UNSOLVED
Enabling integrated audio card causes crash
Hi, I've had some trouble with my m17x r3 after reinstalling windows 10 (I had it before and everything was working just fine). So, I had to redo my raid configuration for the SSDs and reinstal windows 10 due to a fail caused by too many peripherals being connected to the computer. Everything went fine with the SSDs and tried to install windows a couple times but every time the installation would crash at the "getting devices ready" part, that was until I disabled the integrated audio card (high definition audio system) from the BIOS and then everything went smoothly again. I might add that my graphics card (gtx 780m) wasn't being picked up by the nvidia installer and was given generic drivers but I eventually managed to install the proper ones. Moving on to the actual issue, I remember having an IDT sound card working perfectly before but now windows has given it generic drivers as well (it only says high definition audio device in device manager). I tried uninstalling the drivers and turning off the automatic installer from windows so that it doesn't install the same ones back in but it is still doing so. I also tried running the IDT installation package which I had used previously, before the problem with my SSDs, and it says that there is no hardware supported by the IDT software package (I've used old and new versions) and it is just not picking up any IDT supported audio devices. The computer still won't go past the log in screen if I enable the audio card from the BIOS, it'll give me a black screen. Thanks in advance for any help :)
PD: I've also updated the chipset drivers
Thanks for your reply. Yeah I guess I'll have to downgrade to windows 7, such a shame about the IDT. However, I wonder why it did use to work before, I like windows 10 and would like to keep using it. I tried doing it in safe mode. Firstly, I just started the laptop in safe mode and ran the IDT installation package and it still didn't pick up the audio device (this was with the audio still disabled in the BIOS). Then I enabled the sound card in the BIOS and started the computer in safe mode again, I noticed there were more then one audio device installed under sound and audio devices in device manager, uninstalled them and ran the IDT package installer again and this time it did work. Checked device manager and it was there. Went to restart the computer normally and again it gave me that black screen when login in, pretty screwed up.
jimco
30 Posts
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0
Posted January 25th, 2017 06:00
Hello. Windows 10 is not supported on the Alienware M17x R3 model. If there is not a compelling reason to have Win10, consider sticking with the supported OS, Win7 64-bit.
The IDT company went out of the consumer audio business before Win10, so Dell never released a Win10 audio driver for your model. The newest audio driver was the IDT 6330 for Win7 64-bit. If you can ever get the laptop to boot into Windows, you should be able to install the driver using compatibility mode.
1. Download and save the audio driver to your desktop or any convenient location on the hard drive.
2. Double click on the new folder to extract (unzip) the driver files.
3. The extractor wizard will create a new folder for the driver files. It will be at "c:\dell\drivers\xxxxxx". Write down the exact location that the wizard creates.
4. If the driver begins to install automatically, halt (cancel) the installation.
5. Browse to the driver files on the hard drive (the location you wrote down).
6. Find the "setup.exe" file.
7. Right click on setup.exe to open the context menu.
8. Select the Properties.
9. Select the Compatibility tab.
10. Check the box "run this program in compatibility mode for"... Win7.
However the installation might fail if audio is disabled in the BIOS. The problem of not being able to boot into Windows, while audio is enabled, is beyond me. I have never heard of that, even on the other models where Win10 is not supported. I suggest that you ask about that on the Alienware Club board and the Windows OS board.
Edit -- after this post, thread was moved from the Laptop Audio board to the Alienware Club board.