M17x r3 - Wont power up on either battery or mains.

Ok, need help badly, was playing on my r3 when all of a sudden the power just went out.

Machine will not boot up at all on battery and if i plug the power lead into the machine the led on the lead goes off.

Quick google search suggests it is most likely a motherboard issue, but since I'm out of warranty I dont want to think what its gonna cost me if I send it back into Dell, so how much trouble am i looking at to get a new board and fit it myself?

And where would one get a reliable replacement board?

 

Replacing a motherboard is not difficult but it is a bit time consuming because you have to remove just about everything. If you haven't already, get the R3 Service Manual (there is a link in the first post on the R3 / R4 lounge). Take your time, group the screws with the components they came from, use anti-static precautions and you should be okay. If you don't feel okay take the computer and the new board, when you get it, to someone who knows what they are doing.

Even though your warranty has expired Dell will still sell you a motherboard.

 

Called up dell to get a replacement priced up, and apparently my motherboard is covered under the OEM warranty until Oct so theyre sending an engineer out to replace the board for free, result!

 

Good thing you're covered!

If you want to get more information about your dispatch you can check the status here.

Hope you get it fixed soon

 

Just a future reference for you if it happens again. The motherboard is most likely not the issue (although it could be) it's most likely just the powerjack. From the sounds of your issue where you plug in the power cord and everything goes dead on it that means it isn't grounded which generally means the grounding pin on the dc jack on the motherboard has broken. To have this professionally replaced is about $50 most places since they just charge you for an hour of labor. If you order a new power jack on ebay and have a friend who knows how to solder then it'll cost under $10 to fix. It's an upside downside situation though because the reason the powerjack went bad is normally one of two things

1. it just wore out from the strain of having the plug moved around over months or years of time.
In this case you just fixed your laptop for $0-$50.

2. There was something wrong with your motherboard and it was shorting and eventually got worse and burned out the grounding pin.
In this case you just wasted $0-$50 and your time because the new powerjack is going to work for anywhere from a few minutes to a few weeks until the motherboard burns it out as well.

Since they're replacing the entire thing for free this time it's a non issue but in the future if you're paying $200-500 for a new motherboard it's often worth replacing the power jack first even if it does end up being a waste of money.

 

Good result.

 

The plot thickens, engineer arrived, pulled the GPU and turns out my 560m has gone to the big scrap pile in the sky, machine powered up with no issues on the on board card so awaiting another visit to replace the card.

 

That's great to hear, hopefully everything will be solved with that!

 

Engineer came out with the new card but neglected to bring the thermal pack so had to pull the old one off the previous card.

Alarm bells start ringing when he seats the heatsink without cleaning the die or replacing the existing thermal paste.

Machine boots up, and as soon as im in i fire up HW Monitor and the GPU temp is up at 80+ which is way past the throttle point on a 560m.

The gpu fan at this point shows as 100% but is certainly not in use by the sounds of it.

He runs a diagnostic and at my request re pastes the GPU and reseats it.

GPU temp starts at 49 degrees this time which is normal but climbs constantly despite just being on the windows screen and gets up to 90 degrees before I suggest shutting it down to prevent dmg, once again asides the fan doing its diagnostic at startup it sits quietly and lets the gpu temp keep on climbing.

Engineer phones Dell and they say they'll call back to discuss further action with me within the next 24hrs

Not exactly chuffed with the results thus far, anybody with any advice/experience of similar issues care to chime in before I speak to tech support?

 

Hi, I'd say that the fan control on the MB has gone, maybe this was the original cause of the first card dying? And ask them for a new heatsink with all the new pads as well!

Good Luck

 

I will do, any of our Alienware reps care to chime in?

 

Further intrigue is afoot.

I switched the machine on and downloaded HWinfo and used it to manually switch the GPU fan on.

Fan kicked to life quite the thing, so its obviously nothing mechanical that is amiss, could it perhaps be an issues with a thermal sensor or vBios version on the new card?

PS On a related note, whats the max safe rpm for a m17x r3's GPU fan?

 

Support called back to troubleshoot the issue, had me update to Bios version A12 but no dice, engineer is to be dispatched again on Monday to replace the MB and Fan...

The saga continues :S

 

So engineer arrived today (a surprise as I was no expecting him until Monday), Mobo, fan and GPU in hand (but once again lacking the thermal kit)

Machine has developed another delightful symptom, as soon as the power cable is removed the machine suspends and wont come back on despite the battery claiming to be present and full and the lights staying on for about 2 minutes. This issue is pushed aside for the time being as secondary concern to the GPU fan.

Replaces the fan and and GPU, machine boots up but for some reason fails to detect the new card.

Motherboard is replaced, and we are rewarded with 8 bios beeps when startup is attempted.

(At this point the mothership is called for advice)

GPU is pulled and the machine posts but on attempt to start windows machine blue screens and now wont post at all even with the GPU removed altogether.

Service line advises the guy NOT to try the previous (2nd) GPU to eliminate the new (3rd) GPU as an issue.

Engineer to return Monday with ANOTHER GPU and Mobo and do the dance all over again.

Really losing faith by this point, as both engineers have blamed bad replacement components (100% failure rate across 3 components seems unlikely) and the latest guy didn't even bother to clean the GPU/CPU die before re-applying the thermal paste/pads when refitting the components (and once again fitted the heatsink the wrong way around on the first attempt).

At least the state it had previously been left in after the last visit I could have used HWinfo to control the fans and got a bit of playtime over the weekend, now all I have is an expensive paperweight until Monday.

Looked out my original memory sticks and my sata-USB adapter so I can refit the dimms/pull the HD and get the contents streamed over to another machine before Monday becuase I'm pretty sure my machine is going back to the factory at this point.

Any insight from the community would be appreciated at this point, cos I'm not even sure what to say to these guys anymore...

 

The only advice that I can give you is to wait and see the result this time, if it's the same then it's time to ask Dell for a replacement laptop.

 

Will they really replace a nearly 2 year old machine?

 

Yes, I've seen R2 owners get new machines

 

Oh well fingers crossed then, I could use an upgrade, and even the most entry level R4 is better than what I have at the moment

 

Well 3pm and the engineer promised for today has not materialised, emailed the tech support guy ive been dealing with to start discussing a replacement, as the on site engineers have thus far proved incompetent or unreliable.

Guess we'll see how that goes...

 

For me the on-site worked like this (twice). First I get a call quickly after the support rep says he is placing an engineer call. This is the engineer company to confirm a date/time. Then about 1 hour before the guy arrives he calls to confirm I am there. If you have had no calls then it's back to support again . Even if there is a parts problem they call and tell you...

Good Luck.

 

Send me a PM with your DPS number, I'll look into it and get back to you soon.

 

No idea what my dps number is, tech support desk is out of hours by now anyway, i'll call in again in the morning since both my emails seem to have been ignored thus far.

 

So after 3 new GPU's, 2 new system boards and 4 engineer visits it looks like i'm finally back in business.

Had a minor heart attack when the bios didnt pick up all 16Gig of my memory when I stuck it back in but looks like it was just an issue with the seating, other than that is looks like all systems are go

Thanks to everybody who took the time to interject or just listen to my whining

 

Good news (finally)!