Alienware 18 8 beeps no post.

Hi recently upgraded ram from 16GB to 32GB & GPU from 980m sli to a single 1070. Been working fine since until yesterday when I went into bios and went into the performance tab and enabled oc lvl 1 for CPU. Saved and exited and got black screen and no boot but could hear fans running and all lights were on. So I force shutdown and turned back on and that’s when the 8 beeps started. So I tried a ram hot swap to no avail. Then I opened laptop and drained all power and tried resetting bios via cmos battery but still 8 beeps. Then I removed HDD all ram and GPU and put back together and turned on and started getting 4 beeps. Turned of and put everything back in and fired up and still 8 beeps. So last night I removed battery and cmos battery and left over night. This morning put cmos battery and battery back in and tried booting and was getting 2 beeps and system auto shutdown. Then booted back up and 8 beeps again.

Does anyone have an idea of what could be the problem. I’m 99% sure the GPU is fine as I’ve had it for a few days and it was working perfectly. Temp didn’t exceed 75c while gaming.

All input welcome.


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Hello,
as i see you are fighting too with your motherboard.

I would try a reset without the discrete GPU.
What you need with the reset processing is 5 beeps. As long as you get only 4 you wont get ur system back

 

I removed the GPU and tried but it did not boot.


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theoretically, 8 beeps is a LCD failure

 

Yes. That’s what dell site say. But it could be anything from the motherboard to the actual GPU.


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@Raidriar

ANy idea how to make the board want to work again? Fickle AW 18 boards aren't exacly uncommon.

 

All done. You was right Danish. Because I had a 1070 and using SG Mode when I reset bios it switched back to PEG Mode hence why I was getting 8 beeps. Removed 1070 and installed a 980m so I was able to boot. Changed back to SG mode and installed 1070 again and now it’s up and running. Thanks for all the help and replies.


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It's very useful to keep a PEG supported GPU around, even if it's a crappy GPU or one that doesn't work under 3D loads.

 

Yes I was going to sell my 980m but now I’m keeping it just incase


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You can sell the 980M and just buy a cheap card that costs like $40-50 for PEG.

 

Yes I e already been looking for an old 660m.


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When I had to reset the bios when I was first getting my 1060 set up, i was able to get around the 8 beep error by booting up on integrated without the gpu in at all, (The old gpu's i had werent compatable, (460m's) and fried (m290x), but without any card it would post. did you try posting without any gpu in at all?

 

No I didn’t. I could give it a shot next time. Going to leave it alone while it’s fine haha


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I still havent found a definitive answer thought to the question "Can you use a physx card in SG mode"

if you ever try tossing 980m into the 2nd mxm slot and see if itll boot, thatd be awesome if itd work :3