Alienware m15x doesnt see nvidia gpu

[Brian99]

I have a Alienware m15x with a Nvidia Geforce 8700m T and it wont see it. I cant do anything on the laptop because the video card doesn't seem to be working. Is there a fix out there besides taking it apart which Ive watched videos on it and looks really complicated

 

[COLGeek]

I have a M15X as well, but with a Radeon 5850m GPU. Removing the MXM video card is actually pretty easy.

How did you determine the video card is the problem?

 

[Brian99]

I actually havn't. I suppose it could be hardware related but ive reistalled windows 7 literally 5 times in the past 2 days and it refuses to read it. Device manager says we have stopped this for some error (code 65) Soo idk. Im still playing with it so if somethin new happens I will post it

 

[COLGeek]

So it is working now? With what video adapter?

 

[Brian99]

No it wont work. Its just using the vga onboard 8mb video I assume. Now device manager says warning device manager has stopped this device because it has reported problems (Code 43) I think the video card is dead. jus my op

 

[COLGeek]

Did you or someone else put the GeForce 8700m in it? That doesn't appear to be a GPU that shipped with the M15X.

Do you have the Dell Service Tag number (on the bottom of the system) info? If so, you can use that at the Dell support website to determine what components the unit shipped with.

 

[Brian99]

I will do that. It seems odd to me to. They usually come with a gtx 230m or 240m. It came with the 8700m gt. I dont see a dell service tag under the laptop which tells me that it was most likely takin apart. Well the fact that it doesnt come with a gtx 230m tells me that. Obviously someone took it apart and switched video cards for some reason. Maybe he had a better laptop he wanted to use it in or somethin and slapped a 8700m gt in this one

 

[COLGeek]

I thought the M15X originally shipped with a GTX 260, HD5850m. I found several sources that upgraded to GTX 460 GPUs, and some that referenced HD5870m GPUs. No where did I find a reference to the 8700m.

If the system BIOS doesn't recognize that video device, you are out of luck. It could also be a case where it was not installed properly or that the heatsink doesn't fit (and therefor cool) the 8700 correctly.