Alienware m17x R2 wont boot up.

[Adelena]

Good day users,

My wife is a proud owner of an Alienware m17x R2.

And yesterday when she was surfing the net she suddenly got weird colors on her screen and the fans speeding up to the max.

So she turned it off with a face like WT.....^&*(

After she turned it on again she had a led indication and the LCD wont turn on anymore ( no backlight at all )

So i went on adventure to figure out what the problem was.

The led indicator ( 2 leds blinking from the left side ) indicated that 1. Replace the video card or 2. replace the system board.

Thats what the dell website told me at least.

So i thought lets try out what happens when the videocard is unplugged ( in the hope there was an onboard videocard on it, wich the m17x doesnt have )

And then suddenly i got a beep code sounded as following : Long beep, short beep, short beep.

So i started to look on google what that would mean and figured out that that means the motherboard is not functioning.

Now my Question is.

Logical question, can i fix this?

More adept question what is broken now, Video Card or the Motherboard.

Since then i know if i can replace it with a new part.

My thanks in advance,

Fred.

[svl7]

Most likely it's the video card which said farewell...

I assume there's only one video card in your R2? Else chances would be that at least one was still working.

If you're out of warranty then I'd check the web for a GPU replacement, a 5870m should be relatively affordable by now. Or a 460m or similar.

Anyway, there's one thing that is worth trying even though it most likely won't help in your case. Make a complete power drain and then try to power the system on. (Powerdrain -> remove AC adapter and battery, press and hold the power button for about 20 seconds, put battery and AC back)

[Adelena]

I tried the power drain two times, and that didnt work out sadly,

There was an Geforce GTX 280m in it, so probably i gonna look for the same one.

And there was only one in it so cant test it with another one

And its out of warranty for 2 years already.

But is this surely the video card that died?

Before i gonna buy a new GPU i kinda want to be sure of it before its the motherboard.

Thanks for the quick reply ^^

[svl7]

No, I can't be 100% sure that it's the GPU, but it's very likely.

Only way to be really sure is to put that 280m in another system, do you know anyone with an MXM capable notebook? I.e. a notebook with the same GPU slot.

280m is relatively cheap on ebay. You could also grab a 260m, they go for even less and the difference in perfomance isn't big.

[Adelena]

Sadly i dont know anyone with an MXM system, but at least thanks for the info.

I gonna look around for an new video card.

Greetings.