M17x R2 dead! :(

Had the laptop for 1-2 years and had no problems. was using it rarely as i already own an Aurora M9700 as well as another HP that was taking the beating at work and kept my pride and joy for showing off

So to cut the long story short i bought Diablo 3 which i got the chance to test for an hour and everything was fine. I sadly borrowed my laptop to my brother who is the number one destroyer of ANYTHING you can imagine. I made clear to him that he had to use the laptop only in an air conditioned area due to the high outside heat (40 Celsius), and as a MUST he had to have the laptop sitting on the NZXT cooling pad at full speed. I also told him to take breaks every 1-2 hours and frequently to check gpu card temps with alt-tab and the integrated monitoring software i had installed. Apparently he took no breaks, and last night he must' ve used the laptop with ambient temps around 30 Celsius for at least 6 hours. Today he used it for another 7 hours 2 of which he had it in air conditioned room and the other 5 on the NZXT pad. While he was playing with all setting at high the power of the laptop went of all of a sudden and then it would not power on at all. I have to admit that i was in the same room when it happened and there was no bad smell, the laptop was pretty cool, the PSU was a little warm but normal.

So i collected the laptop in mint but not operating condition after 18 hours and it is DEAD

This is what i did so far without any effect:

1. I used a multimeter to measure the PSU voltage and i get a constant 18.2V.
2. The battery is full according to the LED indicator on the bottom.
3. The laptop won't power from the battery.
4. Removed the battery and connected the PSU to power on. I hear a screech for a fraction of a second and nothing. No lights or anything. Haven't noticed the fans moving or anything.
5. I removed the CMOS battery for a few minutes according to some troubleshooting tutorial i read somewhere and drained the voltage off the unit by pressing the power button for a minute, but still nothing.

I am out of ideas and pretty pissed as i made a thought in the morning that if something went wrong i'd buy a pair of 5870's or 6990's, and an 920xm, but now that i am stuck and have to face this thought for real i am trying to find a solution to avoid a big hole in my pocket.

I therefore hope that someone on here has the experience to help me out as there is no official Alienware distributor over here to take it for a repair. i got the laptop off eBay a few years ago and now i a pretty stuck into fixing it myself.

HHHHHHHHEEEEEEELLLLLLLLPPPPPPPPPPP

 

sounds like the mobo is dead, if that is the case i'm sorry to hear that for you man, not much you can do if it has gone expect either part out the machine or get a new mobo for it, hopefully it will be something simpler but with you describing the processes you have done to try and get it to turn on with no avail it looks like the mobo is at fault

 

Yeah, I unfortunately fear that it could be the motherboard as well. The fact that the fans aren't coming on and their are no beeps could be the motherboard (or potentially the CPU, but I think I'd start with the motherboard first). I will occasionally see them for sale on e-bay.

Good luck to you.

 

yeah, i see them on Ebay too but how can i be sure it's that and not a GPU or CPU?
Any chance i can know before i start spending on parts and then figure out it's not the mobo? When i press power button with the AC adapter on i hear a screech which sounds more like an electricity/current short. How is this possible? I sure hope it's just the mobo or what if everything has been fried somehow? It is very strange the way it happened after 6-7 hours. I didn't even spend more than 100 hours the whole time i had this laptop.

Greywolf, where did you get those 6000 series from?

 

Yup unfortunatly sounds like the mobo went south...

Do our AW have a separate circuit as voltage regulator or is it all embended on the motherboard?

i'm asking this becouse some laptop has separate circuit that can be replaced as a stand alone replacement instead of the whole mobo

 

Do you guys think that by replacing the mobo it will get fixed or am i looking at other components being damaged and needing replacement?

 

tb303,

I believe that Greywolf got the point. The fact that the devices connected to the mobo don't receive any power, point towards the mobo as the origin of the problem. Of course there is no 100% safe answer unless you have the various component to test out one by one in order to rule out other things, wich is not the case unfortunatly

 

Use the other laptops you own (assuming the HP is the correct socket type) to teat the cpu, and ram.

18.2v on the PSU is low. It should be around 19.5 +/- 0.1-0.4 I'm not sure what that means. You might have a faulty multimeter.

What you should do is test the PSU breaker. Take a paper clip and short out the leads on the PSU. Be extremely careful to not short the ID cable. If the paper clip welds itself to the connector, then the PSU is not the problem (meaning it's providing the correct current) - the breaker will also trip.

The M17x R2 does not have a separate board for power regulation. My best guess is the motherboard is dead. I fried the motherboard on mine almost a year ago. Your symptoms are identical to mine. I was able to pick up a replacement board on ebay for $300.

Unless you have another MXM 3.0 dell laptop or a Clevo computer, there is no way to test the video cards. But I'd be surprised if they are fried.

What you can do to rule them out though, is remove them and try booting the computer without the video cards - or try each card one by one in the master slot.

From what you've described, I don't think your brother killed it by heat. If it was on the cooling pad while he was playing it, there was no way it was not getting enough ventilation and 30-40C ambient air is A LOT cooler than the 80-90C temps in the computer. Cooling power will not be considerably diminished by running 30-40C air through the heatsinks versus 25C air. Whens the last time you took it apart and cleaned out the heatsinks?

I think something on the motherboard was already faulty and due to the simple fact your brother played it A LOT made if finally decide to fail. 13 hours at full load.

That's not bad for the laptop - if all the components aren't faulty. My guess is if you used it a lot more rather than never touching it, the motherboard would have fried ages ago under your hand.

Point being from what you described I don't think it's your brother's fault.

 

yep, i ruled out the fact it was his fault as he offered to buy me a new one which i obviously refused. he's my brother! so i reckon i should be getting a replacement mobo as the HP is ancient too. dont you think that's the best thing to do?

short the plug somehow you mean?
that is the inside and the outside of the cylinder but not the one on the inside that looks like a needle right?
because when i measured the voltage i just used the red end on the inside wall of the cylindrical plug without touching the needle on the inside of the plug and then used the black end on the outside of the plug.

how is all the above possible? 3 hdd's, 480w psu, 12gb ram, CFX 2gb AMD 6990 + 6970 FTW! (3GPU's) ? can you explain please? and i'd be grateful if you had provided the links to the mods as well as the source of the components? it's 1:10am here GMT+2 so i need to hit the sack and wake up fresh to source a new mobo.

 

Three hard drives - two in the regular bays and one is in the disk drive bay. The slot loading bluray drive I converted to external.

This link is the meat of the discussion on the 480 watt PSU mod i came up with. It is necessary with the overclocks I have on my gpu's and cpu. (cpu is actually at 3.4ghz)

You can put at least 16gb of RAM in the R2. Two 8gb sticks. I currently have a 8gb stick + a 4gb stick.

CFX 6990m with 6970m. Not three gpu's. Only 2. The 6990m is the same as a desktop 6870 and the desktop 6970m is the same as a desktop 6850. I upgraded to CFX 6970m's - then upped that to one 6990m plus one 6970. Long story. The same link I provided before is the entire topic on how it's done. Read from page one.

And yeah the middle pin is the ID cable.

 

holy SH%$ man!
i didn't know there was so much potential on the R2.
Now i need to get it sorted asap!!!
I'll be reading your link during the day at work.
Is there any cheap source to get me pair of those 6000 series, a 920xm, and the mobo replacement?

 

for the 920xm i sugest you to have a look at laptopmonkey. I (and other nbr members) have purcheased mine from them under 400 bucks. Now it should cost even less. For the cards i'm not so sure, somebody will chime in for it. I had mine from a forum member that unfortunatly doesn't sell them any more.
Mobo can be found on e bay, for example m17x R2 motherboard | eBay

 

For the GPU's I'd go with upgradeyourlaptop on e-bay. They are the official Eurocom ebay store and can provide you with all the components you'll need. If you end up buying two 6970/6990's from them, then make sure that they include the x-bracket, the SCREWS (very important),and the crossfire cable...that should get you everything you need to get them up and running.

As far as the CPU, I completely agree with Cpt on this one. Laptopmonkey is fantastic, great to work with and stands by his products, I highly recommend him as well.

As far as the motherboard I think again e-bay will be your best bet.

Good luck to you!

 

my warranty on my R2 ends in september, i'll better extend it for another 3 years ....good luck wih reincarnating it sir

 

Hi there!

Thanks a lot for your suggestions guys.
I guess i am going the following root and have my fingers crossed i will be able to get the laptop running again.

1. Mobo replacement
2. 920XM upgrade.
3. 5870m Crossfire

I think that the 5870s are easier to install without any mods, cheaper, and i am not an extreme player either.
Also here is always very hot and i expect the 6000 series to put out more heat. What do you guys think?
Is there anything else required to run the 5870s?
I already have 4870s installed. Do i need a different xfire cable? PSU is a 240W.
Please tell me what you think and what else i might require.
I will have to replace the RAM too, now that i think about it to get me some 1333mhz or faster or maybe even better 16gb.

 

Hi tb303,

If you have the 240w PSU i think you are good to go. Someone here has to confirm that the heat spreader for the 4870s are compatible with the 5870s, but given that we can get 6970s, 6990s, and now ever 7970s in the R2 I think you are safe. Also, when you order those cards make sure the seller knows about the Cross Brace and the screws you will need. (as Greywolf so gently put it ).

Also make sure you have back up thermal grease/paste and thermal pads (there are many threads on this).

And given how cheap RAM is, 16gb is worth it if you are running one or two virtual machines in tandem with gaming.

 

supposedly i am getting the cards with the heatsinks installed, which i will obviously remove to put some good aftermarket thermal paste and then back on. The crossfire cable is included but anyhow i already have it from the 4870s. I don't know about the screws though. Are they different from the 4870 ones? Why should i be paying attention to the screws? I am trying to find an r2 5870s installation thread but when i use the "search this forum" i always get - Could not find phrase 'invalid_search_query'.

 

Call dell to try to extend the guaranty, mine was terminated a year ago, called them, and they offererd a 3 years extention, counting from the day it finished for just 150 euros, and they solved the problem.

 

i am in Cyprus, can't do that

 

Hey TB. I just got your PM. Sounds like everyone here answered your question. The issues I've had with my R2 were either directly related to the video card and easy to identify or related to the PSU and were temporary as a power drain would fix it. Many of the replies you've received are from R2 experts so I would follow their advice.

If I had to offer some advice of my own, it would be this....Time to buy a M18X or M17Xr4. You're probably going to have to replace the mobo for sure and it sounds like you are interested in upgrading GPUs and CPU. All of this can be done, but if I were in your shoes I'd start spec'ing out a new M18X with a couple 7970s or 680s (when they come out). I love my R2, but if it died and was out of warranty I'd be looking at a new model.

 

So you mean you didn't exactly have the same problem as me?
I sure hope the experts above made the right autopsy and pointed me to the direction of the mobo replacement. I'm saying this because indeed i love my m17x-r2. I am planning more upgrades as soon as i get it back up and running.

I just bought the following:

1 x Replacement motherboard (1 week old)
2 x 6970m Xfire enabled (Clevo) (1 week old)
1 x 920xm

Screws and x-clamps for GPUs according to the experts above are included.
Seller specified that he included 2 xfire cables (one modified) from an m18x however being a little short i might want to buy a longer one.
Anyone having a spare one he could sell me?

 

Correct. I never had a problem that indicated a complete power failure for a sustained period of time. The only time I had similar problems to what you experienced I was able to fix it by completely draining the power on the laptop and unplugging the PSU for 30 seconds. This was caused by my CF 6990s drawing too much power and tripping the PSU. You may also become accustomed to this once you install of those upgrades. You should definitely consider undervolting those cards once you install them or you will certainly run into power issues. Unless you do the 480watt PSU mod.

Edit: Make sure you follow this guide for upgrading to 6970s (not sure if anyone mentioned this yet). http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-6990-your-m17x-r2-single-gpu-crossfirex.html

It has everything in it from installation to vbios flashing to undervolting. But it's longer than the bible so good luck.

 

Crossfire Cable:
CROSSFIRE CABLE for AMD HD6970M; HD6970M; HD5870 MXM Modules; 310mm (12.4") long | eBay

you can also check the NBR Marketplace

 

i saw that, but they're asking 70 usd on shipping

 

try mxm upgrade:
MXM Upgrade Home Page

 

any ideas where i could get thermal pads guys? i need 0.5mm or 1.0mm ? i need to buy them now to be ready. also what size? Any link available please?