Recent content by ebm9000

Understanding that the image is identical to your problem, it shouldn't be burnt to a crisp like that. Most of the time the entire board would have to be replaced, in all honesty.

Your UEFI setup program should tell you if there is another slot. To find out: Go into the start menu and type "Change Advanced Startup Options", click <----, click "Restart Now", and find the option labled "Troubleshoot". In that menu should be an option to restart into UEFI Setup which will...

a 32 bit version of Windows can only use 4GB RAM, so in this case it wouldn't really matter, but always go with 64-bit if available. If the hard drive is dying, you should replace that first. Even a first generation i3 is decent for semi-intensive (not gaming/rendering) work.

This may indicate a more general hardware issue (i.e not the drive), because a bootable USB should not be impacted by the state of your hard drive.

Windows 10 will work fine with the system. Resetting the EC is actually supposed to fix basic problems with the system. You can do this (again; try resetting the EC again) by (quoted from https://www.xoticpcforums.com): HOW TO RESET THE EC IF YOUR LAPTOP IS MSI-BRAND To do this, follow the...

Maxon, does the black screen with the cursor appear when you boot from the USB drive (I'm assuming this is a recovery disk) or your hard drive? (clarification). Thanks.

Board's probably shot. You should send it in.

If it recognizes Ubuntu, then that may be "good". Most bootable BIOS update programs run on a Linux platform, so you could see if there's something like that for your lapotop. Most likely though, your best bet would be to sent it in and see if they can re-solder a clean BIOS chip on there.

It looks like you posted this to Dell's fourms as well. Even if you hadn't, I'd say some capacitor/transistor on the mainboard has gone bad. Unfortunately, laptop processors are almost exclusively soldered onto the motherboard, so the entire thing needs to be replaced (probably).

I don't know if this applies to a pre-boot environment but: Most gaming laptops have a discrete card, in your case the GTX970M. HOWEVER, when the laptop is running without the AC adapter plugged in, the machine is supposed to switch to the onboard Intel HD 530 graphics. Does anything happen...

Most likely, you're getting one of these BSOD errors: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM. Even on a system set to automatically restart, you aren't getting a dump file if it's going that fast. Here is what I suggest: When I boot from a USB Drive into Windows Setup, I don't an option to...

No, as an unattended installation is a special file that is placed on the installation media that, when the setup is booted, will read the settings off that file and start the installation immediately.

Open task manager, and look at the CPU and RAM usage. Is there something that's hogging it up? I understand it's a Pentium, but that shouldn't hold it back on basic tasks like browsing online.

Try a USB keyboard. If that doesn't work, you may want to research making an unattended installation. (All you have to do there once it is setup is to boot from the drive and the installation will begin immediately, but it WILL WIPE YOUR DRIVE!)

You can go on to another computer and download the Windows Media Creation Tool (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=691209) to create a USB or DVD installation media for your computer, but be noted it will install Windows 10 (not 8/8.1). If you want to go to 8.1, you would need to: 1. Make...