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M6600 bricked, fan loud once, now only warm spot on chassis.


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Hi, my M6600 is totally unresponsive to AC or battery power.   I cannot even get any indicator lights to respond,  except for when the AC power is plugged in, the battery light will blink white briefly every 10 seconds or so.   And, the bottom of the chassis gets warm, underneath where the primary SSD resides.

I have removed that SSD, and it is not what actually gets hot--looking at some Dell diagrams, it is likely the "system board" that is producing the heat, during AC being plugged in.

 

The last symptom before the M6600 bricked was when the laptop was plugged into AC,  but with battery removed,  (this is my normal configuration since I use it as a desktop at home),  I pushed the power button, and one or 2 of the cooling fans immediately went extremely high speed.  Louder than I've ever heard it/them before.   That stopped after about 5 seconds, and since then the M6600 has been the unresponsive brick as described.

 

I have tried various remedies such as pushing and holding the power button for up to about a minute, with and without battery and with without AC.  

I've also removed and replaced the CMOS battery, as well as testing it with a volt meter---seems fine at close to 3V.

Also volt-metered the AC plug and it checks in fine at around 17V DC.

The AC brick doesn't get warm either,  only the mysterious underside of the M6600 chassis getting warm with AC plugged in.

 

I have entertained the idea that maybe the physical power button has become disconnected, however the issue where the chassis gets noticeably warm when plugged to AC  (even without the battery installed, so it's not that it is busy charging the battery),    and also the weird issue with the fan going super loud that final time before bricking...

 

Note, prior to this final fan blast and bricking, the laptop had been sitting idle and unused for 1 week,  without battery, but connected to AC power, and to 2 monitors (my usual home work layout).   I didn't touch the computer for that one week but I have a suspicion that the chassis could have been warm that whole time without my knowing it. 

I don't smell any burning now, but maybe it did all it's burnoff over that 1 week without my noticing.

So I guess it's something to do with the "system board" and some kind of power regulator circuit that may have melted.
I cannot even get as far as a BIOS screen or even power indicator lights, besides the infrequent battery indicator blinking white, during AC being supplied.   

 

So, I'm preparing to buy a used M6700, but this forum seems extremely knowledgeable so I thought I'd give this a try.

 

Other notes: this M6600 was used for Solidworks,  never for games.   It's got Win7x64,  8GB RAM, and has two Dell-issued SSD's,  and the Quadro 3000M.   No overclocking was ever attempted, I'm not all that tech savvy on computers...

 

Thanks for any ideas or advice!

 

Steve

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Thanks for your reply.  I've read about that too, but those lights never engage anymore.

Only the battery light with it's quick blink every 10 secs,   (during the AC plug being in.)

I don't leave that AC plug for too long because after 1 minute, I can feel the bottom of the laptop warming up, which is concerning...

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Yes, exactly, and even without the battery installed.   And the heat comes from a specific location, which is NOT where it usually gets warm at all.   During normal use,  it would have heated up near the vents, at the CPU and GPU spots.    Those aren't warm now when OFF,  now it only gets warm down near the primary SSD.   Something must have melted, likely on the MoBo.   I don't know if it's worth the approx. $200 for a replacement MoBo, in case it doesn't solve the problem.

I can get a refurb M6700 for around $700, and transfer my SSD's, some RAM, and then have a spare battery and charger for if I want to become a mobile batterypowered roadwarrior...    :)

I suppose there is also the option of bringing the M6600 for repair, to some local computer shop that is selling and warranties the refurb M6700 I'm interested in...

Labour might end up being a lot, and I don't want a flakey computer after that, since it's for my home business.

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