Black screen with beeps

I have an Alienware 18 with dual 780GTX cards that have been working fine. Today when I rebooted due to a “rendering issue” with the game The Division and the laptop lights went on, the fans started but the screen stayed black. After 30sec there was a single beep and after another 30sec there was a double beep. I tried connecting an external monitor without any luck. Did the 30sec powerbutton push with the battery disconnected as well but it still wont work.
Background that might provide additional info, the last 5-6 months I’ve noticed one or two black or green vertical lines by the systemtray, going from screens top to bottom. The lines always disappeared after a little while. The last couple of weeks when playing The Division I got the “rendering error” message mentioned above, the fix was always a reboot then the game would work... until today, when I did the reboot the screen stayed black...

Any suggestions? I’ve searched the web alittle and maybe one of the gfx-cards needs to be replaced?

All help and inputs are highly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

 

Try pulling the slave GPU out and see if it boots. if it won't, then try swapping the slave GPU into the primary MXM slot. I wouldn't expect both GPUs to fail, but its more likely that one of them has died as your symptoms sound very much like that. If one of the GPUs still works i'd say keep using a single card for a while until you are able to upgrade it to something more powerful. That machine can take a 1060/1070.

 

Definitely the master card is dead ....

 

I’ve dug myself all the way into the gfx-cards and have an additional question regarding the heatsink. After loosening the four screws shown in the picture the sink is still attached like a rock to the card. Is that just the thermalpad or am I missing a screw? I’ve been searching but can’t find any... don’t wanna break anything when I try to pry it off...

 

Hi,

yes, it's just the 4 screws, loosen them to the end, then the "legs" rise up a little bit. Heatsink needs sm soft "power" when disassembling after a long time. Try starting at the top of the card (the bottom of your picture), straight opposite to the connection pins.
Pull and rotate very gently.

Regards