M17 R1/M17X R5 Help?

Ok so ever since I've gotten this laptop, I've fallen in love with the whole idea of removable GPU's. And like the idiot I am, I took out the GPU while the battery was still plugged in, because this laptop never fully shuts down right. So, after trying to slide it back into the port, I saw a few sparks fly. After a few weeks, I've noted many NEW issues with this (assuming related to this)
"Driver Power State Issue"
-Extremely Common
Drivers not installing (EX: stuck on "installing graphics driver"
-was able to "get around" by letting device manager download 368.xx drivers
GPU not showing up in device manager
-solved usually with a restart
And most unusual of all......
When the gpu is active in the laptop (plugged in and enabled in device manager)
most apps don't launch/cause crashing of windows/cause "Driver Power State Issue", or if they do launch, freeze randomly (Chrome) or don't work AT ALL (Task Manager shows 100% cpu usage, 0% usage for all other tabs, works fine until I switch into the Performance tab, it crashes. Minecraft seemed to run OK every now and then through the twitch launcher (ha ha laugh it off).
I feel like this might also be related to RAM, but these issues have persisted througout multiple Windows installs, Driver installs and different HDDs. However, everything is fine (ish, I've had one Page Fault issue) with only the CPU/iGPU installed (Also the Optical drive is removed, it takes up weight)
I'm also trying to sell my main PC so I get a 980m/ other upgrades for this
Here are the Specs:
i7 4700MQ (turbo OC'd to 3.59 with throttlestop)
8GB RAM
HD 4600 (GTX 765M is the original, but removed)
120 GB SSD (Cheap Silicon Power of Amazon)
Seagate SSHD
180W Charger
60hz Screen w/75hz oc

 

Grant B Gibson,

I'm sad to see that you've had no replies to your issue(s). Did you get this fixed on your own?

With the spare drive you have/(had) maybe you could try a clean reinstall of the O/S to verify if the hardware is really at fault or if just Windows or some settings got corrupted?

Take care.

 

I haven't fixed it yet, but I have verified that it was the GPU, and I'm trying the all popular oven-bake method later today. If it truly is dead, I believe it is only ~$100 for a replacement of ebay, so not entirely a big deal

 

$100 isn't worth replacing it. No guarantee the replacement won't suffer the same fate within days, weeks or months of you beginning to use it.

Good luck.

 

I know, thats why I'm selling this anyways