Need help with an M17r2

I'm happily gaming along, and the m17 just shuts off. After waiting about 30 seconds, I press the power button, and hear a shrill noise for about five seconds (lights on the keyboard did illuminate during this time), and it shuts down again.

I noticed that the blue light on the power supply cord has gone out. I unplugged the PS from the wall, plug it back into the wall, and the blue light comes back on. But as soon as I plug it into the laptop, the blue light immediately goes out.

I just installed a brand new motherboard in it today. Once again, as soon as the power cord is plugged in, the blue light on the power cord line goes out.

Attempting to troubleshoot, I start removing parts one at a time, then plugging the power cord in to see if the blue light stays on. After removing the keyboard, the blue light on the power cord now stays illuminated.

So I'm fairly certain that the keyboard is at least playing a part in this situation.

But what really has me scratching my bean is shouldn't the laptop power up with just the keyboard removed? The battery is charged, the blue light is illuminated on the power supply cord, but I get nothing when pressing the power button. Could it be that the control strip is also bad? The only part currently not installed is the keyboard.

I'm considering buying a new keyboard and a new control strip, but hate to keep throwing part after part at it without knowing exactly what I should be buying.

Any thought/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Sounds like a short somewhere. The R2 will not power up without the keyboard removed. So that doesn't help in the trouble shooting. But When I benched the system as bare bones, I had to always have the keyboard plugged in. It's the one thing that HAS to be connected for the system to power up.

 

That's a very good thing to know, thanks for that.

I guess I'll strip it down to just the motherboard and keyboard and see if the power cord light stays on. If it does, start adding parts til I find the trouble maker.

Any other suggestions greatly appreciated.

DR650 SE, you *are* my hero!

It's amazing how one delicious little nugget of information can make all the difference. After reading your post, I removed the graphics card from my M17 and took a good look at it. There are two fried SMD components on it. Cautiously optimistic, I re-assembled it without the graphics card (but including the keyboard ) and to my delight, the blue light on the power cord stayed on. Previously, pushing the power button resulted in absolutely nothing happening. Imagine my elation when I was met with the old familiar sounds of the fans starting up, the keyboard lit, and the optical device did it's start up/eject thing. Then I was met with one long and two short POST fail beeps. I'd be willing to bet that, translated, those one long and two short beeps would mean "hey dummy, there's no graphics card installed".

Now here's the funny thing... I've been playing Diablo 3 lately (yeah... I know ), and a couple months back, there was a "Diablo killed the graphics card in my Alienware M17" thread on the Diablo 3 forums. I read it, and thought yeah right... how could software possibly kill a graphics card. Well, anyone care to guess what game I was playing when my card over heated and burned up? And that's exactly what happened to the guy that made the previously mentioned thread... graphics card melt down. Guess I'll have to go find that thread and see if he was on an M17r2 with a 4870 Radeon card.

Edit: I don't suppose there's a way I could get it to start up using on board graphics, is there? I'd like to get the BIOS updated to A10 and remove the old Radeon drivers before I throw the new GPU in it when it comes... speaking of which, I guess I better get reading the thread on what card I should get for it...

 

There's no integrated GPU on the M17x R2, unfortunately.

Drivers can be removed in safe mode after you install your new card, don't worry about that

As for a new graphics card, you have quite a few options here:
AMD 5870, AMD 6970, AMD 6990, GTX 580M, AMD 7970.
All of these are better than your 4870.

Also, that 4870 can be fixed, you might want to give it to someone that can give it a new life

EDIT: Do you only have one card? If not, you can take the other one and put it in the primary slot (swapping the heatsink of course) so you can use your laptop in the meantime.

 

Hey Katalin, thanks for the list of cards! That's exactly what I was trying to find.. a list of cards that would work. I've been looking at the 7970 threads, but they still seem a bit fussy for my tastes. I also looked at the 680m conversion kits on ebay, but 800 bucks would make me a single man. : /

Of the listed cards, which one would you recommend on a bang-for-the-buck basis? I'd like something that's a bit of an upgrade from the 4870 (and yeah, I only have the one 4870. Didn't pony up the cash for cross fire when I bought the system), without sending the wife out looking for a divorce lawyer.

Edit: I could bring the 4870 back to life myself (I have an SMD rework station) but the 4870 is a bit long in the tooth, and I might as well upgrade now that I have a valid reason to.

 

Best bang for the bucks would be, imho, 6970/6990 wich works very well on our R2

 

6990M or 580M/675M can float 350 or lower.

 

Just as a FYI, the 7970m issues exist only with Enduro. Not so much when going dedicated. It is still an expensive upgrade albeit not as much as the 680m but you might want to see if you would be happier spending (I don't know how much) more than the 6990m and getting far superior performance.