M17X R1 will not power on.

I'm having the same issue as the guy in this thread I've found http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/468498-area-51-m17x-will-not-power.html. I havn't used my M17X in two weeks so I assumed the battery was dead.

I noticed when I place my ac plug into my laptop the LED light on the plug goes out, which I havn't found a cause for (possible short circuit?).
When I push the button on my battery I get all lights and I've already tried removing the battery and holding the power button for 20 seconds which didnt work either.

Are there any other trouble shooting options?

EDIT Going back to depo, after the tech was done replacing the motherboard we get to turn it on. Smoke started pouring out of the right gpu grill.

 

you're defenatly having hardware issues, might be the power supply or the motherboard, only thing left to do is call dell for help....

 

Try a different power outlet. In my R1 240W PSU I had this issue as well, I had to disconnect the PSU for 2-minutes, try a different outlet and this corrected the problem. never lost power, just as you suggested, sometimes it would not turn on. Eventually I called up tech support and they sent me a new PSU which is what I suggest you do. Make sure the 3-prong is also seated firmly in the PSU, my first PSU's 3 prong cable seemed to be molded incorrectly and it was loose.

 

It turned out to be my motherboard, tech service wasnt as bad as people say it is (if you can get past their accent'), they have a replacement motherboard right now and someones coming over. I'm suprised and happy their service is literally next day.

EDIT I take that back, tech service is horrible when you get two idiots in a row that mistakenly hang up on you during hold.

 

yup, I believe even the basic warranty service has nbd after diagnostics. I had basic on my r1 and had a new psu nbd'd to me after a phone conversation. hope your lappy gets fixed! people don't realize that the warranty pays for itself with just a few nbd services in shipping charges alone.

 

Dell/alienware has one of the most excellent services out there

 

demand an upgrade.. i got my r2 after 7 months from gettting my r1! r1 is soo crap compared to r2

 

The Tech just got done replacing my motherboard, he was a real nice guy - 40 years working with computers. We get to the point where we get to turn it on to see if it boots and suddenly smoke from the right gpu grill, so it seems like mines going back to depo.

 

smoke? wow, that's serisouly some Hollywood stuff right there haha.

 

Alien race is billions of years older than ours, it takes more than 40years of experience to handle their spaceships, lol.

Seriously though, regardless of their experience level, the techs can't help much here dealing with a relatively new system which most of them never touched before.
In my case 3 out of 4 techs honestly admitted that they never seen M17X before and were glad to be able to just stand and watch. Only one guy (the best of their local department) claimed he did 1-2 mobo replacements already, but in the end was just observing as well.

When dealing with high-end gaming laptops, I think it's a must for each and everyone of us to learn how to maintain and troubleshoot our lappies to avoid those frustrating moments.

 

I observed him take it apart and put it back together, so he knew what he was doing, he had even worked with a couple m17xs before mine so he knew what he was doing. Thats suprising from a guy that looked like he was in his 70s.

One of my gpus was probably really faulty and it had fried my motherboard or something, but I guess it doesnt matter now, its going back to depo regardless.

 

+1 to you sir(if I could rep you again). everyone should know how to tear down their own system if they are at all concerned about keeping it working with minnimal downtime.

 

Shipping box just arrived, I can't place the battery (which is fully charged) in my M17X R1 without hearing crackling/popping noises and smelling smoke.

The only problem with this is the tech that stopped by spent two hours just getting to the motherboard to replace it, if the majority of the techs out there havn't even worked with these laptops or know how to tear them down, how are the consumers going to with no previous experience considering the laptops are still new tech to some.

If you can build the M17X back together from bare bones more power to you, but I doubt Dell will ship the replacement parts to you instead of the in-Home tech.

 

there are many examples of exactly this. I even had my CS rep prepared to order me new GPU's and let me rip my old ones out to send back.

 

So if you know how to replace a part they will ship you the replacement? Wouldnt the in-Home tech be the insurance that lets Dell know theres an issue in the first place with the laptop?

 

You can accept the part with the tech but as soon as he/she arrives tell him/her that you'll do the job yourself. You can either dismiss the person (in that case if there's a broken part that has to be shipped back to Dell, you'll be given the box for it with the label and will have to call UPS for a pickup) or let the person watch you do it and so that at the end he/she will take the broken part away.

 

I have to agree 100% with Aikimox, the couple tech's I have had to deal with were a joke to put in very nicely. The first one broke a few things inside the computer and couldn't remember how to reassemble the computer on top of refusing to reapply thermal paste to my cpu saying "it didn't need it" after smearing the paste. The second tech may have been 20 and refused to do anything more than necessary he took it apart(took about 3 hours for him to do that) and decided he needed to take the screen off to replace a heat sink??? Either way at the very least know your machine and watch the tech's like a hawk or you may end up with a jacked computer and the tech stating they didn't do anything leaving it on you.

 

All I know is, I have the Premium warranty, and I had 2 TS and my main CS reps tell me that replacing the parts by myself was fine, I explained to them that the in-home tech wasn't necessary since I had taken apart many M17x's. I would assume that if you break something you buy it applies, but I just didn't ask since I wasn't concerned about breaking something

 

Thanks Aikimox, this answered my question.

 

This is the exact same issue I had aside from the Bar-B-Que'd GPU & the very reason I now have an R2.