Alienware m15x with 9800M-GT2 Problem

Recently my Alienware m15x (not the new model) 8800GTX card died and I contacted Alienware and they confirmed yes it is dead and they will send me a new card out but they said they don' thave any 8800GTX's in-stock at the moment but will send one out as soon as they get one in. A week later the card arrives but its a 9800M-GT2 512mb and I looked up on this forum and one post said they don't stock 8800GTX's anymore & offer the 9800m-GT2 instead which is what I got (don't know why they just didn't say that on the phone).

Anyway I installed the graphics card in the notebook, everything went perfect. Turn on the pc and switch from the Intel (intergrated) card to the Nvidia card but when I log back into Windows it still says its using the Intel card. I switched the graphics using fn+F7 again and still when rebooted still says Intel card, did this a few more times then opened up the notebook again, unscrewed the card & put it in all over again and then booted up the pc and still all I get is the darn Intel card everytime I switch graphics.

Is there something I am supposed to do once the 9800M-GT2 is installed, I am supposed to install the driver for the 9800 off Alienware's site before it recognizes the card let alone starts working? and if so how do I install the driver when its using the Intel card?

Thanks in advance

 

you could try to disable the integrated graphics in the bios

 

How would I disable the intel card exactly? I know where the bios is but never played around with it.

 

Also I've just been reading an old thread and one person was asking about how to install the graphics card once AW had sent it to him and he asked about the Thermal Paste(grease) since Alienware don't tell you on the tutorial on the site or the over the phone if you ever need to apply any extra Thermal paste (yes there is still some leftover from the heatsink).

 

For me there is no real answer to this, it's like a series of playing around with it until you get it working right. Scary as it sounds, that's really the honest to god truth for myself. But anyways, try resetting the motherboard by taking out the Cmos battery and powering it up with no battery and then put the Cmos back in and try. That worked well for me once, not so well other times.

But I blame windows 7, i like it but it's not an easy/smooth transition on this system as it could be.

 

Well firstly I hope you did clean off the heatsink and reapply new thermal paste these cards run hot and you dont want to do anything to compromise the cooling of them.
Somewhere in the BIOS there should be an option which says either Graphics Mode or Integrated graphics. Basically whichever option you find in there which is related to the graphics you need to set Integrated to Disabled or Dedicated only. Although I dont know if the old m15x actually had that option. The only other thing I can think of at the moment is to pull out the battery, ac adapter and the internal battery (button cell battery), press and hold the power button for 5 seconds to drain any power left in the system and then leave it for 60 minutes. After which reconnect the internal battery followed by the normal battery and then the AC adapter and try it again.

 

This is the older model of the m15x so I don't have Windows 7 on it, still Vista

Ok I'll try all this stuff a bit later, never thought about the Cmos battery like the previous poster suggested.

 

update the bios so it will read it

 

There is no BIOS option to switch it on the old m15x, make sure you are on the X36 BIOS.

What I have to do to mine if I get stuck in the crappy Intel chip, is to pull both battery out (smart-bay and rear bay), disconnect power plug, put finger on power on for about 30 seconds, sometimes I push the m1 on the mouse pad for good measure. stick every thing back in and start.

 

I don't know what you're talking about, I have the Area-51 M15x with windows 7 on it. ....

 

You know, some people DID buy it before Windows 7 was released. Some of those people haven't upgraded, either.

 

Yeah, you do need the x36 Bios to get the 9800m gt working.

You can download the bios in Oceanus' thread here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/342331-m15x-mini-myhive.html

 

Although if you have access to myhive on alienwares support site, (support.alienware.co.uk or support.alienware.com) then your best downloading off there.
That is assuming you dont have this BIOS update which added the support (i presumed you did earlier )
If you havent done a BIOS update before then you are best phoning up Alienware and having them talk you through it, that way if it breaks they have no reason to void your warranty for doing it incorrectly (It's highly unlikely though).

 

UPDATE Time:

Alright finally got round to doing something today (been busy) anyway the first thing I did was check the Bios, its x36. I took everything out, AC, Battery, Cmos battery (don't have a smart bay or anything), thermal paste is fine and not smudged over the edge, drained the power by holding down the Power Button and left it for an hour, put everything back in and booted up the PC then rebooted in High Performance mode. This time it did actually say high performance mode in that little blue icon which appears for a few seconds when you login into Windows and I went to go check the Device Manager and it didn't say 9800GT or even the Intel Card, it says "Standard VGA Graphics Adaptor".


Also I turned off and started up again and went to the Bios and says VGA Bios Version: nVidia 2.93.54.00.06 under the Infomation in the Bios, under Main tab in Bios it says Video Memory 512mb.

Does it mean it is detecting the card in some way but it won't recognize it in Device Manager?

 

I got GPU-Z, it says the name is Stand VGA Graphics Adaptor, says it NVIDIA, & says memory size is 512mb which fits 9800GT. For some reason Windows Device Manager isn't recognizing the name of the card (although I suspect more than just not getting name right) or something which is odd, anybody got any ideas?

I also tried running 3D06 Mark but it failed to even load up bring up a box saying "IDirect3D9::GetDeviceCaps failed: Not Available" & I tried running some games, Half-Life 2 prepares game and then does nothing (no HL2.exe process ever starts in windows task manager even) same goes for Team Fortress 2 & CS:Source, Serious Sam: The First Encounter won't run either and brings up a box saying "Cannot set dsiplay mode".

Something isn't working right.

 

I ran into similar issues with my card on my m15x. I used the driver for it on the nVidia website. On mine it overwrote the integrated one so then I no longer had the option to change to integrated. I'm assuming that wouldn't be a problem for you either because you bought an Alienware.

In device manager, right click on integrated graphics and then click uninstall. Restart the system, it should find the 9800. Then use the downloaded file from nVidia to install the driver. After install check device manager again to see if it is the selected graphics card.

Hope that helps.

 

I'll try this, curiously what driver are you using? the Nvidia site only lists the driver 197.16 WHQL to download, whereas I've heard previous drivers have been better for the 9800GT/8800GTX. Anybody know if this is true?

 

Darkfly, the 190 series of drivers don't work with the area 51 m15x, because of binary graphics.

I would recommend you go for driver version 186.82 from laptopvideo2go.

 

Thanks for the info, appreciate it I'll try installing it a litle later when I have some time and report back.

 

Same thing I do. Although about 10 secs should be enough.

 

If your system says standart VGA adaptor it means the card is detected! You just don't have any drivers instaled. As someone said, get the 18x.xx drivers from LaptopVideo2Go and you'll be fine.

 

Yeah I managed to do this at work and went into safe mode, deleted the old drivers, tried to install the 186.82 driver (which I got from LaptopVideo2Go) but it said it couldn't detect hardware/drivers something something but then I thought I have the Alienware Nvidia drivers from the site on my laptop still, latest is 176.37 and tried to install that and what do you know it installed without a hitch and now device manager and everything is working again, Thanks to everybody who helped me out

Odd the 186.82 driver din't work though and even now when I try to install it it still won't install the 186.82

 

Now that is weird, did you make sure you got the right version? 32 or 64 bit?

 

yep, NVIDIA driver v186.82 for Windows 7/Vista 32bit

v186.82 Windows 7/Vista 32bit | NVIDIA - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

 

You did use the modded inf didn't you darkfly?

 

Doesn't seem to be on their server anymore, when you click the inf button to download it comes up with this:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/infs/185series/18682_win7x32/nv_disp.inf

 

I see, that's the problem. You do need the modded inf to make it work.

How about giving 186.81 from nvidia a try? It's given me the same performance as 186.82, only problem with it is it doesn't downclock on idle.

NVIDIA DRIVERS 186.81 WHQL

 

How different is the performance with 186.81, is it noticable playing games?

New problem: I've switched to Intergrated about twice for when I'm not doing anything demanding now since everything was fixed but when I went to switch to intergrated today it loaded fine like normal but when I went to switch it back it got stuck in Intergrated mode, tried rebooting in high performance mode two more times with no luck still intergrated. When I loaded up the pc the last time it brought up a box saying OSD has stopped working and if I run OSD Utility it keeps saying has stopped working and now Fn+F7 doesn't bring up the switch to GFX box anymore

 

Reinstall the OSD Utility.
For the GPU switch, I'd recommend findvikas' script in this thread