Is my Alienware 7700 dead? Please help...

My Alienware Area-51 M7700 won't boot. It was having minor issues and suddenly died. When I try to boot up, The HDD indicator light lights up but that's it. Just a black screen. On the front of the machine there are controls to play cd's as well as a digital clock. In the past (as the computer was acting up) if the clock didn't light up the computer wouldn't start. After a few tries it would take and run for an hour or 2 before shutting down. I have been searching for a solution for a while and found this mecca of knowledge. I am hoping some one can help me repair/upgrade my trusty little machine. I have always wanted to get in it's guts and goose it up but was afraid of killing it. I am looking at this as an opportunity to learn something new. Besides I really don't want to buy a new computer if I can help it. I appreciate any input you might give.


Operating System

Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600)

System Model

Alienware D900T Revision A

Main Circuit Board
Board: CLEVO D900T Revision A
Serial Number: 400
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies LTD 6.00 04/28/2005

Processor

3.40 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 HTT
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Memory Modules c,d

2304 Megabytes Installed Memory
PC - 4200 DDR2
Slot 'J6G1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'J6G2' is Empty
Slot 'J6H2' has 256 MB
Slot 'J6H1' has 1024 MB


Drives

432.54 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
118.25 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
Optiarc DVD RW AD-7590A [CD-ROM drive]
Optiarc DVD RW AD-7590A [CD-ROM drive]

GENERIC USB Storage-CFC USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 3
GENERIC USB Storage-MSC USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 5
GENERIC USB Storage-SDC USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 4
GENERIC USB Storage-SDC USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 4
GENERIC USB Storage-SMC USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 2
SAMSUNG MP0603H SCSI Disk Device (60.05 GB) -- drive 1
SAMSUNG MP0603H SCSI Disk Device (60.05 GB) -- drive 0

Local Drive Volumes
C: (on drive 0) 15.73 GB 3.93 GB free
D: (on drive 0) 36.70 GB 4.51 GB free
E: (on drive 1) 60.05 GB 29.77 GB free

Network Drives – 0
Printers - 0

Controllers

Standard floppy disk controller
Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM Ultra ATA Storage Controllers - 266F
Primary IDE Channel [Controller]
Default Monitor
Default Monitor
NVIDIA t Flat Panel [Monitor] (14.9"vis, November 2002)

Display

NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra

Multimedia

Realtek High Definition Audio


BusAdapters

Texas Instruments PCI-1410 CardBus Controller
SCSI/RAID Host Controller
WinXP Promise SATA378 (tm) IDE Controller
Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2658
Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 2659
Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 265A
Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB Universal Host Controller - 265B
Intel(R) 82801FB/FBM USB2 Enhanced Host Controller - 265C
Unimodem Full-Duplex Audio Device

Communications

Smart Link 56K Voice Modem
1394 Net Adapter
Atheros Wireless Network Adapter
RAS Async Adapter
Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Network Card MAC Address: 00:0B:6B:36:A3:54

Other Devices

Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
Microsoft AC Adapter
Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery
USB Human Interface Device
BisonCam, USB2.0
IrDA Fast Infrared Port
Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
HID-compliant mouse
Synaptics PS/2 Port TouchPad [Mouse]
USB Mass Storage Device
USB Mass Storage Device
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
USB Root Hub
Patin Couffin engine

 

when was the last time you cleaned out the vents and fans thoroughly with compressed air and Q-tips?

... if never, then it is probably overheating issue that might have finally caused permanent hardware damage.

 

When my D900K didnt want to power up, it was either out of pure coincidence or the motherboard was dead.
Sometimes I would plug my power cord in and my machine would turn on for a good 2 seconds, and instantly shut off. This continued to happen for months on my first motherboard. It required me to remove the power adaptor, and start on battery. When the bios image appeared, I would plug the ac power cord in and everything worked.
Try that and see if that helps,

You can try cleaning the vents, but seriously the system will run for a good 5 minutes before the fans need to come on.

You should try reseating the graphics card. The graphics card is under the front left part of the palmrest. You need to remove 4 screws to access the card, and than another 4 screws to remove the graphics card.
Reinstall all of the simple things like graphics and memory and try again.

If the system still does not boot, try powering it up with one memory card at a time. Try different slots, because one card or one slot could be problematic resulting in a failed boot.

Good luck,

K-TRON

 

The cooling vents are clean, and I have run 2 different utilities to check my memory. All 3 passed with flying colors. I will try both ideas though. If I need a new mother board, Where can I find one? And, is there one I can get so I can upgrade my Vid card? Thanks for your input.

 

You can buy a new motherboard but you should check to figure out whether the problem is your graphics card or your motherboard.

If the motherboard is dead, the system will not get hot. To test, remove the main battery. Plug in the ac power adaptor. Remove the cpu heatsink. Touch the cpu with one or two fingers, with your other arm power the system on. If the cpu is getting hot, your motherboard works. If the processor stays cool, the motherboard is dead.
You will know when the cpu gets warm, its not a mild warmth, it gets hot pretty fast. Dont worry, you will not destroy your processor.
Simply when it gets hot, unplug the system and it will instantly shut off.

If the motherboard works, and nothing powers up, their is either a connectivity issue or a failed piece of hardware.

If the cpu doesnt get hot, the motherboard is dead, or the dc jack on the back of the laptop is loose causing the system not to come on. These are very easy to check.

However back to connectivity. A shorted cable, like the sound cable on my laptop got caught in one of my fans, and sheared the cable, that cable caused my system not to boot. After unplugging the speaker, the system fired right up.

Check for all connections, the speakers, audio DJ ribbon cable, LCD cables, system power cables and so forth.
When everything is properly connected try powering up again.
If the system still does not go, than its your graphics card

You can buy new or used motherboards on ebay or you can get them at Z-TRONICS. They are a halfway decent place to buy motherboards. My first few boards from them did not work, but finally I got a hold of a working one

K-TRON

 

never thought of that i feel stupid

and thats crazy a fan in your laptop sheared off a cable right through ...... strong fan

 

Did you take the cover off the GPU heatsink to clean the actual heatsink, and take the CPU heatsink out to clean it?

Mine builds up some dust on the screens covering the vents, but far more on the leading edges of the heatsinks themselves.

When mine overheated and toasted itself the vents were perfectly clean, but there was a 1/8" thick pad of dust covering the entire CPU heatsink.
More recently i pulled the top off the GPU heatsink on a hunch and found a pad about that same size.
On any other laptop it'd be totally fatal very quickly, but the fans in the M7700 are very strong, they can push air through.


Get some arctic silver 5 (or other heat transfer compound of that quality) and take the CPU heatsink out, it's an easy job, just don't forget to unplug (and replug!) the thermal sensor attached to the CPU end of the heatsink.


I'm not sure i'd trust the cpu thermal throttling enough to turn the power on without a heatsink on it, the same test feeling the cpu end of the heatsink would work just as well, without the risk of A) toasting the cpu or B) burning yourself. P4 thermal throttling is pretty good, i may just be paranoid as i spent a lot of time with amd K6/K7's, which fried themselves in less then a second without a heatsink.


For giggles you could take the optical drive(s) out, that was the most recent cause of my laptop giving me a blank screen and HDD light.
Take the HDD compartment panel off and look for a screw holding a metal tab on the optical drive side of the compartment right in the corner closest to the CPU end, take the screw out and the drive(s) will push out.
Don't lose that screw.

 

I bet you havent monitor the GPU temp.

in that system (and most gaming notebooks), the GPU temp is the highest.

if you havent monitored it up til now then it might have overheated and been damaged.

yes, you can get a videocard module upgrade.... if you have a newer revision of the D900T motherboard.... or any D900K motherboard.

for parts, check out:
- www.rjtech.com
- www.ztronics.com

 

Hmmm seems to be happening to a lot of people lately. Same thing happened to my old laptop, but it turned out to be the motherboard..

 

I need to post the D900T(and K, i think, not sure) temp monitor/fan control software, it's the only thing i'm aware of that can actually read all the various temps.

 

GET THERMAL is the software that you are referring to correct?
Coretemp works just as well as GET Thermal
GET THERMAL actually only works on D900T's. It loads and reads temperatures on the D900K, but we d900k users cannot adjust fan speed with it.

K-TRON

 

I recommend to get the a BIOS update for the D900T to gain the Fan Toggle feature (Fn+F1)... so you can switch fans to auto or max speed.

for temp monitoring:
- HWmonitor (basic but good for all devices)
- Notebook Hardware Control (for CPU and HDD)
- RivaTuner (the best for GPU temp monitoring)
- Everest (all around good program)

 

Coretemp doesn't work on mine, maybe only AMD processors, or the 6xx series?

Getthermal has GPU core and GPU ram, main ram compartment, and CPU temps all in one place, plus the ability to change when the fan turns on (mine for instance turns on at 45*c instead of the stock 60*c, for an idle of 47 to 52 depending on the ambient temp. Thermal spec for the 2.8-3.4 chips is 68*c, so turning the fans on at 60 and hitting full speed at 70 is a recipe for disaster IMO.

 

for parts, check out:
- www.rjtech.com
- www.ztronics.com

For parts, I wouldn't recommend Ztronics to anyone.
They just carried all the repair junk ones, and eventhough the tech people are helpless.

 

Ok, I never removed the heat sink to clean it. Just the cover. Yep there was 1/8" of felt that looked suspiciously like the dog between the fan and heat sink. Added arctic silver 5 b4 reinstalling. Removed and cleaned the vid card and reapplied arctic silver there as well. Checked and re-seated memory, Hdd's and all plugs. I had the opti-drives out already and reinstalled them. I gave the whole thing a thorough blow down with canned air while it was apart and presto it lives. It still takes a try or 2 before firing up though. I appreciate everyone's help. Does anyone know of a utilities disc I can run that will let me check all the components in this thing?

I'm still thinking about upgrading the guts a little but I am not sure which way to go. I would like a 512mb vid card but want to keep my 3.4 pentium and as much of the other stuff as possible. I understand I will need a new motherboard but will it accept my wireless card and optical drives? What about my PATA Hdd's?

Thanks again

 

If you were to upgrade your motherboard, you can use all of your current harddrives, optical drives, wireless and so forth. The motherboard is a motherboard, that is the only part you replace. Everything else will work.

You can upgrade your harddrives to faster PATA drives like the HM080GC, HM160HC or the WD3200BEVE, or if you wanted to you could buy a SATA adaptor for the motherboard, and you can run any 2.5" SATA drive you like.
You can put two 500gb drives in if you wanted to, its up to you.
However if you stick with PATA, the largest you will get is 2 x 320GB

K-TRON

 

I thought I had this thing fixed but, then when it tried to come out of standby mode, it wouldn't boot up. I noticed the clock wouldn't keep the correct time and figured the lithium battery was dead and replaced it. Now when I turn it on, It goes through it's paces and tells me "array not detected press f1 to boot". I hit f1 and it tells me no operating system found. I pulled the hdds an put them in an external case to check them. They are both good and I can access my stuff. But, now I have no idea what to do. I am going to try starting a clean install and stop after the 3rd party scsi drivers install. I tried with brand new WD 250's but the install would freeze after formatting the discs. Do I need a different scsi driver for the WD's? Thanks

 

Ive had standby problems before, and that was because the system cannot standby Opteron series processor. If you have a athon in their than you shouldnt have any problems.
If you have an opteron in it than the problem will happen whenever it wants to, as it does for me. I just put it into hibernation mode, which seemed to override that problem.
You should format your array and recreate it through the BIOS manager. It is very simple to do. After that simply reinstall everything.
You can try new SATA drivers, I am using the VIA Hyperion pro raid drivers version 5.2.

You may want to upgrade your BIOS to version 1.00.09 if you continue to experience problems. Do not upgrade to version 1.00.10 just dont, it will kill your motherboard.

K-TRON

 

Did you have the HDDs in a raid?

On my d900t it defaults to RAID when i remove the battery, despite the fact that i have them in normal old ATA mode with no raid. As such if i forget to re set it to ata mode it fails to detect an array, fails to detect an operating system, and generally just fails.

If you did have them in a raid i don't know what to tell you, but if you didn't you should go into the bios and find that switch and turn it to whatever is not raid.

 

bobnova
You should change the cmos battery.

 

Ok, I just got back from sea. Before I left, this thing wouldn't boot for anything. Now that I'm back I got it to boot on the 3rd try. (Sort of) After switching it to ATA. So, I reseated the vid card, Ran memtest86, and reseated all 3 RAM modules. I also ran the windows utility to check the HDD and fix errors. Now it boots 1 in 3 times. (For now) I noticed if I can time it right and hold the power button until just before the light around it comes on, I have a better chance at success. As I posted earlier, if the clock on the front doesn't light up it won't boot. Now however, There have been a couple of times when the clock does come on and so does the screen. But, all I get is a blinking cursor and it wont boot the bios (DOS?) or windows and I have to try again. On more than one occasion I have had to pull a piece of hardware to get it to fire up. (Optical drive or RAM) I down loaded Flexinfo pro, Novabench, and sandra lite. Unfortunatly I'm not really sure how to run them or if they are a good idea. I was looking for something that would check my processor the way memtest did my ram. I also would like to find something to test my vid card. I got Riva tuner but once again, don't know what I am doing. And lastly, I am searching for an app that will check my mobo. Having said all that I'm now wondering if there isn't something wrong with my power button.

I downloaded new bios, 1.00.06, 1.00.08, & 1.00.12 and don't know which one to use if at all. I also have a chipset update I got from Alienware (6.0.1.1002) But that was so long ago I can't remember why. I'm not even sure which chipset I have anymore.

I know it is probably a hardware issue but I can't seem to find it.

The only other option I can come up with is upgrade. What's the best mobo I can put in here? Will a D900C or D900K fit? And, What processor will I need?

Thanks for your input.

 

If you need a new motherboard I would send it to www.ztronics.com and get them to do it for you. The cost involved is the motherboard plus $100 to change it out for you PLUS they give you a warranty if they do the changeout. I would NOT recommend doing the change yourself because this machine has too many "Fiddly" parts that can break. There have been negative reviews of these guys, but mainly from folks who have tried to do the repair themselves and have failed in the process...Just get ZTronics to do the job.

 

My alienware laptop died and it ended up being the same as this.

h**p://theoiltanker.blogspot.com/2009/07/dead-alienware-laptop.html

I re-soldered the mounting posts and now it's running.

 

Very useful info guys, thanks for the insight.

 

OMG, same thing here. I thought mine was dead too (no video, DVD drives continuously lit up, hard drive light on solid, and a cyclical clicking sound). Turns out the video card wasn't seated properly after the latest cleaning session, even though I reseated it a couple of times to make sure. Reading this thread made me revisit the whole deal, so thanks guys!

I've cleaned this machine out dozens of times, and I've never had a card seating issue like that. Two of my mounting posts also broke off at the solder joint, but I don't have a soldering kit handy to fix those yet. In the past I had managed to successfully jury-rig it without a problem.

Now the bigger problem is trying to justify the purchase of an M17x given my suddenly resuscitated m7700a.