M17x R2 Black screen, won't boot

Hi,

I have an M17xR2 w/dual ATI 4870s, i7 620, that has been running fine for the last couple of years. Yesterday I tried reviving it from sleep mode and all I get is a black screen with all the AlienFX lights but nothing else. I think I have the A08 BIOS.

When the computer turns on, all of the lights turn on and it runs for a few seconds and then turns off, then starts back up again with all the lights and stays on - but nothing ever displays on the screen. I get no beeps, no other sounds, but the "alien head" on the front lid and the power button never light up. The only thing that does respond is Fn+F12 (T-pad) to turn off the light surrounding the touchpad area. Other than that all I can do is a hard shutdown by holding the power button.

I've tried restarting it several times with no change. I've tried removing the battery and holding the power button for 30 seconds to reset the BIOS, unplugging and replugging the power cord, removing and reseating the RAM, nothing has made any difference.

I opened a topic over on the Dell support board, they asked me to do an LCD test in BIOS, but I can't because it never shows me anything on screen. They also had me boot it into BIST, which didn't do anything except the fans ran louder and stayed steady at startup - but still nothing on screen. I also tried connecting an external monitor, again nothing at all.

Another question was if the SCROLL, NUM, or CAPS indicators were illuminated - they are not. Pressing those buttons doesn't light them either. I can't tell for sure because I can't see anything on a screen, but it seems like it's not even attempting to actually boot up. There's power and lights but nothing else. Anybody familiar with this issue or what it might be, or anything else I can try to diagnose/fix it?

I searched for other similar issues on the support forum and found a couple that seem to be exactly the same problem, but no solutions were posted.

 

i'm no pro but it sounds like the motherboard could be bad. i'd try doing a power drain and then see if it starts

 

Possibly corrupted BIOS or faulty motherboard. Unplug the power cable from the back of the notebook, and pull all the batteries (the big battery from the bottom and the button battery from inside next to the RAM) like tony says. Then hold the power button down for 30 seconds. Then put the batteries back in but don't plug the AC adapter back into the machine just yet. Try and see if it will start up just on battery power.

 

After you try the above post suggestion and if it doesn't work you may need to do a blind flash. Heres a guide Alienware M17x-R2 A10 BIOS Unlocked OC Options

 

Check out this troubleshooting. If none of that works then the issue might rely on the motherboard.

Troubleshooting No POST issues - Alienware Live from the Lab - YouTube

 

Hi,

Thanks for your responses. I was able to make some progress, I did another power drain restart but this time disconnected the CMOS battery. Now it boots up and is generally working, but some of the taskbar and other configurations are not the same as they were - I assume this is due to the CMOS/BIOS reset. I didn't have time to fully check it out, but at least it's working.

One sign that all is not well however is I tried putting it into sleep mode, and after "awakening" it was black screen and running fans but otherwise totally unresponsive again. I had to do another hard shutdown w/ power button, but at least it restarted afterwards. I need to do some more tests, I'm happy that it doesn't seem to be bricked but I'm not sure it's totally healthy either. For the time being I just left it running with the screen saver on.

 

I never do sleep or hibernate anyway. Too much stress on my CCFL screen. I just set the screen to dim after 5 minutes and leave my system on for as long as I'm using it.