have had no issues to speak of. Installing Heaven right now, will report back.

Edit: Ran Heaven, said it was running off my gpu. It was on the present extreme mode, and while it only got ~10 fps (which, who knows how much that means with frame rating) the max temp I saw was 67, which wouldn't indicate any overheating issues. Only ran it for two loops, though.

 

Well, if it helps, here is a bit more information from other users having the same problems. The only thing I've tried from them, which seems to work is that running Skyrim in windowed mode allows it to run, although it is far from ideal as far as solutions go.

Skyrim crashes on startup - Failed to Initialize renderer - Steam Users' Forums
Skyrim suddenly stopped working (Failed to initialize renderer. Unknown error creating the error) :: Help and Tips


Update: Running GW2 in windowed mode also seems to work, will continue to try it with more games in hopes it will work. Still not really a fix though.

 

bump, still not really fixed.

 

bump..feeling obnoxious but...

 

it's an issue with the newest drivers. STAY AWAY from 320.xx. also rolling back to older drivers dont make a difference. i had the same problems, and ended up reinstalling windows (i know, its a , and it really sucked having to that) and then updating to only 314 driver.

 

Thanks so much for this. I rolled back to 314 and it fixed some issues, but yeah...
I had been thinking a reinstall of windows as a last resort, but it's been really crazy here lately (major flooding in parts of the city, finals for spring courses, summer courses...) so I haven't really had much time for anything save trying to at least diagnose.
Consider myself quite techhy so I was really having a hard time just trying to figure out what had gone wrong lol, posted here and another popular site that has a lot of experienced users and nobody had anything to suggest that I hadn't already done lol.

+1 rep is not enough for you, otherwise I would have reinstalled with 320 again

 

Ah, are you in Calgary? my best goes out to you all, hope all is well. Also for more info see this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/721878-nvidia-320-18-driver-warning.html

 

I have had the same problem. I've had 3 mother board replacements.... I think I can safely say that it's not the board/gpu since I've had 4 of em. What happens to me is the screen randomly flashes and the system no longer reads the nvidia gpu as component. Only the 314 drivers work..... which is kinda annoying. Every time new drivers come out I make a restore point and test it out for a few days, but it always happens. I always do a clean installation of the drivers. Updated Bios A11, you name it.

I wish they actually had a solution instead of throwing motherboards at the problem.