Stuck with standard vga drivers on M15x

Hi, If this is an old subject please excuse me but I am pulling my hair out with this M15x laptop with the 9800m video card.
I have tried every video driver from the Alienware site, I tried the 186.82 version from laptopvideotogo, I have down loaded the new drivers from the Nvidia site and can't even get the Nvidia drivers from the Alienware driver cd to work. I am stuck with the old standard video adapter drivers. What do I have to do to get this working? Thanks for any help in advance.

 

The m15x has switchable video cards. You may be running on the Intel Integrated video card. Press the "FN" key and the "F" Key that has GFX on ot, then reboot. It should switch you to the Nvidia card.

 

I have pressed the FN key then the F7 GFX and will try to install the drivers for Nvidia now. Thanks

 

When pressing the f7 key show anything show up on he screen to let me know of the switch. I pressed it with no results.

 

Ok I have installed the proper software and can switch between integrated internal and VGA Mode High performance. When in integrated internal it cannot find the driver, and in VGA High performance I cannot get anything but Standard VGA in the device manager. I would love to load the 9800 nvidia drivers but it keeps telling me it cannot find the hardware for that driver. My paperwork tells me it is a 9800m gt. What can I do next? Thanks

 

Try windows update and see if it will automatically install windows drivers for the video card first which it should.

 

I have tried that and I freeze up when booting to windows. I can boot into safe mode and check devise manager and see the 9800 drivers are installed. When I restart I freeze just before going into windows. This is a fresh install with all drivers installed but not any version of the 9800 driver will work?

 

You can't just download the main driver version off of Nvidia and try to install, those are meant for desktop cards. So they either need to be "modded" to work or unless they are specific drivers for mobile graphics card.

 

You don't understand that I have downloaded the mobile nvidia in 3 different versions for this laptop and they don't work. I have also used the mobile driver that came on the alienware cd and it won't work. I am very familiar with loading drivers mobile or desktop and I know there is a difference. I have downloaded several versions of the 9800 mobile driver made for this laptop and when booting into windows it freezes. I even received the windows update and installed it and I could only boot into safe mode. If I roll back the nvidia driver to standard VGA in safe mode then I can boot into windows.

 

It sounded like you didn't know from the previous post. Maybe your card is bad. Try to reseat the card.

 

Thanks, I just reseated and applied new thermal paste and it still will freeze with the nvidia drivers installed. After weeks of this I believe it could be a bad card too. The problem is I believe the 9800m cards for this laptop are very expensive.

 

You could try putting a in a Quadro FX 3700, there's one going on eBay for only $150(right now). NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 1GB MXM 2.1 HE notebook graphics - eBay (item 110599028345 end time Oct-22-10 11:44:04 PDT)

Or an Nvidia 160m may work: Nvidia 512GB GeForce Go 160M GTX MXM 2.1 Type III - eBay (item 110456065279 end time Nov-05-10 09:09:15 PDT)

Or the 9800m GTS could work: NVIDIA 9800M GTS MXM 2.1 TYPE III - eBay (item 110562979190 end time Oct-19-10 13:36:49 PDT)

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Seems like the graphic cards are worth more than the laptop.

 

better to stick to the 9800m GTS or GTX since it uses the same heatsink.

 

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