Help with: Area-51 m5790

[AlkinP]

Hello,

I have recently encountered a problem with my laptop. The laptop is Area-51 m5790. The problem is: when i press ON button nothing is happening. Well almost nothing. When the AC is plugged into the laptop the indicator is flashing with orange light. When i press power button the light blinks very quickly and disappears. Than it starts flashing as normal in about 5-10 sec.
When i try to run it from battery nothing going on at all.
I assume there is a short somewhere but i do not know how to diagnose the problem.
Any advice?

Thank you.

 

[Guest]

Sounds like the part of the motherboard intended to supply current to the battery (and/or the computer) has failed. Hopefully it's a discrete sub-board as on some machines or a simple capacitor failure. See a repair guy or the shop you bought it from.

 

[AlkinP]

Yep that's what i figured. The only problem with that is the company is aleanware.com no longer supports this model. I guess i do have to see someone who can figure out what exactly wrong with it.

Thank you for your reply.

 

[Guest]

Alienware is part of Dell these days -- so maybe their support policy is a little more generous and it might be worth inquiring.

The motherboard was probably made by a third party -- so a repair guy may be able to source one (or figure out a less drastic fix).

Meanwhile look on e-bay etc for a similar model with, for example, a broken screen and see if you can cannibalise one into the other.

 

[AlkinP]

Yes they are dell now. But it doesn't help them to get better. Called the company, apparently they don't have a manual that tells me how to take laptop apart. I cant pull out MB. The only company that fix\sells MB for this laptop out of stock and not sure that they will be getting more of them. Though i did find out that MB itself is alive. It did but once. Powered from battery. But when i plugged the power cord it shut down immediately. So i think its some power issue. Now i need to figure out how to disassemble the laptop.

 

[Rive0108]

Yep that's what i figured. The only problem with that is the company is aleanware.com no longer supports this model. I guess i do have to see someone who can figure out what exactly wrong with it.

Thank you for your reply.

I have a m5790... still runs in top shape, and I use a cryo chiller (that probably helps).

My system:
Alienware Area-51 M5790
Vista Ultimate x64 SP2
T7600G Core2 Duo 2.66 GHZ
ATI Mobility Radeon x1900 256MB
1920x1200 WUXGA 17"
4GB DDR2 PC2-5300 5-5-15-20
Blu-ray DL BD-RE (UJ-220)
HP digital TV Tuner express card
WD Scorpio Black 640GB 7200RPM HDD (2x 320GB RAID)


You can get all the parts for the m5790 here (including a new motherboard):
http://ztronics.com/m5790-m5700i-r2-series.html


You can get drivers here:
http://www.havocarcade.com/xfs/files/get/-0Rx3EUsLI/drivers.zip

 

[financeqt1]

Hi AlkinP,
I wanted to share some interesting info with you and also find out how you managed your situation. In Jan 2011 the same exact situation with my alienware m5790 occurred. I was in the middle of moving and did all the hardware diagnostics that I could. I came to the conclusion that it was the Motherboard power supply.. I am settled now, only 3 years later and thought I should probably spend some time working on it again.. Well, I understand why I put it off for almost 3 yrs.... There is pretty much nothing I can do.. I thought it odd that you and I have the same problem, at the same time with the same model. I spent a small fortune on this laptop which was very unlike me as I have built desktops for years and I thought I would treat myself to this awesome laptop. Anyways, I was wondering what ended up happening with your Area 51 m5790? You could save a bunch of time and money if you could update me.
I apologize if this Post is not where it is supposed to be as it is not a "Solution", I never post anywhere about anything really, so please forgive me if I have written this in the wrong place...
Thank you for your time and I look forward to your feedback..

Hello,[strike][/strike]

I have recently encountered a problem with my laptop. The laptop is Area-51 m5790. The problem is: when i press ON button nothing is happening. Well almost nothing. When the AC is plugged into the laptop the indicator is flashing with orange light. When i press power button the light blinks very quickly and disappears. Than it starts flashing as normal in about 5-10 sec.
When i try to run it from battery nothing going on at all.
I assume there is a short somewhere but i do not know how to diagnose the problem.
Any advice?

Thank you.