First M17x R4 to become a brick is...

...mine!

Guess who's not going to be playing Diablo 3 any time soon :lol:

Downloaded the newest MSI Afterburner, found it still wouldn't let me OC the 7970m, closed all of my applications and restarted to chill out on some WoW for a bit, and the thing won't start back up. Blank screen, no beeps or anything, AlienFX lights come on and that's it. I've turned it off and back on 10 times and let it sit both on and off for more than 10 minutes each with no changes in behavior.

This pile of crap is going back to Dell for a refund.

 

You come here to complain instead of ask for help? And you do something not recommended by the manufacturer and call it a piece of crap?

I bet it's fine. Unplug it, take out the battery, and hold the power button down for 20 seconds. Pop the battery back in, plug it in, and turn it on. There's a good chance that will fix you up.

 

I'm all for suggestions (notice that I did not actually OC anything, but attempted to tweak software so that it would let me try it and failed to even get that far), but in nearly a week now not one suggestion has actually helped. I just tried yours, for example, and nothing changed.

Everyone is so quick to defend Dell/AW, and I myself still think they are a good company, but it is entirely possible that they sent me a bad product.

 

It happens to every manufacturer and buyer. I myself was a victim of a lemon unit from HP before that is even more expensive than my current unit. You can either talk to Dell for a replacement or repair or send it back for a refund and get something else.

Noone is forcing you to like AW if you really feel disappointed. We are not defending AW, we are trying to figure out what's wrong and hopefully solve the problem.

But if you are not happy with it anymore, then do what you want.
Complaining and getting pissed will not solve anything. Decide while its early so you wont be left behind in playing D3

 

i would bet money that its a windows update that has upset the laptop... If you can see the alien head on boot, you can get to bios, if you can do that you can also boot to safe mode.... get to safe mode by pressing F8 at the alien head and uninstall the latest updates that were installed... also uninstall the afterburner stuff or anything else that was lastly installed and you should be good to go.

 

I agree with TAPAKIDNEY ... don't call Alienware crap ...

If you had it running a week, it's not a bad product. Bad product usually die the day of or the day after receiving... or died after the user violated the virgin Alienware...

If you don't know how to tinker with laptops and/or research issues arise that cause by the user(you), you shouldn't be fooling around with software to manipulate the structure of the system, even if you know what you are doing. try to see if there is a way to revive it.....

It's a learning process. My entire period of owning alienware laptops , I never had a bad batch. Just wrong configurations , or at one time only, I bricked the video card for OC'n too far...but I take the blame when i do things out of mfg specs...

 

removed battery? tried then?
removed coin battery, tried then?

trashed it in the bin? relieved?

 

Read. The. Posts.

I said Dell is still a good company, they just sent me a crap computer.

Everything was at stock clocks, stock voltages, and running stock drivers. The computer has been slower than it should be since I got it, along with acting oddly otherwise (random hanging, etc.) - the ONLY semi-significant change I made was the one registry edit in Slick's guide and I had changed it back and forth several times with no noticeable change in behavior. I spent 5 days screwing with basic windows and CCC settings with no luck, trying everything that was suggested on this forum.

What other conclusion should I have come to?

 

Have you done a fresh install?

 

I did once, at this point I am at a loss for options though as I can not even get to bios. It literally gives a black screen and no beeps, no responses to any keystrokes. I've pulled the main battery with no luck, haven't opened it up any further.

Even if the 7970m somehow died, shouldn't it still start up on integrated graphics?

 

If I am not mistaken, it must pass the AMD card first... so it sounds like your GPU is faulty (or was faulty from the start)

 

Do you get on site repair in your country? You should call dell, if its only a week old it should be under warranty. If the card is faulty they should replace it.

 

Have you tried connecting it to a external display? I wonder if maybe, just maybe, the ribbon cable for the LCD came loose?????

 

Sorry for your troubles. It is certainly true that you can troubleshoot and replace parts until your notebook is eventually operating as intended. But why suffer the aggravation? You bought a new notebook; it should function as intended without undue user intervention. Call Dell and tell them it's coming home and that you want a refund or a replacement. I had much less serious issues with my first R3, and the Customer Satisfaction guys could not have been nicer or more accommodating. A new order was entered immediately for an identical system, and I kept the old one until the new one was delivered about two weeks later. The replacement has been as flawless as high performance notebooks get. Take advantage of Dell's warranty and return protections. It's one of their best features and part of what you pay for when you purchase an Alienware product. Be calm and nice; it will serve you well.

 

this is true. When you buy an alienware, you are also buying very good customer service. call them up and return or replace it. They may even throw an upgrade or two your way for your trouble

 

I may have been in the situation if you are talking about the laptop turns on, with no beeps , and black screen.

My scenario:

I Flashed A08 modded bios , Disable IGP , and boot up with black screen with no beeps.

I believe the 460M driver didn't load, and since IGP has been disable, it has a black screen and no beeps when it was turned on.

I did the power down, removed battery, let it sit for a few days.

I finally did something spontaneous, I took the graphic card out, Turn on the laptop. Doing so, gave me beeps when I turn on the laptop.

From then, I turn off the laptop, I then re-installed the graphic card ...and viola....the laptop screen came back on working ... Flashed to A10 Bios afterward.

Maybe you can try this method...

 

Welcome back Ren!

 

Here is a question...why are you trying to OC/tweak the 7970m? For pete sakes...how much more do you want out of the thing? Its brand new and already the fastest mobil GPU out there...thats not good enough? I bet it runs Diablo 3 fine. My dual 5870's dont have much trouble at all. I just ordered my r4 and am looking forward to the greatly improved proformance without the occasional headache from Crossfire.

 

Hello there old friend DR650 !!!!

Just a lurker ATM ... thanks for the welcoming...

 

Mine had issues running WoW, in hindsight something was clearly wrong with it and I should have just sent it back on day 1. If I was getting the results that other people are getting, I would not have changed a thing.

 

For the powerdrain you also need to pull the coin cell inside the laptop.

Try that, and try hooking it up to a monitor/tv.

 

I tried this entire thing didn't work with my 7970m, and he has the same symptoms.. I bet we will see a few more 7970m dying similarly..

 

No word yet from table21?(sorry I've been out of the loop)

 

I did a similar thing to you flashing modded bios and disabling the IGPU, except I didn't remove the graphics card, I ended up calling dell and they decided it was a motherboard problem and replaced it. That might be a solution you could look into but If you were having problems running WOW, I would think something is off anyway since its an older less demanding game, you should get high FPS at ultra detail.

 

I since ordered a Radeon 7770 for my desktop to use for gaming in the meantime and it gets consistently better FPS than the M17x did with much slower hardware (we're talking old E2180 CPU and the 7770 is much weaker than a 7970M) so I'm fairly confident in saying that there was something wrong with the M17x from day 1.

I'm returning it and just going to use the desktop for now, might get another laptop later when the issues are resolved with the new CPU's and GPU's.

 

I know it is funny, but yes, no word yet... (and he is not answering JUST me)

 

Hey sorry gents I am stuck on an army base right now and have the worlds worst wifi access here. I try and answer everything I can on the weekend but the wife needs time too.

Anyways all cards I have sent out have been used in m18x r2's and m17x r4's and have worked for a few months without problem. the card I got back from graz'zt seems to not want to post, and gives no error codes (ie beeps). I am not sure if somehow putting them in an m17x r3 is causing them a problem or maybe a driver issue that is affecting them causing them to be damaged (ie voltage or cooling related). I am getting a friend that knows more than better to have a look at it. I am also taking a gamble and sending graz'zt another card so hopefully it does not come back dead as well.

That being said out of the 20-30 of these things I have seen there have only been 2 problems and I am yet to get my hands on the second one that is acting up. So I don't really think there is any major problem with the 7970 release.