No lights on M15x

ok loaned my alienware m15x out to my brother only to get it back full of rubbish so i decided to format the drive and do a full reinstall. everything went perfect as usual, loaded the driver restore disk or whatever its called and installed the drivers and apps, but as soon as i loaded the command center i've lost all lights ! no matter what i do i cannot get them to work, does anyone know the problem and how to fix it ?

i also now have a usb malfunction to.... is this also related ?
thankyou in advance.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...not-use-command-center-your-resource-dvd.html

and this

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...5x-owners-do-not-install-cc-resouce-disk.html

 

oh well thats great...... is there anything i can do about it like a firmware update ?

 

Unfortunately the only solution is to get the mobo swapped out.

 

surely thats a bit too extreme to do without trying other methods

you probs have, but have you tried uninstall/reinstall proper version, system restore, or simply reinstalling windows again. not like you gonna lose anything as you already did that

 

I've gone through it with Dell when the issue started. Once the FX controller becomes bricked, it's pretty much over.

 

there probably is a hard and long way of fixing it, they just couldnt be bothered to guide you through it

 

I am afraid MOBO replacement is the only way! Bill your brother for it

 

you also mentioned usb malfunction. how does it malfunction?

 

has a yellow mark next to it and in its properties dialogue box says malfunctioned.... nice to know dell are/was issuing restore disks/driver disks that brick part of your system you spent £2000 on 2yrs ago im out of warrenty now so dell will not fix it even thou its there restore/driver disk i paid for that did it..
any ways guys, thank you for the info as disappointing as it was

 

LOL it's good you're optimistic but I've gone through hours of troubleshooting myself with different BIOS flashes and total re-installs of the OS and drivers prior to calling Dell support. Believe me when I say this, once the controller bricks, it's OVER...

The system still works fine, however, but one of the perks is having the awesome lights. If the lights are worth roughly $170-200, then you can buy replacement motherboards and swap it out yourself.

 

well i suppose the good news is, IF you can call it good news is i can grab a new board for £100 on ebay. problem lies with getting the exact matching board (model numbers) and of course hopeing im not ripped off with a refurb with bricked MIO.... oh the joy. i think what really really annoys me is after spending £2000 on it i've had 3 motherboards, 2 gfx cards and 2 hdds within 13 months and even worse is the otherday i ordered my daughter a dell laptop which is just waiting on delivery. im so temped just to send it back like i did with hp i refused to buy from HP and moved over to dell. looks like Acer or Asus will be getting my money in the future. we customers set the rules with our money NOT dell or others...
any ways guys thanks for the info.

 

Looks like you are one unlucky guy! Also a tip would be never to lend your laptop to ANYONE even family. They will without a doubt mess it up. A machine with more than one user won't last!

As far as reliability is concerned the M15x is pretty much the pick of the bunch of its generation. The fact that there are still so many using it and upgrading them nearly 3 years after they were released proves this point. Unlike with the Clevo W860CU for example. What happened the other 2 times with your motherboard?

 

after online dell diagnostic and along time on the phone, dell sent out a engineer and replaced the boards, just said they failed.

 

well looks like there is now a fix for the corrupted MIO

AlienFX repair.....WORKING LEDS at last!! - Alienware Forum - Alienware Club - Dell Community

shame one person in the uk is trying to charge £75 + deliveries, thats almost as much as buying a new motherboard ebuy.. but its promising

 

Well well well!! This sounds great! I think you got yourself a fix Mind you packaging the machine to Newcastle and back (insured and tracked even with Royal Mail) will cost you in the region of 30 quid each way! So the cost will be well over 120 pounds in total.

However this is a one off service that you can't get elsewhere and could still cost you half of what a new motherboard will cost you. Plus you get your machine back probably within a week.

Lastly you state your location as Cheshire if you can drive perhaps if you contact him you can take the machine to him personally. He claims 30 mins to repair it. Can't take more than 2 hours to get up to Newky from where you are. Gd luck!

 

How much did this cost you? Did you have to pay for the new board since you're out of warranty?

 

If I were you I would have used the Sales of Goods Act 1979 to get Dell to repair/replace the motherboard for free, regardless of warranty or not. As long as it hasn't been over 6 years since you bought the laptop, and you can prove that it is a manufacturing defect (normal use of the product resulted in the bust AlienFX, hence its an inherent manufacturing defect) then you should be able to get it fixed for FREE.
If you haven't gotten this issue sorted out yet, read up on the sales of goods act 1979 on the office of fair trading website, know your rights, then get on the phone to dell. It may take awhile to get through to them but if you know your rights and make it clear you are going to exercise them accordingly they should sort you out.

Note that if Dell want you to pay a small fee to have your laptop 'tested to see if the problem is a manufacturing defect or not' then they are within their rights to do this, but once they see its a manufacturing defect they refund your fee and fix the laptop for free. To make things go quicker I would refer them to the official Dell announcement regarding CC and AlienFX, maybe they will skip this altogether and just send an engineer to your place to sort it out there and then.
Good luck

 

i purchased a new motherboard myself from ebay, erm direct from china. cost me £85 for the board and £15 for delivery. board was new and working perfectly and now have my lights back again and everything is working perfectly. the cmpany if i remember correctly had plenty of boards remaning if you would like me to drop you the link for ebay where i purchased mine from ?

wish i had remembered this, have used this clause before with a well know uk company that sells hardware over a gainward gfx card many years ago. oh well have my new motherboard in now and alls working perfectly again, the way it should be.
and just so you know i destroyed that bloody dell driver restore disk !!! i snapped it in 4 and jumped all over the bugger lol