Area-51 m15x-r1 FN+F7 (BinaryGFX) not working?

Hello. i managed to pick up an area 51 m15x for $25. it is actually in pretty good shape. i did the usual hinge repair and gave it a hdd caddy and connector. but thats all it needed. but now i'm having software issues. i installed all the drivers in the order that they should, and everything works good. but it is on the base intel chip. i tried multiple times to get it to switch to the 8700m gt that it has and it just refuses to do so. i've tried multiple versions of the osd utility with and without using vitsa compatibility mode. every time i hit FN+F7 it brings up the menu to confirm i would like to switch to the external high performance graphics card. i hit ok, and it does nothing. its supposed to restart and switch to the external card. but it just doesnt do that no matter what i do. is there a hardware way or other key combo to force it to use the external card? i've tested the two 8700m gt cards i have in another m15x-r1, and i can confirm that they are fully functional. what's up with this particular unit?

 

Both M15x's that you tested the cards in the same version of the M15x? If so are they both running the same BIOS version?

 

yes they both have bios version x36. they are both the silver area 51 model with the suicidal hinges that use mxm 2.1 gpus with the he tab.

 

If it's a software issue you could take the hard drive out of the one that will switch, boot it in the one that won't, and see if it switches between integrated & discrete then. If that still doesn't work make sure the mxm card slot looks good, is clean, and that there are no options to disable discrete graphics in the bios.

 

I will try this when i get home. Thanks.