Help Area 51 M15x-R1 I purchased is DOA

Can anyone help me troubleshoot a problem so I know whether to keep and repair this laptop or return to sender?
Purchased Alienware area 51 M15x r1 supposedly with Vista and with supposedly only problem being the screen did not work, my wife's laptop had crashed an she needed one desperately, we could run off exterior monitor so I thought no problem, since it was being described as "only thing wrong with it is,the screen does not work". Received it and found the following HD- no case & not secured, Fan 1 not secured, Fan 2 (CPU)fins all broke off so not much time to be able to leave running without overheating probably, Skull cap has hinge issue, Now the things that made it so I could not finish trouble shooting- Not only does screen not display but does not display to external, sounds and appears like it is stuck in boot loop and the seller then divulged important info, had "taken it in" and person said it's not the screen that's bad it's the logic board, also that they had supposedly installed Win 7, so now I am stuck with determining what is really wrong
Motherboard?
Graphics Card
Install of Win 7 has corrupted Bios and no display drivers
or what,
I know this is a lot but I have seen so many here that are familiar with Alienware that I am hoping some might have enough knowledge to help me trouble shoot or words or wisdom????
I am willing to do the repairs needed if I know it is worth fixing otherwise will be looking for another one.
Thank you so much!

 

This sounds like a totally screwed machine mate without knowing what is on the screen it would be hard to tell what is precisely wrong with it as some times the wrong graphics drivers can stop u going to an external display.

however it shouldn't be the install of windows 7 as i had it on my m15x and that was fine.

its most likely the motherboard which is usually impossible or very very difficult to repair as most tech just replace them but again this is difficult and for the price you will pay to repair it i would try and find a new PC

the other likely hood is the hard drive is broken which means buying a new hard drive however trying to install windows onto a laptop with no working screen would not be fun assuming that its only the hard drive that is broken

sorry that all i have said is bad news really but

 

If you bought it from eBay, immediately open a PayPal dispute.

 

Thanks Guys! I have opened a dispute and trying to determine if its even worth the hassle to fix, After rereading one of his "and oh yeah" messages, [ a couple of months ago, the hdmi port worked fine. Windows 7 corrupted, we used the recovery disk to wipe the hard drive and prepare the system for the new owner but the graphics card drivers were not recognized because of the screen not working. The display screen works off of the default driver then the graphics card driver is installed when the installation finishes and the computer restarts. No display, no way to follow the screen prompts to install the hdmi drivers.] I do question if there is a way to do a bios recovery with no screen or how fast it would reset the default driver for the display. I don't think they knew what they were doing but I am really working blind here eh? Any ideas ? Thanks

 

try to hold the right or left click when booting to see if it show something