Bricked R3 (6 beeps...video card failure)

Last night I loaded up a video on my R3 and the screen instantly garbled up with artifacts. The whole screen basically turned green and gray with think blacks lines and some multi colored squares. The audio continued playing like normal, but I quickly hit the power button in a panic. Powered the laptop back up, and the screen wouldn't come on. After a couple resets (with battery out and power button held for 15 sec) the laptop would turn on an give me six beeps.

A quick search on the net confirmed what I had suspected, some kind of video card failure. Out of a stroke of luck, I turned the laptop on one more time and it worked properly. This gave me enough relief to go to bed. This morning, I tried updating my videocard drivers to the 12.11 beta8, and while I was uninstalling the old drivers, the screen turned black (and stayed black). I waited about 10 min to see if the computer was still just working on the drivers, but when the screen never came back on I did another hard boot. Back to the six beeps.

I tried taking the card out and re installing it. Everything looked fine under the hood, but to be safe I put on new paste, new pads, the whole works. Still six beeps. I am lost as to the next logistical step. Maybe I am missing something obvious here. If anyone could help, it would be greatly appreciated.

I have OC'd the card in the past without issue, but when it died, it was on it's stock clocks. The card has never been overvolted.

I should also mention this is a 7970m which was purchased from eurocom. It is not a dell card, but has been flashed with custom bios to work on alienware machines. Im sure you guys know what I am talking about.

 

If it was initially intermittent it sounds like a contact somewhere has gone.

If all else fails you could try baking it.

 

Is there a new vid bios you could try? If there is, I'd attempt it. I thought I read somewhere one way, if you couldn't get it to post, was to have someone with an M18x do it.

The last time I had a card do that (a BFG, so my lifetime warranty was SOL) I had to bake it, it works like a charm now. I don't know what kind of warranty you have on it or if it can be flashed, but that's what I'd try. There was a big issue with the 5870M doing that in the Asus G73s, most of those were fixed via vbios.

 

It's unlikely to be a vbios issue if the card was initially working fine.

 

True, but that's what the 5870Ms were doing... Didn't make sense to me, but it worked.

http://www.amixa.com/blog/2011/05/06/asus-g73-g73jh-ati-5870-gsod-grey-screen-of-death-fix/

There's a write-up on it...

 

Wow, your card seems like its dead or dying. There is a long shot: you can try to clean out the MXM slot with a can of air. A bit of dust could have gotten in there and be messing with the contacts. Cleaning the card contacts with a cotton swap and isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol...but do it carefully as to not leave the card slot or card contacts with any dirt, dust, or alcohol reside, AND WEAR AN ANTISTATIC BRACELET! Do the cleaning before you try to reset the BIOS. If the cleaning doesn't help, then try resetting the BIOS so you can at least use your system with the iGPU. You can reset your BIOS by removing the power adapter, battery, and the button battery that powers the BIOS (its called a CMOS reset). Then press and hold the power button for 30 seconds to drain all residual power from the motherboard. The idea behind this is to reset the video configuration settings back to AUTO so the system will select the Intel iGPU. If your system is giving off the six beeps, then it's very probable your video card is fried. I know, my 5870m does the same thing occasionally. But if your won't even POST anymore, then more than likely the card is gone. Not sure how long you've had the 7970m card, or what kind of warranty Eurocom offers on their GPUs. But if your card is dead, then there's no way to save it.

 

Bake it with Christmas cookies and take pics.

Tasty treats.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...r-your-dead-graphics-card-your-alienware.html

 

Managed a CMOS reset and am now on my laptop using the integrated video. It really sucks not having a video card! Anyways, I went through all the trouble shooting steps one more time. The card is not even detected in the device manager. Does this mean I am SOL?

 

Not necessarily with an R3. The R3's do not natively support Enduro (dynamic on-the-fly GPU switching). So your 7970m might not been seen by the OS until AFTER you hit Fn+F7 and restart. If you get 6 beeps or a garbled display after the restart, then you know your card is fit to be tied. Unfortunately there's no diagnostic program I've found (other than benchmark apps) that will test the hardware of a GPU like the PSA does to the motherboard.

That's makes for one expensive snickerdoodle (and kind of green too ?)

 

Pressing Fn+F7 asks if I want to switch the graphics. I press yes. And then nothing happens. Reboot, still using intel graphics :S

 

There is one hail Mary we all can try before you go spending money on a new graphics card.

Do you have the unlocked BIOS? If so, go into the advanced tab and select video configuration. In video configuration, check the primary display setting. What does it say> Auto = automatically switched by the display drives (i.e. Enduro), iGFX = Intel iGPU, PEG = PCI Express Graphics (your 7970m card), PCI (it should not be on this for ANY reason!), or SG = switchable graphics. It should be on SG or Auto. Possibly on iGFX. If it's on iGFX you can TRY switching it to SG and then rebooting. After reboot, the notebook should still default to the Intel GPU. You can then try to hit Fn+F7 to switch over to your 7970m. If you get the 6 beeps then or you don't switch over to the 7970m card, then your card is most probably toast.


If you don't have the unlocked BIOS, type in "unlocked A08 BIOS" (or whatever BIOS version you are running) here in the forum to get the unlocked version. Just make sure it's for the R3 and not the R2 or the R4...it will say specifically if its for the R3. Follow the instructions and flash the BIOS...but be careful as you would flashing any BIOS.

 

Looks to be dead Thanks for all the help though. Anyone in the market for a dead 7970m haha?

 

Yes... if it's cheap.