Just bought another broken Ranger

So I found someone selling another Ranger for parts on Gumtree here in Australia. It’s listed as having a fried motherboard but apparently has a brand new GPU (AMD) and LCD. It’s a huge gamble but he said he’d ship it to me for free and I didn’t have to pay him until it arrived. What a ****in’ legend!!

Fingers crossed I can resurrect this one. I’m planning on a high gloss candy apple red paint job this time.



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Keep it goin'

 

Just need to work out how to hide it from the wife.....


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In the words of the late Han solo...

They always find out lol

 

Haha, me smtimes in a similar situation when sm. new hardware stuff arrives

 

I always get my stuff delivered to work but I have to sneak it into the shed at some stage. Luckily I sold both my 13’s recently so I have some leverage with buying a new project.


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Alternate address for shipping is a must when ur married, didnt even think about it until now. I use my moms since forever.

Maxware, just curious, what is the"brand new GPU (AMD) and LCD" on that one?

 

He didn’t really know. I looked up the service tag and it originally came with the standard 60hz LCD so I’m assuming the new one is the same. It also came with a 290X but he said the new card was upgraded to an 8gb card.
It’s all a bit of a mystery but it seems like a technician tried to fix it with the new LCD and GPU but it still wasn’t working so he said the mobo was dead.
I have my 17 here so I can test the parts. It’s a big gamble but hey that’s the fun.



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Only 8GB MXM I can think off a WX7100. W7170M is 4GB, as was the previous maximum. If not, it could be a 880M, 980M, etc.

 

That’s what I was thinking. Probably an 880M. I guess I’ll find out next week. Could be a huge waste of money.


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Well it arrived. Definitely an AMD card so probably another 290X. Can’t really dig into it while at work.




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Ok so a strange one to start with. The GPU was out so I left it out (not a 3D display), I attached the CPU heatsink which was sitting there loose and then checked the ribbon cables. One of the cables under the GPU fan/heatsink wasn't in all the way so I fixed that. I turned her on and it actually booted to the Windows login screen. Then it abruptly shut down and won't restart. I thought I had a winner for a brief moment in time.

 

Remove battery and use your main AC adapter after checking for physical damage first on the DC jack

 

Yeah I had the battery out. Just ran it on the mains. My thought was the DC jack too as it shut down when it moved on my lap. Tried it wiggle it around a bit but no luck

 

Check to make sure DC jack is free of damage and that it's actually plugged to the board (requires town down)

 

If I can get a spare minute without anyone catching me working on it, I'll test off battery power only

Yeah I'll have to tear it down tonight to check the jack. I'm feeling positive though

You know what, I never reconnected the CPU or GPU fans........ I'm sure the system is wondering what the F is going on. No time to test it now though.

 

Is it weird I read "hide if from the wildlife"

 

Sometimes that description suits well.

Ok so I connected the fans and powered the machine on with only the battery. It booted to the login screen but I don't have the guys password. It doesn't seem to like booting just from the adapter so there must be an issue with the jack connection. It did recognize the adapter once I plugged it in after it booted but it still seemed to lose battery life.
I still haven't tested it with the GPU in and obviously haven't got passed the login screen yet. I'll post him back his hard drive and grab a new SSD and see how I go.
Looks positive so far. Fingers crossed. Maybe the adapter is faulty.

Well it doesn’t look good. It boots fine off the battery and the adapter symbol shows up if you plug it in once it’s booted but the machine isn’t actually recognising the adapter. Won’t charge and it says it’s not connected it the diagnostics.
I swapped out the power jack from my other 17 but it didn’t make a difference. One of the fans tries to start for a split second so there must be a small amount of power getting through but something on the board must be dead.


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Thought I’d reinstall Windows and see if I could fix the issue with a new BIOS or something. After booting I plugged in my 330W adapter and noticed the backlight increased so it knew the adapter was there. Windows almost finished installing when POOF! Smoke and fire and all that good stuff. I think it’s safe to say the board is fried. Hahaha



The DC jack capacitors took a beating. Unfortunately it looks like they also took out the wifi card and also a small alien fx cable which will be hard to replace.




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Ah bummer.

 

I’m deciding whether I should grab some new parts and get her running or part it out.


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My concern is that it didn’t fry until I put the GPU in. I’m wondering if the GPU pulled too much power for some reason and if I replace the mobo then it will do it again. It could have just been a coincidence though.


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Well after careful thought I have decided to order a new motherboard and DC jack cable and get it running again. I could get more (a lot more) if I parted it out but that could take a long time. It cost me $350AUD and the parts will be $300AUD so if I can sell it for $900 it'll still be a winner.
I'm a little concerned about the M290X in this machine so I will throw a 780M in her. My only other concern is the slightly melted AlienFX cable.
This one will get a high gloss Candy Apple Red paint job!

 

Seven....seven Alienware ah ah ah ah.

 

I haven’t ordered a new mobo yet but I’ve started the new Gloss Red paint job. Not sure how it will turn out but we’ll see

Prepped



Primed




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Painted. I’ll let the first two coats cure for a day or two and give it a light sand before giving it another good coat and then the clear coats





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Best time for chassis mods is when the mobo is dead after all (I know from experience lol)

 

Unfortunately you’re right


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Here is the mid frame and base panel. A stray hair found its way onto the final clear coat of the LCD lid so I’ll have to sand it out and try again.




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Lid finally finished. Just need everything to harden properly over the next week. Still haven’t bought a new mobo yet.





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Just mocked putting it back together for a quick snap






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That looks really nice, bro. Great job. I love bright red colored laptops and cars.

 

Always wanted a Ferrari laptop...

Now you got me wandering..since I'm about to disassemble mine...why not paint it!

 

Might as well. I've done two and it's definitely worth it. Yellow pearl M18xR2 and bright red Clevo P750ZM both turned out great. Just take your time, use good quality materials and proper surface prep with a clean environment and it will turn out nice.

 

Thanks guys. I also had thoughts of Ferrari when it started coming together. I even thought about making the thin strips down the sides of the LCD lid yellow. Getting a clean line would be hard.

Mr Fox is dead on, surface prep and materials are very important. I learned my lessons from earlier attempts on some Aurora desktops. Even though most paints now include a primer, I still put one or two coats of primer down first. It really makes a difference. The most painful job is taping up during prep. Getting it right before you start priming really helps get clean lines along edges.
These days I use a beach sun-shelter to spray in. It's not a perfect solution but it helps reduce little bits of crap falling onto the paint.

I'm not even sure it will ever see a new motherboard but I'll wait and see. I have a horrible feeling that when the power jack (capacitors/mosfets??) got fried, all the parts got killed. I tried the old HDD in my other 17 last night and it was dead. I'll have to try the LCD, CPU and GPU when I get a chance.

 

Nothing is worse than the crappy grey they went with. I vote you give it a fresh paint job.

 

Great work, I also see your other glossy white Ranger. Both look awesome. You have really good taste in picking colour.

 

Thanks for that. I'm still not sure if this red one will ever see life again. Not keen to drop $300AUD on a motherboard right now.

 

Houston, I have a problem! I can't stop buying faulty machines. Another broken Ranger came up on eBay so I pulled over on the way to work and bought it. This one has a 7 beep error so I'm going to assume the worst and say it's another bad board but I'm hoping it's actually a CPU.

 

MadMaxTheAlienBuyer.......

in your box'o'old bits...got a i7-4910mq cpu for sale?...ship to Japan?...cheapest i can get is from china AU$216 (Im feeling a bit anti china right now)

How many computers you got right now?
I think my dad had 20 at his highest count....(not including parts of course..just working computers)
But he had Amiga and Powermac stuff as well....not a professional..he just bought and fixed and gave to every family member.
As for the Mrs's....hell it could be worse...could be pissing it up the wall or screwing around...man has to have a hobby (that doesnt include watching chick flicks
H

 

I have the six that are in my Signature plus the two that I have bought this week. Luckily I have sold mine throughout the years or there'd be no room to write them all in the Sig. I sold two 13's recently.

I may actually have a 4910MQ but it will depend on what is wrong with the latest Ranger that is on it's way next week. It's apparently giving a 7 beep code which relates to the CPU (4910MQ) but they are more bulletproof than the Ranger motherboards so it's probably the board.
I'm actually hoping it is a faulty CPU as I really need a working motherboard to repair my other 17 that blew up. I'll let you know.

 

So I received the new broken Ranger today. Pulled the GPU (just to be safe). Put in a stick of ram and an SSD loaded with Win10. It gave me the 7 beep code as listed on the eBay sale. There are screws in all the wrong places so I wasn't hopeful that I'd get anything out of it. It looked like someone grabbed broken parts from other machines and put them all together in this machine.

Pulled the 4910 and threw in a 4700. No beeps but no display. The service tag was missing but I wondered if it was a 3D display (no 3D Vision stickers). Threw in the 880M and low and behold she booted, but no boot device found. Rebooted into the BIOS and it shows the CPU and NVidia card. The service tag was listed in the BIOS so I checked it out, 3D display it is!

The boot is set to Windows 8 UEFI fast boot. The legacy boot was greyed out. I'm assuming this is why my SSD isn't being recognized as it's Win10......???? I'll look into it later.

I ran a pre-boot diagnostic and the CPU and GPU fans failed. It looks like someone has tried to fix them at some stage as they have electrical tape on them.

The machine says the 240W adapter that came with it doesn't meet power requirements so hopefully it's the adapter and not the board.

I only really wanted this machine for the board and GPU. At this stage it looks like the 880M and display are good. The CPU looks to be dead and further tests when I get home from work will tell me if the board has issues. Fingers are crossed.

 

Got home and swapped the fans out and tried a new power adapter. Did a clean Win10 installation and everything seemed to work perfectly. It was time to strip this new one apart to use the 880M on my white ranger and finally put a new board in the red ranger. Then I could also finally put the 780M back in my poor M18x that’s been sitting in pieces for months.
Decided to put the M18x back together first and it went perfectly. Then I put the 880M in the white ranger and it seemed fine at the start but then the display went funky with flickering colors and lines. The GPU was hot so I’m assuming the card is pretty much toast. I tried removing the old drivers and installing the 880M drivers but then windows kept crashing. In the process of reinstalling Windows now but it’s probably a lost cause.
The good news is that the new motherboard is now in the red Ranger and she seems to be running well. I haven’t put the original M290x in it yet though. Just running off the i7.
A new board would have been $300AUD and I picked this machine up for $300 so even if the 880M is dead, it will still work out ok. It has the 120hz display I could sell.



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Pretty



I just bought 120hz screen and 4910mq from china......(cross fingers and hope they get here;.......this year)

 

How much was the 120Hz screen? I'm wondering if I strip the screen from the LCD lid or keep it as a whole assembly and sell it. The lid is really scratched up so I may give it a fresh paint job and see if someone wants a new color lid for their 17.

 

N173HHE-G32 is like 50-70 usd but requires some modding to give it proper clearance.

 

Thanks man. I'll keep it as an assembly and try to get $150 or so for it. I'm tempted to paint the mid frame and base as well and try to sell all three parts as a set. Just don't know what color to do this time..... I haven't tried full black yet.

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33041228368.html?spm=a2g0s.12269583.0.0.78771095UprSnm

AU$136 for screen...another AU$20 for cable