M15x dead even after everything replaced

My M15x died a few months ago while upgrading Nvidia drivers. I wouldn't think it was driver-related. And then it wouldn't turn back on. It would still charge the battery and alienhead(s) glowed while plugged in but those went off when I pressed the power button. No fans, no lights, no beeps, no nothing.

Power adapter is fine, puts out 19.5V, DC in jack puts out 19.5V on the mobo and the same voltage is on a fuse and some mosfets near it but I didn't know how to test anything else. I have a full schematic but I'm not an engineer so it seems complicated to me and I don't want to fry anything (else?).

It's not a short because the light on the adapter does not go out when the adapter is plugged into the DC jack. At least I think it's not a short then. Is there anyway to test for a short otherwise?

So I had the laptop taken to a motherboard repair place. They said circuitry failure (I suppose they meant traces), needs new mobo. I bought a replacement motherboard from a reputable ebay seller who sells loads of these and I had no reason to believe it was faulty.

I put in the new mobo and the laptop would still not show signs of life aside from the head coming on and going off when the power button was pushed. This happened ONLY ONCE - the light would not come on again even when plugged out and in again.

So...I got a new media board to try, the one that connects the power button to the mobo. It had a power button on it as well. Replaced that - no luck. Still completely dead.

Stripped down to bare motherboard tried plugging in after removing components one at a time to see if anything would happen. Nope. This is the NEW motherboard, now.

What on earth could be wrong? Is it possible that plugging in and pressing the power button messed up the second motherboard? Some component fried? I did not test the board outside the laptop, which I realise I should have done but anyway, too late. I've googled the hell out of this and I'm completely out of ideas. There isn't much point in buying another motherboard but I would really like to know what is wrong.

Does anyone have recommendations on what to do? I figured this was a good place to ask.

 

could simply be the new board is DOA (dead on arrival) send whoever you purchased it from a message and get a replacement board.

 

Have you tried another graphics card or booting from another hard drive or SSD?

Do you get any flashing Caps/Num lock signals on booting? It could also be the power jack socket but like you said that would short the psu causing blue light to go off.

 

Hi all,

I bought a dead m15x off ebay all nice etc. Got the "The LCD encountered a problem during initialization." LED error. Alienware M17x R1, R2 and M15x LED Behavior Prior to Proceeding with No POST troubleshooting | Dell US

Reseated the LCD on the panel and on the mobo, tried 3 different compatible graphics cards... fan on gpu spins on startup. Will not boot (just an amber alienhead) without a gpu installed.

Thoughts? Just resell on ebay?

Thanks,
Bob

 

LCD could be dead. Try plugging in a monitor to HDMI or VGA?

 

No luck with VGA. Reseated the mobo end of the display cable a few more times, and it just runs the gpu fan full blast with all lights but no cap/num/scroll lock led codes.

 

Okay, reseated the cpu again, and we are back to the scroll and num locks blinking and the middle caps lock solid on.

Is it worth trying to get this setup to work? I can buy another processor if that might make a difference. Again, it won't boot without a gpu.

..... would a blind bios flash be worth the trouble? What bios should I flash if so?

 

Alienware M17x R1, R2 and M15x LED Behavior Prior to Proceeding with No POST troubleshooting | Dell UK

The LCD encountered a problem during initialization.

1. Reseat the LCD cable.
2. Replace the LCD panel.
3. Replace the video card.

Can't offer more help than that. It sounds very much to me like your graphics card might be fried if it isn't the LCD.