jmonroe0914

If it doesn't POST, it could be a myriad of things, most of which couldn't be troubleshooted without specialized equipment and the PCB schematic, of which is proprietary and isn't available to anyone outside of Dell. However it's best to start with Occam's Razor (the most likely answer is the simplest), and work up in complexity. I would start by disconnecting all peripheral cables from the MB (i.e. HDD cable, CMOS battery, ODD, etc.), except the keyboard, mouse pad, video, and fans. This is to rule out a few things: A damaged peripheral or cable, as if the PCB is getting power and not POSTing, it's likely not doing so for protection due to a damaged component, damaged cable, or improperly seated cable. An improperly seated cable can cause a system to catch fire, and if the PCB detects a short or open circuit from an improperly seated cable, it will refuse to boot. Check all cable lock tabs, as if one is damaged and not securely holding a cable, it only takes a cable minutely seated incorrectly to cause one of the pins to cross and short circuit. If it doesn't POST, remove all RAM modules, then reinsert 1 at a time and try to boot (rules out a bad RAM module, which can cause a system to not POST) You'll know you're making progress if it beeps during POST, of which will allow you to further diagnose it from the amount of beeps. You may want to look into whether or not Dell could repair the MB, of which is likely a few hundred dollars for the repair of the PCB. Keep in mind you can also buy a used MB on eBay or Amazon for ~$300, however, it will vary wildly depending on the seller and supply and demand. I've seen used M18x R1/R2's MBs as cheap as $275, and as much as $450. If you choose to go this route, first call dell and find out what they charge to repair a system out of warranty, and how much they would charge if the motherboard needed to be repaired (it's likely in the ~$300 range) Dell does refurb their MBs, however I'm not sure if they do so for a customer repair (i.e. if a PCB component is damaged, I'm not sure if a customer can pay to have them simply repair the PCB, or is it simply a flat fee to replace the MB with a refurbed one, at which point they keep the damaged PCB, refurb it, then put it back in circulation)

Intel invented EFI, while UEFI came out of a consortium agreement between OEMs, hence the U [unified].

They should as the MB is identical to the R1, with the exception of newer hardware components (including newer daughter board and connecting cables, newer HDD caddy and cable, and ability to run an mSATA drive in the mSATA port).

About a month ago, Dell brought back the Alienware 18 (assumption being backlash from consumers], so the sli cable should be available to purchase (whether you'll find it anywhere else but from Dell directly is another question). As far as graphics, I believe it comes with either 2 4GB 980M's or 2 4GB R9 M290X's

The M18x does have torx screws (4 if I recall right), but they should never have to be removed and have nothing to do with disassembly/reassembly to gain access to the top of the MB. The only way it would have torx screws in other locations is due to the prior owner(s) putting the wrong screws in the wrong places.

The top shortcut buttons are controlled by OSD, so try uninstalling the OSD package and reinstalling (check the drivers page first to verify you're using the last version prior to reinstall). BIOS shouldn't have anything to do with it as far as I know.

My initial thought is probably not, and from comparing pictures of the 1525N and the Intel 72060ac, it appears as though the 1525N was built for tablets and smaller laptops (while this is a common sense assumption, it could be wrong as well). Just an FYI... the most stable AC wireless card, especially in regards to Windows 10, seems to always be the 7260ac. This is mainly due to the fact intel actively supports their hardware with continuous driver updates, while qualcomm and broadcom rely more heavily on OEMs to release driver updates. To provide a recent example, my AW18 came installed with the the Broadcom 4352 [Dell 1505], and dell packaged the Windows 10 driver package with 2 Windows 8 drivers that caused repetitive page fault in nonpaged area BSODs due to bcmwl63a.sys and another dll. Broadcom doesn't offer recent drivers through its support page, leaving the end user with a dilemma... luckily, I still had my Intel 7260ac from my old M18x. Provided you configure the adapter properties correctly with the 7260ac, you should always get between 702 - 866.7mbps. If using a router with external antennas, such as my WRT1900ac, the antenna position does matter when it comes to AC wireless. If you choose to go with the intel 7260ac, the model # is 7260HMWG

I have an M18xR1 and I've tried A04 unlocked and A05 unlocked, did a fresh windows 8 install, and started installing drivers in the proper order. When I get to the Intel HD 3000 dell graphics driver install, I install it (restarting in between each driver install), reboot, then change bios settings from IGFX to auto, save settings, reboots, then gives can't read disk error, press control alt del. No matter how many times I reboot, it gives the same disk error. I've replaced the HDD with brand new one and have done 7 clean windows 8 installs and every time I try to switch to discrete graphics or do into the unlocked bios, I get the same error. However, running the OEM bios never causes the error, but there's no way for me to switchfrok discrete to binary graphics on the OEM bios... whole reason I wanted the unlocked bios. I first got my 18xR1 in march 2012 and I was able to switch to binary graphics using fn + f7, but it stopped working after a month or two... so I thought since the unlocked bios allows you to manually choose in the bios itself, that would be my best bet, but every time I even enter the unlocked bios on the fresh install, even if I don't change anything, I get a disk errror. This isn't a problem with my HDD obviously, but I'm at a loss at to what's causing this or how to fix it without going back to the OEM bios.