M17X R1 shut down and will not power back on.

This is a bad week for me... first a brand new Corsair power supply which was faulty fried and took my new motherboard and cpu with it yesterday, and now this....

I haven't used my M17X R1 for about 3 weeks because of exams, and now I'm finally free so about 30min ago I went to power on my M17X to finally game and relax from the stress of my desktop build and school has caused, and right when I load up a game.... boom... the laptop shuts down. At first I thought the power supply disconnected, so I just reconnected it, and nothing, not even a light shows up on the connector. I assumed my power supply failed so I took my spare one and plugged it in, but no power. However... when either power supply is plugged into the laptop, you can hear a beep sound coming from the power supply in 1 second intervals, and whenever there is a beep the blue light on the power connector lights up but is very dim.

I tried powering it on battery power, but nothing as well. I took out the battery and CMOS battery and held the power button for about 30sec, then tried powering it with everything back together, and nothing as well.

I haven't taken apart my laptop fully yet, I'll just wait for replies before I do so. So does anyone know what is wrong with my M17X? I really do not want to get rid of this laptop... and I just received my second 5870M gpu yesterday and a 1200p screen replacement is on it's way in the mail... any help would really be appreciated, thanks.

****EDIT**** I forgot to add that the AlienHead power button does not light up at all as well.

 

Sounds to me like either the motherboard or cpu is fried. The screen cable not being seated correctly can cause similar symptoms, but if theres absolutely no sign of life, then thats not a good sign.

It might be time for you to buy a M17x R2 motherboard and a i7 920xm so you don't waste the parts you're getting in the mail.

 

With a fried cpu wouldn't there at least be some sort of life, like the AlienHead lighting up when plugged in to show the computer is charging?

If it's a motherboard issue, is the power connector located on the motherboard itself, or is there a separate board attached to the motherboard that deals with power?

I have thought about doing the whole motherboard upgrade to an R2 but right now I don't want to spend too much money; I just spent so much on my desktop with 32GB Ram, full watercooling, etc.

If it's a motherboard issue then I'll order a replacement one, I just hope it's not both the motherboard and cpu that are fried...

 

The power connector is located on the motherboard itself. A fried cpu may or may not result in some sort of life when energized. It really depends what is fried.

My guess is it's the motherboard though. I've fried a couple of R2 motherboards and a P-173x motherboard without harming the cpu or any other components.

Idk how much a R1 motherboard is, but you can buy a R2 motherboard and a i5 or low end i7 for ~$350 on ebay I believe. Both cpu's would outperform your QX9300 if that's what you're worried about. Now is really the perfect time to upgrade so you don't spend the money twice on a mb upgrade in the future. I'd imagine an R1 mb (if you can even find one) would be around the same price.

 

Well, if I am going to do the whole upgrade to a R2 motherboard on top of a new motherboard and cpu, I also need to replace the cpu heatsink and the palmrest chasis to fit the new heatsink. I can just modify my old R1 palmrest chasis, but I really don't have the proper tools or experience for drilling carefully into metal.

Here are the prices of each component on Ebay shipped to Canada:

- R2 motherboard: $260
- R2 cpu heatsink: $30
- R2 palmrest chasis: $70

Now these are the following cpu's I have looked at for the R2, they are all i7... I don't know of any quad-core i5 cpu's that are supported in the R2, so if you know any please let me know:

- i7-720QM: $55
- i7 820QM: $110
- i7 920XM: $271

So the upgrade would cost me $415 - $631 depending on the cpu, and may be a little cheaper if there is an i5 quad core available. I love my QX9300, it is fast enough for me, so anything really on the same level of performance is good.

On the other hand... an R1 motherboard is only $160 shipped on ebay, and with that simple swap I wouldn't have to do a re-install of Windows and all and just get into gaming right away. The R2 motherboard swap is better now for the longrun, but for a cheap fix the R1 motherboard swap is really temping.

On a sidenote... my 1200p screen just arrived today, lol 1 day after my M17X fails...

 

For the fried motherboard, that's unfortunate. That's what every gamer fears, they power on their rig and kaput, which is why I bought my backup Clevo laptop in case my R2 went kaput (still plays all the games I want).

The R2 does cost more up front, but is a somewhat modern setup, can accept most new MXM 3.0b cards without major hassles. Does require chassis modification, but IMO if you plan on keeping your Alienware and are already doing the 1200p swap, I'd go for the R2 motherboard swap. Adunno if the R1 uses a 3 heatpipe heatsink for the CPU, but my R2 has it for the 920XM.

 

Probably a stooopid question, but have you tried to remove components (GPU etc) and plugged the PSU in yet?
Just to see if light still disappears? Cause as you know the light disappearing is most likely a short somewhere.
There could be other components pulling way to much current not just the mobo and there is no clear answer before you check it out by removing parts. Could be a lot cheaper than feared, you are now planning for worst case scenario only, not a very big chance for this, but what if all you need to do is to stick your other new gpu in there?
Its no use waiting for better answers. Its pretty much impossible to tell 100% sure just from the symptoms, so get going
Remove that rig from your threadmill.

 

I was about to suggest the same thing, removing components to see if it at least powers up (with a beep code since parts will be missing).

One recent member had exactly the same thing, replaced his PSU, no joy. Removed the GPU and all worked fine pointing to the GPU causing the short (or drawing excessive power). I never saw a follow up to replacing that and it can still be a MB problem talking to the part that you remove .

Edit: since you have 2 graphic cards then remove just one at a time. You may be able to get a working machine

 

The M17x uses a different heatsink for the CPU as it needs to cover the North Bridge too.
Also the M17x R2 has only one type of CPU heatsink with two heat pipes.

 

Well, I just finished taking the laptop apart. When I took out the GPU, the laptop showed some life, it turned on but nothing showed up on the screen, not even the Alienware logo lit up, so there may be some sort of faulty connection on the motherboard or the LCD cable itself.

Well, I put the GPU back in, and made sure the LCD cables were all in place, which they were, and then I plugged the power in. Right when I plugged it in... BOOM.... sparks, smoke, and a tiny flash flame!! I didn't have the touchpad part attached to the laptop so I saw the fire on the left side where the large slot for a full-size WLAN card is. I opened it up again and the first thing I noticed was the GPU... with obvious burn marks and melted plastic. So far I haven't noticed any real damage to the motherboard because I haven't really taken it out, but because there was a fire there is a good chance that the motherboard has been damaged if it wasn't already so.

After this I am not going to work on this laptop any further until I get a brand new motherboard, I don't want to risk frying my other GPU or anything else.

 

Holy cra* man!!! It does sound like a faulty GPU causing it. For some reason the PSU didn't cut out this time quickly enough to stop a full-on burn out

 

Well, for the GPU about a month ago I flashed the 5870M to a custom vBios that unlocks the card for overclocking - and I had it overclocked. It was running stable for the 2 or so weeks I used the laptop until I didn't touch the laptop for 3 weeks. Do you think that it is the vBios mod that caused this? I am having real second thoughts about flashing my new card that came in a few days ago - the card hasn't even been used in my M17X.

 

It's only going to be a potential cause IF the mod also added voltage to get the higher overclock. Simply overclocking will not do any permanent damage (unless it seriously overheats), the card just artifacts and slowing it down fixes it. I never recommend any overvoltages in a laptop, far too easy to exceed the thermal specifications.

 

Nope, no over-voltages, just the ability to overclock. Before the vBios flash the card was locked at 700/1000 with no ability to overclock.

 

I wouldn't think that had anything to do with it then but hold off on the vbios flash until you have given it a good test out. Use msiafterburner and turn on the On-Screen-Display. Select clock, voltage, and FPS to be displayed in-game. You then have a reference point just in-case a voltage boost has crept in.

 

Ok, i'm sorry i havent seen your thread yet... this does sound like GPU fault, becase you were able to get it to power on wihout the GPU...

About the vbios i've just recently discovered that it auto-overvolts the GPU to 1.15v in 3D clocks when Overdrive is enabled, otherwise it runs at the voltage flashed with vbios, i think that is a pretty nasty feature :/ sure it does give opportunity for better overclocks, but it should alert somewhere that it also changes the voltage :/

The best thing to do is find best stable OC and then flash it with proper voltage settings.

However, the 1.15v and Overdrive clocks don't kick in until windows is fully loaded, so i cant see a reason as to why would it just burn out as soon as you plugged in the adapter

I dont thing it will work, because for some of us riding the R2 train, afterburner locks up the computer :/

 

Ahhh ok, I really don't remember what clocks I had the card set at, but it was somewhere in the 800's/1090's? I guess to keep it safe maybe it would be best to flash it at 780/1050 with the proper voltage, that should keep another fire from happening :thumbsup:

 

Can't really say that the vBios caused this, because no1 else has reported dying cards :/
I think that the answer to your problem has more than just one variable, but i will however warn folks about tha auto-overvolting that happens once the OD is enabled...

I can make you a costum Overclocked and Undervolted vBios to your liking if you want ,

I'm running my cards 700/[email protected] and 700/[email protected] max load temps are 64/68/60 in GPU-Z after Crysis benchmark