Troubleshooting help for my Sager NP8651

I bought the Sager NP8651 in June 2015, and have loved it until now. About 6 weeks ago, it started giving the "beeping" sound often associated with overheating, and would auto-shut down after ~30 seconds. It would only do it when I was playing video games. I bought a new cooling pad, and while it would still ocasionally beep and shut down, it did it far less frequently. I thought the problem was "solved."

Then this morning it beeped and shut down (like before). Only this time, it's beeping and shutting off far more frequently:

• When Windows is loading, all fans will spin up real loud, it'll beep once or twice, but then fall silent. Makes me think that Windows is triggering something on start up, but then turns it back off, so the beeping stops.
• When I load up a video game that uses 3D card, it lasts about 10 seconds before all fans spin up real loud again, and then the beeping and shut down begins.

So, I did what the internet suggested:

• Used a can of air to gently blow dust out (not much came out)
• Took off the back of laptop and disconnected battery and main plug. Hit power button for 30 seconds. (Called EC reset?). Didn't fix it.
• Turned computer on, watched 2 GPU fans & 1 CPU fan spin up. Seems like fans are working.
• Reseated the RAM & Hard Drive.
• Pushed all things in to make sure nothing came lose. Visually inspected cable -- seemed fine?
• Took off the GPU heatsink, cleaned off the sold thermal paste, re-applied new thermal paste.

After all of that, still the same exact symptoms. And then.. I did something that really killed it.

• Went into BIOS and hit "restore optimized defaults"
• Now it won't even post. It asks me to put bootable media in.. don't know why optimized default made it think I don't have a bootable HD anymore!!! I can't seem to select it either

However, while doing that, I discovered another symptom. After sitting in the BIOS screen for ~10 seconds, suddenly all the fans will kick up real loud, beeping will start, followed by shutdown! Something about entering BIOS is causing the same symptoms!

I'm all out of ideas!!!

 

Uh... Check your temps next time first...

I'm also not sure what restore optomized defaults even does.

@Meaker@Sager works for Sager so he would know.

 

CPU temp was ~35 C. I couldn't figure out how to check GPU temp actually. Downloaded some random programs but they didn't seem to show GPU temp.

It was the only "restore" option I could find before the computer shut down.

 

It sounds like a dying or already died graphic card, imo.

I had the same symptoms after trying to start the notebook with a bad/incompatible vBios flashed graphic cards. Full fans while beeping and blinking LED's and then shut off.

If you have warranty left, I would send it in for repair. If the graphic card is dead, you have to replace the whole motherboard.

 

This sounds like the most likely answer. If you already checked the fan cables and all fans are working (it's not one fan going crazy while the other idles or fails to spin) then the GPU is dying.

 

Try HWiNFO.

 

I was afraid it'll be something scary like a dead mobo/GPU... kinda hard for me to fix that Depressed since it's only 16 months old and quick shopping around shows that the 970M still had a good life ahead of it. It died too young

Is this something I can still get reasonably repaired? Or does it go into my basement bin of dead computers.

 

If you contact Sager (or the reseller it was originally sold through), and you aren't able to troubleshoot it at all, you should be able to get a quote on out of warranty replacement parts (assuming it is out of warranty). It's worth finding out a price on it, and comparing it to a new system. Even if you get a different computer, you could always try to sell the system as it is or sell it for parts. There might be someone on the forum that could be interested in it for that, and it would be better than going to waste, I suppose.

 

Try Hwinfo64... If it doesn't show anything even in that, the GPU is dead..

 

Yeah that's really weird that your GPU would die that young, the 970m doesn't really even generate that much heat.

 

Check your selected warranty from your invoice and contact our support people Silicon is very complex and it can be hard to know exactly what might have gone wrong.

 

I've seen quite a few 970M/980Ms in the 8651/8652 die... Probably BGA failure is the reason..

 

Go into your BIOS, change your BIOS mode from Legacy back to UEFI. Restore optimized defaults somehow changes it back to legacy mode.

 

Really? On the SE/SG series? That doesn't seem right.

 

Yeah, just tried it on my P650SG with stock BIOS to confirm, yes it does change the UEFI boot from enabled to disabled when loading optimised defaults.

EDIT: Loading optimised defaults also turns off secure boot from what I can tell.

 

Interesting! We receive the barebones units with UEFI enabled. Maybe I was assuming that was the default all along. Thanks for double checking.