Need help! display issues with brand new laptop.

[hellsheep]

ok I just got a new alienware m17 laptop for birthday. here are specs.

1440x900 720p monitor
P8600 dual@ 2.4ghz
2x512mb ati hd3870
3gb ram ddr3
160gb 7200 rpm
vista 32bit. latest ati drivers.

ok so I run tf2 and the fps is fine its just the screen is flickering, really really bad. the top half of the display doesnt seem to be as bad as the bottom half. It is as if the images on display will not stay in one place and the display is just shaking about the screen, really odd. even when I turn the graphics down to 640x400 res and all things on low it flickers.

someone please help! if you have any questions please ask.

 

[hellsheep]

ok ffs now I'm annoyed... just ran L4D and while it is better when I run it at the native resolution it does the same flickering ****. This is not what is supposed to happen on a premium alienware laptop.please can someone help me this is really frustrating

 

[hellsheep]

ok... ran css same flickery thing. they all use the same engine, pattern here? I have not yet tried to run a non-source game.

 

[frozenlead]

Sounds like either a driver issue or the GPUs are bad or overheating. Can you find the temps on those cards? Update your drivers, too.

 

[hellsheep]

drivers are the most up to date and temps fine. guess I will have to send it back to alienware, really pisses me off... a lot >.<

 

[kenzz0]

you have a bad video card

 

[hellsheep]

could this be solved by simply getting replacement cards?

 

[hellsheep]

oh and because for no apparent reason I cant edit my last post I will have to do a new one.

it cannot be drivers because I have reinstalled new ones repeatedly and no one else on earth appears to be having the same problem as me, as usual. I reinstalled the OS and it worked, then in the middle of playing somthing it happend again, no reason for this either it just happend. Can anyone help please.

 

[frozenlead]

Alienware is a sub of Dell, but I'm not sure if they use Dell's graphics connector for notebooks, or if the two boards are compatible. Contact Alienware for replacement cards/more information.

 

[hellsheep]

Update:
ok yes I think there is one faulty card, every time I reinstall the drivers it automaticly disables one card for some reason; and an error message pops up saying how the card is incompatible with the driver. So I think it is effectively only running one of the cards, and everything runs fine like this without issue.

Then when I restart/shutdown it automaticy enables the other card, thats when problems occur, so, one faulty card I think. And thanks for everyones help.