Power brick problem

I'm having a bit of a challenge with my power brick-

Originally I bought a m17x r1 with Crossfire ATI's. It came with the 240 watt mega-brick for power.

I then purchased an m17x r2 with a single ATI card. It came with the smaller 140 watt (or however much) power brick.

I transferred my dual cards to my r2 since it has the i7 820m processor. I started using by original large power brick with this system so the crossfire cards would get enough juice. My r2 works great and things are swell.

Now, I wanted to piece my r1 back together to use for an extra system. It has a single ATI 4870 in it. Whenever I boot up, it screams that the wrong power adapter is plugged in, and that not enough power is being produced. It seems like it should be fine since it is a single card, not crossfire.

So...
1) Is this a legacy error message on the r1, and if so how can I get rid of it and make the machine happy with the smaller Alienware power brick.

2) or...is the system legitimately not getting enough power, why is that, and I should just order an additional 240w brick

Thanks!

 

you should check the bios, there's an option about "wrong power adapter".

 

I am on bios A04. I can see below that it lists my adapter being 150w (I have the small one plugged in atm) but I cannot get down to that area or change any of those settings on that menu aside from date and time.

Thoughts?

 

updated to A04 bios and right after that I started getting that exact message. Never before got it bugging me. Is it right? My power adapter is not working properly? Or could it be an error on A04 Bios? (I'm using the original 240w power adapter that came with my M17x r1 btw)

 

Yeah this is crazy. There has to be a solution to editing that BIOS command or something. With only one 4870 in the system I can't see why a single 150W charger should not supply all I need.

 

Open Bios

Should be a heading "power"

A/C adapter rating = 240 watts (this will be blue) and probably not something you can change.

You may be able to disable the warning in the same submenu. I understand your logic it makes sense but would still check with alienware in case there is something internal that is different between systems shipped with 140 vs 240 chargers.

Maybe there is a way to flash the bios to change the A/C adaptor rating?

 

Yup, that text is blue and locked.

I tried flashing from A02 to A04 hoping I could disable the warning, but no such luck.

 

Probably best bet is to just order the 240 watt and sell the 140 on ebay.