M9750 just died, any ideas?

Well I was just about to get on the net when my M9750 just shut off.
I tried to reboot but nothing comes up on the screen. I removed the battery for a couple of minutes but that didn't help. I then disconnected the cmos battery for a couple of minutes which didn't work either.

I tried again to turn it on and continually turned the volume up to see if I could here the windows sounds in case it was the screen but there weren't any sounds.

I don't remember if the fans for the video cards whirl up when starting but on mine they aren't.

I even tried to load the recovery cd and still got nothing.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Rob41

 

When you press the power button, do any of the lights light up?

 

Yes, allthe normal "blue" lights below the screen.
Rob41

 

I took the bottom cover off and pressed the power button. The fans for the graphics cards turned on slow for about three seconds then shut off. I also reset the memory modules, removed the battery and held down the power button for several seconds. I also hooked up to an external monitor and nothing has helped.

I'd love to hear some suggestions,
Rob41

 

Any hardware changes to the system recently? I don't have an M9750 but is there a battery indicator light? Does it look like it's on low battery? Possibly not getting a charge? Can you turn it on without the battery, just plugged in?

 

Thanks for the response,
It acts the same weather on the battery or plugged in. No, there haven't been any hardware changes.

Rob41

 

It sounds like one of your graphics cards has burned out. Try powering the system up with one graphics card at a time. Try each separately to see which one is causing the problem.

K-TRON

 

Thanks,
I'll try that.
Rob41

 

Noluck,
I pulled the P (parent) card which is the secondary card, and it does the same thing.

I sure wish I could figure out what's wrong, I can't affordto get another laptop.

Rob41

 

Usually hardware problems are caused by one or more of these:

1) failed graphics card
2) corrupt memory cell
3) connection failure (anything from a loose wire to a short)
4) motherboard failure

Have you tried each individual memory card in each memory slot?
Try one card at a time. If one card is dead the system will not turn on

Unplug any additional hardware which is not critical to boot, such as harddrives, optical drives, wireless, bluetooth. That will help narrow down any problems

You may want to check for a connection issue. Usually something gets loose over the lifetime of a laptop. It could be anything from a speaker wire, to a touchpad, to a power cable.

If you can sort out the connection and memory issue, and the problem still exits their is only one way to know if the problem is graphics or motherboard related.
To test you need to take the bottom panels of your laptop off.
You want to remove the heatsink for the processor.
Once the heatsink is removed you will see the processor.
I want you to unplug the battery from the system and plug the ac power in.
Hold one finger to the center core of the processor.
Use the other hand to power the system on. If the processor gets hot the motherboard is working properly. You will know when it gets hot.
If it gets hot, immediately unplug the ac power cable so the system shuts off.
This will not damage the cpu. Just make sure to unplug the power when the processor gets hot.

If the cpu does not get hot the problem is related to a motherboard failure or a corrupt graphics card. Their is not really a way to figure out which one is the problem at this point, unless you physically test the graphics cards in another system.

Good luck,

K-TRON

 

Thanks for the suggestions K-TRON,
I'll do what you've mentioned and hopefully I'll be able to figure something out.

Rob41

 

O.K.
I used one memory module at a time and nothing changed.

I removed the secondary GPU, put my finger on the proc and yes it got hot fast then as fast as it got hot the puter shut down.

I think so far I can rule out a memory issue or a motherboard issue.

So on yourlist this leaves the possibility of a bad primary GPU or aloose wire/connection. What about the cmos battery?

Any thoughts on what to do next?

Rob41

 

This is where I get a bit confused. I do not know if you can swap the placement of your graphics cards to test them. I think they only work when a master card is in the primary slot and a slave card is in the secondary daughter slot. I do not know if the system will boot from just the slave card. I believe it can only boot if the master card is good.
If the master card is bad, I do not think the system will boot even if the slave card is in the primary slot.
Does that make sense?

Hopefully a SLI expert can let you know if my statement is correct or not

You can try removing the bios battery, main battery, and ac power and let the system discharge for a few hours. That may help, but it will only reset the CMOS and the Bios back to factory defaults.

K-TRON

 

Thanks a lot for your help K-TRON,
I'm gonna see if I can find a new cmos battery and remove the main battery and discharge by pressing the power button again. I'll let it go a few hours and see what happens.

I couldn't find a cmos battery in town.

When I press the power button, the blue battery or plug indicator lights up, then I can see that the screen bulb lights up, then the blue wireless indicator lights up. Nothing ever gets displayed on the screen and I never get any sounds.

Still no luck, nothing has worked so far.

Rob41

 

the only thing I've ever seen make a computer make NO sounds on boot are:

a: if everything is o.k.
b: cpu error (maybe it's seated wrong)
c: Motherboard problem
d: Video card.

(and of course if the sound/speakers aren't working...)

 

It's not o.k. cause I don't even hear the normal "windows is loaded" sounds.
I'm pretty sure the CPU is seated alright.
Could be problem on the motherboard.
Could be Primary video card problem which I suspect at this point.

I don't think I can test this by inserting the secondary card in the primary cards slot. I believe the bios is different.

I thought even if the video cards were shot I'd at least get some info initially on the screen. Does anyone know for sure?

Thanks for the help guys,
Rob41

 

What makes you think that the BIOS on the secondary video card is different and would make it unusable as a primary card? Though I have nothing to say or prove otherwise..

 

If the graphics cards are dead nothing will come up on the screen.
Imagine the computer as a car engine. Say the video card is the compression. The engine will not run without it.
When their is a dead integrated graphics card, the system will not do anything when powered on other than show maybe the caps lock lights, or a momentary fan.

Use the search function here and see if someone who has a M9750 can help you diagnose your problem, by either you sending your graphics cards to them, or maybe a meet in person to test your parts on a working system.

K-TRON

 

I've read that they aren't interchaengable and when I upgraded to a second card A.W. sent another daughter (primary) card which had to be sent back for the correct one.

Rob41

 

Hey K-TRON,
You're exactly right,
What I need to do is test my lappy with a known good primary 7950GTX card.

Although my wife would be pretty ticked off that I ordered a new (and expensive M17), it would be great to get my M9750 working again.

What compounds the problem is the fact that I live waaaaay out in the stix.

As always, your help is really appreciated.
Rob41

 

Not that you want to pull apart your new system but you would be able to test it with the 3870.

 

That might be a good idea. Obviously the resolution etc. will suck cause it won't have the right drivers, but if It works then I know the primary card went bad.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Rob41

 

Cheap card for testing?
Ebay Item # 150332132057

 

Thanks for the suggestion. Good idea.

 

I had the EXACT same problem two nights ago with one of my M9700s. Not sure of all the differences between the M9700 and the M9750 so I don't know if this will help or not. From looking at the Alienware FAQs they look almost identical. I called Alienware and was on the phone with them for a total of an hour and 45 minutes. The tech walked me through just about everything under the sun trying to get this machine working again to include removing both hard drives, the CDROM drive, swaping memory chips around, resetting the CMOS, and removing the heatsink and video cards. We tried it with just the primary video card. Then we took the other video card and put it in the place of the primary video card. I GOT VIDEO! We put the original one back and I STILL HAD VIDEO! We put the secondary one back in the secondary slot and I STILL HAD VIDEO! It's worked fine ever since.

Turns out all I needed to do was reseat the video cards and I was back in buisness. If you go to alienware.com, put your cursor over Support and choose FAQ/Knowledge Base, you'll get a screen where you can search by keyword. Type reseat m9750 and click search, you'll see articles listed that have step by step instructions with pictures on exactly how to reseat the video cards.

May want to give that a try and see if reseating them works.

 

Thx MrCheck,
I'm gonna do that. If it works I'll have to wait till the new M17 arrives before I tell my wife. lol

 

nice .... but i think she would still be pretty mad

 

If you ever decide to sell the M9750 let me know. Prices on ebay are ridiculous as most are asking for what it costs to buy it new.

 

maybe it won't help... but I had the same problem. notebook seamed to work. no image. it was scary. I thought I had broken something and/or the graphic card was damaged. but it all seamed to work fine. maybe some lcd problem.
well after 2 days I remembered to change the luminosity settings of the lcd.... :\ stupid me problem solved... lol.

 

Yeah, she might get mad but hey, I'll have a kick-a** new M17!

 

Thx,
I tried your suggestion, no change though. I'm pretty sure my LCD is good. I can see the LCD bulb get brighter and dimmer as I change the settings.