Hi all,
Over the last 10 months i've been experiencing the screen randomly going black and then displaying no signal on my AW X51.
Some specs to my computer are:
Alienware X51 R2 (Please don't judge, I was younger and we all make mistakes.)
Intel(R) Core i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40 GHz
16GB of RAM
EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SC GAMING (Super clocked, but I have also used msi afterburner and EVGA precision so it was no longer overclocked) - I also only upgraded to this graphics card about a month ago (yes i bought it like 5 days before the new 1070 was released... oh well -- I also am aware that the GTX 970 isn't supported yet by dell on this PC but it didn't matter and it fits perfectly) as I thought it was the GPU that was broken, which would seem logical considering what the problem is. I had the gtx 670 before which I believe also was EVGA but i'm not certain and it doesn't say on the graphics card either.
2TB HDD
Windows 10 
I don't think there is anything else relevant but ask if you would like to know more.
Ok so here are things i've done to attempt to fix the issue as I only started getting this problem after having the computer for about 15 months:
- Factory reset
- Clean install of ALL drivers
- Made sure BIOS was always fully up to date
- Replaced the GPU
- Had the same issue while using both integrated graphics and GPU HDMI ports
- Multiple times taken the GPU out and put it back in, to see whether I had to put it in incorrectly
- I have reduced the amount of power the processor gets to see if it was disconnecting due to receiving too much power
- I have reduced the amount of power that goes to the GPU to make sure it wasn't using too much due to the small power supply however I have found that it actually uses less than the old 670 I had so this shouldn't be a problem
- Measured all temps consistently using programs like MSI afterburner to attempt to keep the temperature down, however it never went above 85 degrees centigrade anyway even before using it so this made no difference (according to TechPowerUp GPU-Z)
- I have tried leaving the side of the pc off as I read that one person found they didn't experience the problem when they did that, however it made no difference for me
- I have unplugged the optical drive at times when concerned about power issues but made no difference (I haven't removed it because it's blu-ray and I use it).
- I ran the ePSA and the extended bit and it showed no problems.
Just to clarify the screen only goes black and displays no signal when I'm playing any games such as the new Total War Warhammer, League of Legends or Counter Strike etc...  For example sometimes I can play like 5 games of league in quick succession and a few games of total war warhammer, which include small unit games and 6v6 large armies ultra funds kind of games and it will be fine. However then for some reason it will start cutting out either mid game to begin with or sometimes cut out once the game has loaded usually into the deployment army part or sometimes even just when selecting multiplayer battles. It works fine while streaming tv and movies for those interested.
In the past it would say the graphics display has crashed and sometimes would recover (with the old GTX 670), but since getting the new GPU ( GTX 970) I haven't seen that message. Also when I got the Alienware it came with windows 7, i upgraded it to windows 8 and 8.1 stupidly and I now have it in windows 10, but I don't remember having the problem when I used windows 7 although I can't be certain as it's been going on for so long now.
 
If anyone could give me some help or direction of where to go from here or a solution of how to fix it, I would be very grateful as you can probably imagine this is incredibly irritating and I would love to be able to play my many games without it crashing all the time. 
 
Thank you,
 
All help is much appreciated,

Dodgey

Hi, 
I have just updated those two files, in the second "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers " there was already a file called TdrDelay which had a value of "a", although it was not in the other folder?
 
 

RMA. Your card is defective.

How old is your X51? Have you tried doing a clean install of windows 10?

Got it at the end of September 2013. I've done two factory resets on different occasions one before having windows 10 (it's been going on at least since windows 8 potentially while I had windows 7). I tried using a different monitor a little earlier but it made no difference. I feel like it must be software related, because when the screen crashes I have the speakers plugged in separately so sound doesn't come through the monitor and when it loses signal they make a buzz sound for a short while and then cut out, although I don't know what's left to try?

Not very easily, I can't imagine it's the card considering it's literally had barely any use and i had the same problem with the old card
I thought it could be the PSU too, but i've reduced the maximum power my cpu takes (down to 90%). The (GTX 970 uses less power than the 670 too, which came with the PC. Surely it can't be the PSU, unless you mean it's faulty rather than 330w aren't enough? 

Interesting that could be possible. Is there a way I can test this theory about the PSU? If i had a multimeter would it help? I will try setting the fans to max speed tomorrow and let you know 

I still haven't been able to check with a multimeter yet, but I just ran furmark on my pc and it made it crash with the black screen and no signal?

Give driver 347.88 a try too while you're at it. 347.88 will work with windows 10.