Two Alienware M17x r2 Motherboards, same symptoms! :(

Hey folks,

Newbie here but am rather experienced in Hardware/IT in General. I hope you guys can help given I keep running into this area when googling things.

Strap in with ya fav beverage because this is a bit of a long one.

I got interested once again in buying spares and refurbing, and until now it's gone well with good profit margins, I started looking into these Alienware Laptops and thought it'd be a breeze. Boy was I wrong!

Good ol Dell Specs here mean I am now very well spent deep in a PC I quickly grew to love and hate despite it's age.

It was an upgraded unit, standard TFT 17" display, no webcam, 500GB Crucial SSD + 500GB HDD in bay 2, i7 720 and an AMD Radeon HD 7950m GPU. Pretty jamming machine, I thought.

Original listing on FleaBay said it simply wouldn't boot and display anything on screen, but the lights would come on the keyboard. So, I thought "Ah, probably GPU reflow will do".

I got the hefty thing delivered and straight away, GPU errors per the usual blinking lights.
I had everything out on a test bench at this stage, and whilst testing, the first motherboard just suddenly shut off and would not turn on at all! Battery dead I assumed, plugged in PSU on it's own and still no juice. Disconnected GPU, RAM, all other parts except CPU and still no life.
PSU is an original Flextronics chunky boy and the blue light remains lit when plugged into the motherboard, port has absolutely no play in it and did charge a battery until this happened, so I am assuming it simply can't be a cold solder joint but possibly BIOS or CPU Related.

I quickly hopped back on Fleabay and could have cried to find out the only Motherboard available are as much as I paid for the machine, £300+. Found a decent seller from Germany who had one and budged down to £220 including shipping. Nice!

When this replacement motherboard came, I reflowed the GPU again, fit everything back up on a tech bench with the same components and PSU from the other now presumed dead motherboard and it worked a treat.
Got it all fitted back in the case, installed Windows 10 and off to the races I went, until the GPU Started Overheating, one set of thermal pads later, and Fan Controller Software and it chilled around the 55-60 degree C mark with CPU remaining stable.

One test night later, no issues, I shut it down and went to bed. Came back the next night to once again use the PC and No display at all, no GPU errors. I reflowed the GPU yet again, still no juice.
Tried CMOS Reset, still nothing. And to top it off, in amongst all this testing I turned it off after pressing the power button to turn it on in quick succession (as I do all machines when testing if the symptom rears it's head upon power up), lo and behold, this second motherboard has now considered itself bricked. Absolutely NO life at all on a full battery and with PSU plugged in.
Again, stripped all components so just CPU and PSU plugged in, no juice. WTF?

I'm at a whits end here, desperate to get this thing working or at least be able to call it quits and part everything out, It's cost me a good £600 in buying and parts so far and with GPU Prices remaining sky high I really don't want to plow too much more into this.

If anyone has any tips for "reviving"/troubleshooting these boards and or a best route for upgrading/replacing GPU/CPU I would really appreciate it at this stage.

My only thoughts are to perhaps try a different CPU and GPU combination, but again when they worked, it was a decently stable machine, with the exception it would occasionally blue screen when trying to read temp sensors for some reason. Maybe that's a hint?

At this stage, I don't even care about selling it if I can at least get something usable, it'd be nice to have a little gaming PC and whilst I loathe Dell devices, I do jam with Alienware's vibes. They look the part

 

Well if two boards are behaving the same way with the same GPU, I would start looking at replacing the GPU. If it is the 5870M it is likely they are tired by now and may be starting to fail.

Edit: what is 7950m? Never heard of this GPU. If it is 7970M, early models liked to die.

 

Sorry, memory fails me.
All I know for sure is it's one of the 79 series, Blue Dell board that doesn't do brightness once it boots into Windows 10.
It's just weird that after reflow it worked but then died and completely shut off the motherboard? Is that a common symptom for these R2s to just not turn on if GPU is shafted? Not even the no GPU found errors?

Also, do you have suggestions for a decent GPU for these R2s that would be somewhat compatible? Don't mind vBIOS modding but I have no MXM devices to pre flash the card into the machine so it'd need to at least boot in the R2.

 

Clevo 8970M is the best card you can put into the M17x R2. It has native fan control and you can use newest drivers, but brightness will be stuck at max. If you want dual 8970M you will be limited to driver version 17.3.3. The Dell R9 M290X and MSI R9 M290X/8970M do not have native fan control so don’t buy those.

 

Right.
I am sitting patiently awaiting further reasonably priced GPUs to show up on fleabay at the moment... Thank you for your pointers @Raidriar.

I once again reflowed the GPU so it should at least spring some life into the machine, it's been stood off for the last 3 days. After reflow, still absolutely no sign of life.

No lights when charging (charger plug is blue though, so it's not shorting or behaving weirdly).
Interestingly in the 3 days it's been stood, the battery has gone from a full charge to nothing at all on it's own? (The battery is okay, I got 2 hours use on a full charge when it did work)

Double checked all connections, even tried booting with the hidden button on the motherboard, still no life both when on just AC, AC with the battery installed.

The GPU when the machine booted never showed any lines, temps were fine using manual fan control, just an occasional blue screen because of manual fan control.
The only things I can seriously think of this being are CPU or RAM based issues, but RAM would still boot but no post so must be CPU???

I'm getting increasingly frustrated at my £500 paperweight here.

 

It’s always a gamble buying broken machines. Don’t risk more than you’re willing to lose

 

Well, yes, that's why I brought it. It's more so the fact I cannot get it working.

 

Update:
Went and brought another 8970M 4gb (Dell 109-c79957-00a_02) which I believe should work with this Laptop, still no beans. Both on AC and on Battery + AC with everything connected as normal, still absolutely no life from the machine.

It must be either RAM or CPU at this stage.... Surely 2x GPUs wouldn't be showing the same issue (Seller claimed this one worked just fine...)

I get the same behaviour if I remove all the RAM still, so my only other thought is to buy perhaps a cheaper CPU to test with and if that works then source a 920XM, I guess.

 

Update again:
Sat in front of me right now is both motherboards, both GPUs, and all the components.

On just the AC Adapter Pushing the little button on the motherboard itself: With nothing but CPU installed, no beans. Keyboard + CPU: No beans. RAM installed too, no beans, HDDs installed, no beans.
Button panel installed, still no beans. Battery installed, no beans.

Going to try replacing the AC Adapter. See if that does the trick. Weirdly it does seem to charge the battery though???

Edit: Okay Please someone assist. It's finally now "glowing" when charging using the AC adapter but if I push the button, the charging light just goes off. And never returns, unless I unplug the battery and AC again and replug them in. WTF

 

This might not be it but sometimes when there has been a lot of work done the flat flex for the media bar and power button sometimes can go bad which would prevent the machine from turning on as that happened to me once. To get two dead boards in a row is suspect that something else is not right or outright dead.

 

In my experience with the r1/r2 m17x I've had similar issues as you with no powers in the past and i went as far as ordering multiple motherboards/gpus/power button assemblies and nothing fixed it. What my problem ended up being for my computer it would turn on black screen keyboard lit up and shut right down no matter the config. My issue was actually tracked down to be a faulty keyboard. After replacing the keyboard all of the issue have gone away. I have also experienced the same issues on an r1 with a touchpad ribbon cable as well. So be sure your ribbon cables are not damaged and if they are or you can't tell try to get a hold of another keyboard and swap out with your current one. My main m17x R1 is setup with an intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300 and Crossfire AMD HD 5870's, 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz, 500GB Samsung 860 Evo SSD. I am able to play quite a few of my favorite games even with this old computer and the ones that support crossfire run at even higher settings. I did have to depin the gpu fans to make them full speed at all times as the 5870's can't control the fans on their own for some reason. I can show you how to fully setup an r1 to run windows 8.1 with all the latest drivers and have everything work like it was factory sold. Even the alienware comand center will work and RGB aura etc. just lmk

 

I also had this problem with my M17x R2. I had bought this second hand keyboard for it. It turned out to be for either the R3 or R4 and then the machine would not charge when I used the power brick. I spend money on a new MB and even a new Power brick. Nothing worked. I then read about that keyboard thing and I got a keyboard for the R2 system. Wuptiiii! and my machine would work as new.

Man I spent some bucks on learning about that....

 

Interesting! I did manage to get the command center working quite well with Windows 10 before the machine died and I went down this loop. It's been sat on a shelf the last few months since I've been busy, so sorry for not replying sooner! The ribbon cables have seen better days, as had the Keyboard Ribbon Cable. Guess I should attempt replacing both and then testing again.

 

Very glad to hear you guys fixed them with ribbon cables as I did. A faulty keyboard or faulty trackpad ribbon cable will cause the no boot no charge issue as you stated. It is crazy that just a keyboard or trackpad cable can cause so many power issues.

 

Just to put in my findings from the schematics of the M17x R2,tested and confirmed from my own M17x R2 troublshooting woes, these R2 boards have a mains input cutout switch circuit which, without a keyboard connected, will close the main input mosfet gates preventing the board from getting any DC jack power, connecting the keyboard will complete this circuit and open the mosfet gates allowing the system to get power. If you power on the system from the charger only and it boots, remove the keyboard and you will find the system will shut off.

Here is a picture of that area, +DCIN_JACK on the left side is your DC jack/charger port which comes into the first power mosfet PQ602. On PQ602 you have the gate (turn mosfet on or off) on pin 5, that goes down to the ACOFF# circuit which will detect if the keyboard (KB_DET#) and Trackpad (TPDET#_ACOFF) are connected, if they are connected then it will allow the system to get power, if they are not detected then the gate stays closed and No power gets through. This is why the keyboard and trackpad can relate to power issues. I also found this because I had 2x boards with the same issue. Hopefully it is usefull to others too.

 

I am literally so glad the finding of what I found has led to this John. If only people back in 2010 would of had this information I wonder how many motherboards were replaced or computers were tossed over a failing keyboard ribbon cable or trackpad cable?

 

This guy on YouTube found it too and worked out how to bypass it so the gate is always open, very helpfull when trying to troubleshoot other issues.
He is fixing some other issue:

 

You sir, may have just found the golden ticket!

Just a quick update for everyone: @Drammar09 no, I purchased a new power ribbon and the machine behaves the exact same way it always has done since this issue has come about.

Power lights come on the main alien on the power bar, and on the back of the monitor lid when the charger is plugged in, but upon pressing the power button, no juice at all. Upon leaving the machine plugged in for quite some time, it seemed to get warm, but after checking the battery it appears it isn't even attempting to charge. Checked this with a multimeter and confirmed result.
In my case, it appears that the machine was running on battery till the battery completely died. Weirdly the keyboard and all it's RGB did work, so it must have just broken the ribbon cable in the right pins to KO the power.

I have ordered a replacement keyboard from Germany that is used but working, it should be here within the next 2 weeks. I will update this thread with my outcome.

If this works I will also further update with dual 7980Ms in Xfire. Fingers crossed!

 

When I was dealing with this first like you are now I had 3 m17x r1 so I would use the others to charge my battery. That was the only way I was able to even get the system to power on. The ribbon cable for the keyboard and keyboards RGB are 2 different cables and both are not replaceable you have to buy an entire keyboard for the keyboard fix. But with the touch pad you can just replace the touch pads cable instead of having to buy an entire touch pad to fix this no power issue. Its usually either the keyboard cable usually is to blame or the touch pad cable in my findings.

 

Hey bud,

Replacement keyboard came today, ribbons seem to be in similar condition to my original, no major kinks, bends or otherwise tell tale signs of damage. No juice in either, just a blinking flashing alien light indicating it's at least charging.

Touchpad ribbon is in good condition and again I remember clearly this working. WTF is wrong

I am not giving in this easily... It's got to be something stupid

 

I'd need to properly follow that diagram vs one of my boards (I have 2 with the same issue from this machine, hence I know it's not a mobo issue)

My Qs for you guys @Drammar09 and @Johndill :

Attached is a slightly annotated image from the above video, since I'm not entirely diagram literate until I inspect and trace myself on a board, would I be right in saying this is a 2 wire fix then?

Assuming bypass for both KB and Trackpad AC_OFF in this case, I'd suppose as a "permanent" fix 2 20awg patches across these to trick the mobos into thinking the above items are both permanently attached to the machine resolves it, so in that photo, is blue looking correct, and where do those red points go to?

I'm thinking if we can properly annotate this as well as the diagram, and throw these up into an album I've just created aptly named for this fix, it will 100% help a lot of others out there in a similar boat!
Since my keyboard and trackpad operated fine until this issue arose, and the ribbons are definitely okay, my guess is possibly a bad mosfet (PQ602) that starts to cause this issue, though I'm no electronics engineer, just my 2 cents

 

This is what my black m17x R1 looks like with its dual AMD 5870's. If it helps you with showing you how I ran everything to be able to just double check your work. I know on these old ribbon cables the blue plastic on the ends can come off and will make the connection not tight. When I was dealing with my issue I could not even get an indication of charging. My computer would not charge at all until I replaced the keyboard. Later also on my silver m17x r1 I had the same issue which ended up being a faulty trackpad ribbon cable. There is other issues you could be dealing with such as the power button ribbon cable having issues or the power button board itself. What you can try to see if your power button is failed is there is a button that is on the motherboard that you can use a splunger to press. It is directly to the right of the power button ribbon cable through that rectangular hole which in my 5th image will show you what I am talking about. Try setting everything up and then pressing that power button that is built into the board rather then your other one. LMK what the results are after these test. Hope my images help.

 

Kinda envious of your Crossfire 5870's lol
To sum up:
No damage to ribbon cables, tested pins for continuity too in case of a micro break on one line
Both the original KB and the replacement, do the same thing. Battery in, AC in, Aliens glow, press power button (or the one on the motherboard), and it just turns them off. No fans, no lights, nothing.

At this stage I've brought:
Replacement GPU, reballed original and it worked until this dredded power issue. Replacement didn't fix it.
Replacement Power Ribbon Cable: Original was scruffy and a likely cause, this resulted in it going from completely dead to this weird "charging with lights, but nobody is home" issue
Replacement Keyboard: No changes
Alternative RAM: No changes
Alternative SSD: No changes

Removed Wi-Fi Card: No changes
Reseated literally everything: No changes

Edit: Replacement Official Dell charger (240w) came today, same stance, lights up alien lights but no juice when pressing the power button or the one on the motherboard. Ouch.

 

At this point I would estimate either some kind of issue related to your CPU socket and or a failing EC. EC controls a lot of things on MoBo's it is very possible yours could be fried unless you have tried another motherboard. I have a parts motherboard laying around I could send to you but it is a parts only. You could salvage a lot off of it with a good electronic engineer but it would not be a replacement option. It is really interesting that you are dealing with this. What are you running GPU wise and are you using 2 GPU's or just 1? Try booting it with the cable for the track pad totally unplugged from the motherboard but the keyboard plugged in and its rgb cable as well. Is there any visible liquid damage to the board or in the mxm sockets? You could use a fine paint brush and isopropyl alcohol to clean the mxm sockets and other areas on the board if they are dirty. Have you tried using a mulitmeter to make sure that your bios battery is not dead and is supplying voltage to the board as well? Just some ideas on my head. Do you know for sure if your LCD's 2 cables have a good connection with a board it is very easy for them to not click in properly and it could be making it look like its not powering on.

 

Also from reading your first post I have never really heard of people running amd 7950's in these but I could be wrong but I have only heard of 7970m's working but never have came across anyone running a 7950's.

 

Originally, I brought this knowing the gpu seemed suspicious, possible heat soaking caused an issue. It was reflowed and was fine after that then one day it stopped working. I own a full soldering/reflowing station and do this kind of thing myself usually, I just suck at diagnosing issues with electronics if it's a trace/component issue

Replaced Motherboard and again, sprang to life, then this issue started happening. Both boards, same issue, even swapped back in original board to test again...

No visible damage, trackpad unplugged does the same thing, aliens light up but no life when you press the power button, not even a fan whisper. There's no damage to either boards physically, none that you could see anyway. Sockets seem clean too, no dirt or visible residue/stains/burn marks etc on either board.

GPU Wise I have 2 Radeon HDs, 7970m (sorry, typo!), and a replacement R9 M290X HD8970M 4GB, neither seem to make a difference.

 

What VBios do you currently have showing under GPUZ? Also are you setup in a crossfire setup? Are you sure you have you master and slave cards in the right slots if so? This appears to me as possibly not a MoBo issue but rather another hardware issue due to you telling me the glowing charging indicator. What heat sinks are you using for you 7970m's? Are they AMD ones or modified Nvidia ones? Does your fans ramp up when the power button is pressed?

 

I don't know what VBIOS either card is running, since I can't get the machine to boot and I don't have another machine with MXM support, neither can I get any MXM Risers to work to check them out either.

I am only running one card at once, because I don't have a second heatsink nor Crossfire cable so I can't connect both. I can confirm it's a legit AMD Hearsink and not a hacked up Nvidia one.

No fans when you press the power buttons, none at all, no beep codes, no lights on the power strip, nothing. I can hear something very feintly whining though when I do press the button, it's trying to do something if that's of any use at all lol

I am considering just buying another known working GPU for this system, maybe the 7970m I have is dead and the RX replacement just isn't compatible because of VBIOS issues, I honestly don't mind if I put older GPUs in, I did originally want to crossfire something and use this as a classic gaming rig "on the go" so if you have any ideas which GPUs would 100% work if I can source one, that's be hugely appreciated!

 

If you have any other mxm gpu's laying around try installing a different one and see if you have a change in your problem

 

@xxbeefydjxx
Connect this little pad to ground (screw hold) and it will permanently disable the KB detect circuit so your board can power on without the keyboard.

This is what that guy did in his video except his wire was really long, mine is a shorter, neater way.

I thought I had bad mosfets too but this resolved my issue.​

 

Okay, I've just done the above as pictured, still no juice.

Just realised I don't have a BIOS Battery, seem to have misplaced it. That shouldn't cause a no boot situation though?

The R9 MXM card I have does the same thing @Drammar09 , so unless I have 2 dead/incompatible MXM GPUs I'm really at a loss here. Certainly a head scratcher!

 

Deffo motherboard issue.
New GPU, New PSU, New CPU, replaced ram, new BIOS Battery, replaced keyboard, all ribbon cables etc still no life.

Probably going to call it a loss.

 

Damn sounds like an EC issue at this point or maybe something else :/ wish I could give more help. I have an r1 board laying around somewhere but its in rough shape

 

The thing that puzzles me the most is that two motherboards would behave the exact same way.

I guess it's just cursed lol

 

What gpu are you using again? I know you are running the R2 MoBo so not fully sure of the compatibility. Have you checked the cpu socket to make sure there is no bent pins on the socket?

 

7970m, 920xm cpus, No bent pins or bad sockets on either motherboard I have....

 

can you take a multimeter and place it on the pins on the cmos battery plug and check to see when your power supply is plugged in that it supplies voltage to the cmos battery connection. When the power supply is plugged in does the alienware logo on the back of the LCD or the alienware power button glow when plugged in or is there no color at all.

 

I haven't tested the CMOS battery connection but I can confirm it's in there nice and tight, no corrosion or other damage.

When you first plug a charger in, the alienware logos on the power button and LCD glow to indicate it's charging and it does indeed charge the battery but when you press the button the lights just go off. No beeps, no lights on the panel. no DVD Drive whirr, nothing.

 

Mine when plugged in would Not show that it was charging when I had my keyboard issue. If yours is showing it is charging it is not keyboard related. It can be so many thing with an instant power on then off. Could be wrong Voltage ram or incompatible ram, IC issues, EC issues, a loose connection on the board to one of the sister boards, a faulty gpu/cpu, faulty cpu slot, fault gpu slot, It could be a single bent or missing pin on the CPU. It really is at this point a hit or miss game. Personally me I would take it completely apart and check every single connector, wire, chip, part, etc. I would then clean it with small paint brushes with isopropyl alcohol to ensure there is no dirt or grime in the connecting areas etc.

 

Sorry late to this one. I also replaced my motherboard about 3 years ago when my unit was going dead. Definitely not the motherboard but alas the CPU was the culprit.
Definitely CPU and these will die with time if not properly pasted/cooled.
Get it replaced (they are cheap on ebay) and you should be back to normal.
Good luck.

 

I've had a replacement CPU come between now and the last time I replied, tried that, still no beans.

at this stage I really am at a loss as to why it's straight up failing to boot on 2 motherboards.

They both died the same way, worked for a few hours, then just nothing. Something is straight up "killing" the boards and it's really unusual.

On this note, with these forums closing, I am curious as to where everyone is going to go from the Alienware side of these forums, maybe we could pick this up some place else...

 

One of the guys has made another forum www.laptopforum.net or there is www.alienowners.com