Oh boy, so where to start with this one... lol. So, I bought my m15x r1 somewhere around 2008, before the dell buyout. It was a good computer, and I was a repeat customer, only issue in those early days was that the volume would change on its own and that the H key broke off.
Flash forward to 2012- I am running diablo 3 as usual. All the sudden I get a crash. I think it may have been a redscreen. Several reboots later, my computer is running, but only using integrated graphics. The nvidia card in my machine is no longer showing up on the device manager. I spent a long time trouble shooting it, but was unable to come up with any soloution. (Current theory is that the videocard died, but im still not entirely convinced). I wanted to perform a factory restore, but go figure, when i got the laptop I was young and irresponsible, and lost the disks. I requested new ones, but found no help from tech support.
I decided to take this opportunity to upgrade to win 7, figuring a clean start might give me some leverage.
After upgrading to win7, i discover that none of my AW drivers work. I dled all new drivers from the dell website, but none of them are compatible. Command center doesnt recognize the computer etc. However the fx configuration from before I upgraded is still active. After so many hours on the phone with tech support, they send me a disk "Area 51 m15x vista 64 support cd" About half the drivers on it work, but most of them do not or are out of date, and it doesnt seem to have an automatic install all drivers button. I ended up getting so frustrated that i put the computer on a shelf for 2 years, and bought a new laptop, which i am very happy with. I also bought an aurora in 2012, which has had its ups and downs, but thats another story.
2014-I dig up my old m15x and start tampering with it. Figuring it could be a learning experience, if nothing else. I eventually discover my windows.old and windows.009.old folders. Though examining them, i discover a relic version of alienFX that actualy works. Eventually, I merged my windows files together, because there was so many duplicate files between them all that they had almost completely filled my hard drive. The gfx problem is seemlingly solved, but now I was getting various issues stemming from command center. So i uninstalled command center, dled it from the website- couldnt recognize my machine. So i installed it from the vista resource disk they mailed me, and it runs fine. Only issue is that now the keyboard is not detected, and does not light up.
Today after some tampering, i found out that my computer had managed to recover my vista OS, and is apparently ready and willing to reinstall it. Now when i boot up, i get a prompt asking if i want to run win 7 or vista.
I to this date, I have not attempted to tamper with the hardware in any way shape or form.
Although I have opened it up and peeked at it. I noticed that a blue cable was disconnected, and it was laying across the motherboard. There were a few other cables like it, but they all looked connected to something.
So basically, I'm not sure what to do next. My issue was out of my league to being with, and now its even further out of grasp. Here are all my current resources:
M15x vista support disk
System recovery date of 3/17/2014 (when i fired it up for the first time since 2012)
A window 7 install CD key (the one i am currently running)
My options(as far as I can see):
1. Buy a 3rd party system recovery for win 7 m15x (aw says they dont sell them)
2. Back my comp up to the day i started messing with stuff, and try again.
3. Reinstall vista and see what exactly happens
I am so out of my league right now, I dont even know. I would love any feedback ideas or criticisms. I have decided to forward this experience into a section of my life where I will learn about computers, and be a more responsible owner.
Attached is my MS32 & DXDIAG
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