How to manipulate 980m in Alienware 17r2

[PliotronX]

Hey so even though somebody else is working on this and is wanting to refresh Windows, I am curious to see if I can fix it and I worry that the same scenario will happen if they don't disable driver updates via GF Experience. So this thing has a GTX 980m and the Intel HD 4600 keeps dominating or conflicting with 3D acceleration. To my surprise, there is no BIOS option for graphics priority or toggling Optimus. Now, I don't know how the 980m drivers even got on there because I cannot install any, modded or otherwise. When I removed all of the NVIDIA jazz and just had the 4600 drivers, games ran, just not very fast. When the old drivers were installed, the thing would crash on loading anything D3D or OpenGL related.

Why is this Alienware posing more problems than a Lenovo Thinkpad? Sheez.

update- got the 347.25 drivers installed but again, it BSoDs with VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE even when dxdiag or the NVIDIA control panel load. Signs are pointing to a defective GPU, no?

 

[Burpo]

Use this to unintall current drivers.

http://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html

Then install latest Nvidia drivers, and after reboot you should be able to disable Optimus in Nvidia control Panel..

 

[Ketchup]

There have been two BIOS updates since the initial release for this model. They don't specifically mention a video update/fix, but many BIOS updates don't mention everything.

Since this is under warranty, I would definitely let Dell take care of this if a factory reset doesn't take care of it.

 

[PliotronX]

Thanks gang, that DDU worked great for getting the latest drivers installed as they would fail at checking compatibility and now it does not crash opening the NCP but still no dice running games on it set to the 980m so I'll accept defeat and let the others call it in to Dell. I was fully expecting an option in the BIOS, but it just has this overclocking function which I've tried disabling and enabling.

 

[Ketchup]

Crazy. I wonder if the card went south? Apparently it would be too difficult for Dell to not block the graphics selection BIOS options that are available on Lenovos with dual graphics.