Ok, so I've been trying to fix this issue for 3 entire days now and have literally found no headway in making the GTX 980m card to work on my Alienware 15.
At first, on windows 10, I always got the blue screen of death with error message: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, followed by a restart everytime I tried to run a game using the nvidia gpu - the intel hd graphics worked fine.
I then downgraded back to windows 8.1 (original os that came with the machine), then installed all the latest drivers and also the ones from the Nvidia site. Didn't get blue screened when running a game, BUT instead got errors relating to Direct3D. Tried Dxdiag and found that direct3D was "not available" under the nvidia gpu tab, whilst it was enabled for the intel hd graphics card.
Did clean installs and reinstalls of nvidia drivers, as well as directx and I still get the same issues. Eventually though, I did manage to get DirectX to work with the GTX 980m and Direct3D acceleration was finally enable. HOWEVER, I ended getting repeated errors of "display driver stopped responding and has recovered", and when I tried to run a game, BAM blue screen with the same system thread exception etc...
Not sure if it's software issues, but it wouldn't make sense for Alienware to sell a laptop with windows 8.1 that isn't compatible at all with the gtx 980m. Seems to me that it is very likely my graphics card is a defect? Although device manager says there are no issues...
Wonder if anyone had the same issues and managed to fix it, or could lend me a hand on the matter please.
At first, on windows 10, I always got the blue screen of death with error message: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, followed by a restart everytime I tried to run a game using the nvidia gpu - the intel hd graphics worked fine.
I then downgraded back to windows 8.1 (original os that came with the machine), then installed all the latest drivers and also the ones from the Nvidia site. Didn't get blue screened when running a game, BUT instead got errors relating to Direct3D. Tried Dxdiag and found that direct3D was "not available" under the nvidia gpu tab, whilst it was enabled for the intel hd graphics card.
Did clean installs and reinstalls of nvidia drivers, as well as directx and I still get the same issues. Eventually though, I did manage to get DirectX to work with the GTX 980m and Direct3D acceleration was finally enable. HOWEVER, I ended getting repeated errors of "display driver stopped responding and has recovered", and when I tried to run a game, BAM blue screen with the same system thread exception etc...
Not sure if it's software issues, but it wouldn't make sense for Alienware to sell a laptop with windows 8.1 that isn't compatible at all with the gtx 980m. Seems to me that it is very likely my graphics card is a defect? Although device manager says there are no issues...
Wonder if anyone had the same issues and managed to fix it, or could lend me a hand on the matter please.