17 R1 - CMOS issues and crashing

Hi guys,

I received a faulty Ranger yesterday and I've come across an issue that I haven't had before.

When I try to start the 17 on the first try I am getting the 5 Beep CMOS error. If I shut it down and try again it will bypass the beep code and boot. Unfortunately the machine then shuts itself down soon after. Sometimes it gets to Windows and sometimes it doesn't even get this far. It will also shut down when I'm in BIOS. No chance of getting far enough to run the diagnostic.
I swapped the CMOS battery with a spare I had but the 5 beep issue is still there. I pulled the GPU to rule it out and I have tried a different CPU and RAM and SSD. (I tried the GPU in another machine and it's dead, some idiot damaged a few pins).
When similar crashes have happened on previous machines it usually comes down to overheating and while the CPU gets warm, it's definitely not hot enough to cause a shutdown.

I thought that maybe it was a bad Windows installation but once it crashed while in the BIOS then I can only assume it's a system issue and not software.

All signs point to the motherboard since I've pretty much swapped everything out but maybe someone has another idea before I give up on it.

 

Well it isnt like a Clevo, it doesnt need fans to boot.

Do you have any deformities around the VRMs?

Have you looked at the DC jack while in operation? Can see it if you keep the keyboard unhinged

 

I haven't looked at the VRMs but I'll take a look tonight.

What would I be looking for with the DC jack?

 

So I just went to take a look at an M17x R4 I found on Gumtree. They had lost the original charger so I brought my spare one along so I could test it. Tried to start it up and it crashed while trying to load Windows. It did the same thing 4 or 5 times, exactly the same as the Ranger. This is the same adapter as I was using last night on the 17.........coincidence??....I didn't even think to try a different adapter last night as I'd been using it recently without any issue.

 

Sounds to me like a faulty motherboard. I'm thinking its a bios issue. Any way you could attempt to flash a new bios?

 

I was thinking that too. The shutdown issue was definitely a faulty power adapter. I used my 330W one last night and I reinstalled Windows and did all the updates and left it running for hours and it didn't hard shutdown once. It got a bit late to try the BIOS flash though.
If I can't fix the 5 beep error then I'll use this one as a test machine and try to rebuild my other test 17.