Alienware gpu upgrades

Saveikis · April 11, 2016

So I have red a lot of articles here online and yet I couldn't find a solusion to my particular issue... The issue is:

One morning when I tried to turn on my Alienware 17 R5, the laptop's keyboard turned on, I could hear the hard drive spinning, but the screen was completely black. After a few seconds, I started hearing beeps, 8 in particular, which indicated an LCD issue, according to Dell's beeping scale. I've red the articles on this issue and how to solve, but nothing worked for me: resetting the CMOS battery, draining the power out of the motherboard, trying to boot without a cpu... Eventualy I ended up in a repair shop, where they ran diagnostics and found, that my Nvidia GTX 770m was dead.

So without any doubt, I researched what were my options in either buying the same gpu or upgrading instantly, as of the current one was counting it's third year. I ended up buying a GTX 970m, which is compatible according to Dell as well as a lot of users from forums were happy when buying mobile gpu cards from Nexoc gaming.

The problem is, that after puting the new GTX card in my Alienware, the issue persists. Then same mechanics suggested an upgrade in BIOS or flashing them, so that my laptop could "recognize" the gpu, but at this point their solution for me is to buy an additional, used gtx 770m, so that my laptop could boot for starters and so that later they could put up the 970m instead. Is there maybe any other way to enable the new gpu to work on my laptop, since I feel that an additional 770m, which I will not use, is a complete waste of money and resources just to make the laptop boot and post before swaping the video cards. I also tried researching if I could buy at least a used 770m, but I had no luck, since no one is selling them in the European soil. I also Live in Denmark, so the market in Europe is way smaller than in US, and buying from overseas would result in additional taxes ?

Does anyone have any other ideas or solutions on how to solve this as I am stuck with an expensive gpu, that I do not know how to enable and a laptop, that is down for over 3 weeks already.

P.s. I know stuff about laptops, but at this point I ran out of ideas on how to solve this...

Brennan Price · April 11, 2016

There isnt a way to solve this. Personally, I'd suggest... Selling your 970m because it is still brand new as you have not used it yet and can therefore get your money back. If the 770m wasnt cutting it for you then sure... Dont do what I just said.

Stardar1 · April 11, 2016

6 minutes ago, Saveikis said:

So I have red a lot of articles here online and yet I couldn't find a solusion to my particular issue... The issue is:

One morning when I tried to turn on my Alienware 17 R5, the laptop's keyboard turned on, I could hear the hard drive spinning, but the screen was completely black. After a few seconds, I started hearing beeps, 8 in particular, which indicated an LCD issue, according to Dell's beeping scale. I've red the articles on this issue and how to solve, but nothing worked for me: resetting the CMOS battery, draining the power out of the motherboard, trying to boot without a cpu... Eventualy I ended up in a repair shop, where they ran diagnostics and found, that my Nvidia GTX 770m was dead.

So without any doubt, I researched what were my options in either buying the same gpu or upgrading instantly, as of the current one was counting it's third year. I ended up buying a GTX 970m, which is compatible according to Dell as well as a lot of users from forums were happy when buying mobile gpu cards from Nexoc gaming.

The problem is, that after puting the new GTX card in my Alienware, the issue persists. Then same mechanics suggested an upgrade in BIOS or flashing them, so that my laptop could "recognize" the gpu, but at this point their solution for me is to buy an additional, used gtx 770m, so that my laptop could boot for starters and so that later they could put up the 970m instead. Is there maybe any other way to enable the new gpu to work on my laptop, since I feel that an additional 770m, which I will not use, is a complete waste of money and resources just to make the laptop boot and post before swaping the video cards. I also tried researching if I could buy at least a used 770m, but I had no luck, since no one is selling them in the European soil. I also Live in Denmark, so the market in Europe is way smaller than in US, and buying from overseas would result in additional taxes ?

Does anyone have any other ideas or solutions on how to solve this as I am stuck with an expensive gpu, that I do not know how to enable and a laptop, that is down for over 3 weeks already.

P.s. I know stuff about laptops, but at this point I ran out of ideas on how to solve this...