My Alienware 17 laptop no longer recognizes its nVidia 780M graphics card. I'm not aware of any software changes or updates that could have caused this. There have been no hardware changes.
Attempts to use the NVIDIA Control Panel cause a pop-up:
"NVIDIA Display settings are not available"
"An NVIDIA graphics card was not detected in your system."
Device Manager only shows the Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 under Display adapters. Expanding all items in Device Manager, I see no warning or error icons, and none with nVidia in the name.
BIOS shows "Discrete Graphics 1" as "[Not Detected]".
Attempts to install a nVidia graphics driver results in error:
"NVIDIA Installer cannot continue"
"This graphics driver could not find compatible graphics hardware"
In my attempts to resolve this, I have:
- Tried a couple System Restore points
- Un-installed the Intel HD Graphics 4600 driver, deleting driver from system
- Updated BIOS (A05 -> A08 -> A09)
- Updated Chipset Drivers
- Installed the Intel HD Graphics 4600 driver
- Fn-F5 (I/D Gfx), chose Yes (enable and reboot) (multiple times, checking after each)
- Re-seated graphics card.
None of this activity has helped: the nVidia graphics card is still not detected.
Anything else I should try?
System: Alienware 17
O/S: Windows 8.1 64-bit (Build 9600)
CPU: Intel I7 4900MQ
Video Card: NVidia 780M
BIOS A09