m17x r1 bios screen lockup on boot

I am trying to trouble shoot a friends laptop.

it will power on go to the alienware screen and than locks up and unable to get into the bios

reset does nothing.

and the power light flashes red.

any ideas on how to try and diagnos whats wrong?

 

What power light flashes red?
Is it a M17x or a M17 or...?!

 

The button on the top in the right corner. Would say its the power button. So the laptop powers up. Unless there is another way to power it up

Just remember seeing m17 r1 not sure if its a x

 

Ok, so it's a m17 R1, you might want to ask here in the legacy Alienware (pre-Dell models) to get better help from members that are still rocking these systems or press the red triangle under your user name and ask a moderator to move it
Alienware Area-51/Aurora and Legacy Systems

I don't have my whitebook anymore and can't really help you much but have you tried a full power drain:
-remove power cord and battery
-unplug the CMOS coincell battery
-press the power button for ~30seconds
-put everything back and try again.

If the above fails you might have a bad GPU.
I don't know if you'll be able to blind flash the BIOS if needed though.

Do you get a long beep followed by two short ones?

Start with minimal necessary hardware (i.e. one ram stick etc..) see what you get.

Hope you get it solved it's a great system
Cheers