Alienware 17r3 won't power on

I tried to turn on my computer this morning and it won't boot. The power button is doing nothing at all. I tried disconnecting the battery but that did not work.

It was working fine 15 mins before when I shut it down.

Does anyone have any ideas before I call support?

 

What bios are you using? I saw I think another user with a similar problem last week and he was using bios 1.2.12. I had a similar problem but in the end I could get it to run after pressing the buttong like 3 times in a row. But I could never get the system to power off or sleep mode correctly after. Had a motherboard replacement for that last week.

 

I'm on the latest bios 1.2.12

 

Try booting 2 times without the adapter connected and after that plug the connector in again. Try again. This is how i got it to run.

 

Out of sheer curiosity, I downloaded the BIOS, extracted the DSDT and what do you know...there are several IRQ values which are wrongly done, which I guarantee affects startup/shut down. I can patch them and fix this issue, but we have no way of flashing back. Thanks Alienware

 

I've been trying to boot on battery thats when this started happening. Won't boot with battery or a.c. or both.

 

@Alienware-L_Porras Please take note of this. 3 users on this forum now have bricked motherboards because of this.

 

I have been running 1.2.12 since the day it was released on the Dell support site. I did not upgrade the bios today.

 

They aren't going to fix it. Dell never fixes any of the issues they have. Better off to sell it and not get a buggy POS.

 

ggwp

10/10 bios support

 

I did too. But it still happened. It is the only reason why this can happen. In the release notes it removed a sleep state, thus meddling with the shutdown, sleep etc sequences. It just happened overnight days after. No reason whatsoever, no crashes before that. Just a clean shutdown and the day after it wouldnt turn on.

Bios wise it isnt really great but it is the only laptop in this class that I wish to have. No other alternatives with this build quality unfortunately (and size class).

 

I wouldn't play russian roulette with a self bricking computer, especially out of warranty. Unacceptable and quite shameful Dell won't own up to it, but what's new...

 

You know, I would be happy to waive all rights to my warranty if it meant Dell would give us the tool to modify/fix their crappy BIOS.....

 

I have the tools. I even fixed the file. I just have no way of getting it back onto the computer

 

Ah man, that's even worse! So close yet, so far..........

I'm guessing the issue is with a signature for the file?

 

The problem is SecureFlash, and nobody has the signing keys. Breaking that encryption is nigh impossible.

 

Why don't you think dell will fix it? If the bios is the cause of my computer not powering on dell is going to have to pay for the warranty work to get the computer working again. So it seems like an expensive mistake on their part.

 

Because they dont care. As soon as these systems are out of warranty, your laptop dies, and you buy another Alienware. Boards are dirt cheap to make.

 

I have had the same issue with mine twice!

Bought the laptop from a reseller, It was all working fine for a few hours whilst I updated the drivers and set it up. I also updated the bios to 1.2.12 which flashed fine.
I put it to sleep while I was away for a while and that's when I had no response when trying to wake it. I tried pulling battery cable and reconnecting. Nothing would bring it round. The keyboard lights were on but there was nothing on screen and no hdd led indicator lights lit up. Dead.

Contacted support and had the mainboard changed at home a day later.

It was all working great again so I updated the bios to 1.2.12 on the new board. Played a few games and shut it down fully the same night, but the next day when trying to switch it on, nothing - No response at all again.

So I contacted support again and have just had another tech come to replace the board today.

No way in hell am I updating this one to 1.2.12.

 

What bios comes with the replacement? Did you leave the computer on that version or move to 1.2.2 that everyone seems to like?

 

First replacement had 1.2.3 . Second has 1.2.2

I had no idea at the time of updating that the new bios may cause any issues. Now I've seen others with a similar issue, maybe 1.2.12 IS to blame.

 

Did they come to you to replace the motherboard? They wouldn't do that for me. Said they don't know for sure what is wrong.

I'm trying to get a new computer replacement.

 

Yes. I have NBD (in home repair) warranty.

The support rep I spoke to gave me the option to return and replace the laptop after the new board died or take a chance on another repair.

I would hate to have to wait up to 3 weeks for a replacement so I chose another repair. If it fails again then I will replace it.

 

Yeah I didn't really want to wait but I'm worried they would break something else taking apart the computer.

They seem to have an interest in "capturing" my pc to see what went wrong with it.

I've never seen a bios have a bug in it that bricks a computer after working fine for weeks. It's really too bad and I hope they fix it.

 

For me they did a motherbaord replacement too. I understood that if a part fails 3 times and they dont know the cause or cannot fix it they will replace the whole machine.

 

A programmer would have no problems flashing it, but would that still run?

 

Yes a programmer would work, but for 99% of people, that's too much work. The BIOS structure must be altered slightly if it is to be written to a BIOS chip via programmer instead of flash utility.

 

My replacement computer was delivered in one week after I made the support call so alienware support really took care of me there.

Unfortunately the replacement has a loud CPU fan so I would have to have the computer opened up to fix that. I haven't called tech support about it. I might just live with it for a while.