Alienware M17XR3 Troubleshooting

[nickolaughagus]

Hello everyone,

I've been in a bit of a sticky situation for a while now with my laptop. Here's the scoop.

A few weeks ago my I was playing Watch Dogs on my laptop and after about 5 minutes it just shut off on me. It had a short circuit. The charger would shut off immediately after plugging it into the laptop, and the laptop showed NO signs of life.

I took it apart and removed my 580m NVidia GPU and suddenly the charger worked, and my laptop would start up. It would do everything, even the backlight would turn on in the display, but nothing popped up on the display. Then 8 beeps for Display failure and laptop would shut off.
I read that this is due to my 3D 120Hz display, and the fact that the onboard gpu can't start it up or power it.

This all pointed to a failure of the GPU, so I bought a new one on Ebay and installed it. After installation, I was able to turn on the Laptop!!!! One problem still, there was a new series of beeps. 5. For CPU failure.

I have since cleared my CMOS twice, and I don't know what to do now. What could be wrong with it still??? I have also inspected the MOBO as well as my old GPU for damage from heat or anything but found nothing. Did NOT do an in depth checkup on all of my IC's but it seemed like they were in good shape.

I was extremely furious that my laptop of $3200 failed on me after 2 years, so I reported Dell to BBB and called them 10's of times, and now one of their reps has offered me a deal for an out of warranty repair at the flat rate of $180. I am not sure that they will be able to do anything since other Dell reps have told me that they don't have the parts for my laptop and that I couldn't buy them from the spare parts center, and my rep said that if they really don't have my parts at the out-of-warranty center then the laptop will be returned and I will be refunded.Should I take the deal and give up?

 

[darkbreeze]

That's probably cheaper than a local repair center would do the work for including parts and since obviously if they can't fix it they won't charge you anything it seems you have nothing to lose. It seems suspicious that you have a different issue after replacing the GPU that didn't exist prior to that but it will be difficult to determine the cause without specialty testing equiptment so I'd say it's probably worth the investment to not be out of a ($3200.00?) laptop.

 

[nickolaughagus]

That's probably cheaper than a local repair center would do the work for including parts and since obviously if they can't fix it they won't charge you anything it seems you have nothing to lose. It seems suspicious that you have a different issue after replacing the GPU that didn't exist prior to that but it will be difficult to determine the cause without specialty testing equiptment so I'd say it's probably worth the investment to not be out of a ($3200.00?) laptop.

Yeah Im currently working with Dell to do that. Even their executive support stinks. There are so many hoops to jump through, its hard to get a hold of them; it's ridiculous. I feel like they don't value past customers at all.

So nobody can think of a possible solution to my 7 beep code???

 

[darkbreeze]

Is it five or seven? First you said five and now you said seven. Both five and seven relate to the cpu, as you know, but seven can also be a motherboard issue. I'd check to make sure the cabling is fully seated to the motherboard and gpu. Aside from that, as I said before it's going to take some pinpoint testing to determine what is the cause of the beep code regardless of which one it is.

 

[nickolaughagus]

Is it five or seven? First you said five and now you said seven. Both five and seven relate to the cpu, as you know, but seven can also be a motherboard issue. I'd check to make sure the cabling is fully seated to the motherboard and gpu. Aside from that, as I said before it's going to take some pinpoint testing to determine what is the cause of the beep code regardless of which one it is.

It is seven.

I didn't mean to say 5 the first time.

 

[darkbreeze]

I'm sure you've already read this, but unfortunately the facts are the facts. It's not uncommon for one component to take another one with it when it fails.

(1) Turn off the computer.

(2) Remove all the external peripherals like AC Adaptor, battery, flash drive, etc.

(3) Press and hold power button, it releases the static on the computer (if any).

(4) Put back the battery and plug in the charger.

(5) Let the computer charge for some time.

(6) Try turning on the computer if the computer still beeps 7 times then the processor is failed and needs to be replaced.