M17xR4 black screen 8 beeps - new gpu

hey there. so I have a M17xR3 that i swapped in a M17xR4 motherboard and upgraded to a GTX 980M GPU. everything was working fine. took a little bit of changing settings in a modded A11 bios. The 980m was recognized and actually used drivers just fine directly from nvidia. While i was fine tuning some bios settings to get it to where it is "recommended" for this setup, i am full UEFI win 10 os. I was trying to get disable SG and enable PEG with internal disabled. Usually id get my 8 beeps and black screen on startup. Id then remove the CMOS battery, put it back in, and the laptop will load right on up with the reset bios and id try again. WELL, i chose to ENABLE Legacy ROM. which popped up with the error that there was no mxm card detected? even though it was seeing it all the other times. i saved and exit and ever since then, i get the 8 beeps black screen.

removing the cmos and putting it back in does nothing. same with holding the power button for 30sec with it out. i reseated the gpu. replaced it with an old gpu. reseated the lcd connector. tried an external monitor. reseated EVERYTHING. even swapped back in my M17xR4 motherboard. NOTHING changed except with the M17xR3 mobo, i got no beeps, even when i took out the cmos battery. but always a black screen. i can not get past that black screen... so now i have the M17xR4 mobo back in. i have no clue where to go from here... EVERYTHING was working just fine until that 1 little change in bios.. is there ANY way to reset bios to factory bios version if i am unable to get past a black screen? any help would be amazing... thank you

 

Have you tried booting without the GPU?

If you tried without GPU and have reset bios , and still get 8 beeps, the lcd bad.

 

Same result. If the lcd is bad, wouldn't it still show on an external monitor?

 

Yes if running full UEFI it should boot with an external monitor. However if you've enabled legacy and saved that'll be why your getting the 8 beeps. Take the 980m out, do a cmos reset (needs to beep 5x on first boot to confirm its reset) then on second boot you should be able to get back into bios and disable legacy.

Javers

 

I still get the 8 beeps with the 980m out and cmos reset

 

Since you have the magical combination 'LVDS panel + Kepler/Maxwell + PEG' you might want to look into edid bricking as a possible culprit.

Assembled some tools and guide for verification and fixing the issue here. Not all Alienwares permit booting with a corrupt edid, so with these systems a working panel and hot-swap is necessary; boot with working lcd, swap in bricked lcd, fix edid and reboot.

 

i just ordered a replacement LCD screen and cable... so we will see if that works... it just seems like with these alienwares, when one thing breaks, the techs end up replacing the lcd screen and mobo about 3 times before one finally works... reminds me why i like desktops much better.. lol

 

i had a similar issue but, i have the 120hz screen that is required to disable the iGPU. it may be possible to disable the iGPU with the non 120hz eDP screen via bios/uefi but, i'm not knowledgeable on that. i found mine to be a settings issue once i cleared the CMOS a few times with some trial and error and posted about it here.

Unfortunately unlike other forums i am unable to locate a "threads you have created" under my own profile to look at the threads i created last year or the year prior when i figured it out, to link here.

 

It's under ' Postings', at the very bottom of the page:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/search/member?user_id=457326&content=thread

 

here we go:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m17x-r4-2-dchg2-screens-in-a-row-and-beep-codes.798960/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m17x-r4-8-beeps-after-installing-dhcg2.798234/