Blind flash now 7 beeps indicating dead cpu

Had an issue where my Soundblaster Recon disappeared in Device Manager after updating drivers through Win8 update. I tried a fresh install of Win 7/8 to no avail. Followed the Dell instruction to update the Bios update. So i tried with A10, A09 as well as unlocked A10 with no luck. So i figured i would do a blind flash back to A03. I forgot to take out the battery when i did it but it went through the series of beeps. When it finished and reboot, i now get 7beeps which indicates CPU fail. . Before i switch out CPU's. Any other ideas

 

7beeps does not mean that it's 100% CPU failure, even though dell advices that.

M11x will 7 beeps indicating CPU failure when it could be faulty io card. I have seen same behaviour in m15x where it was faulty motherboard.

 

Most likely you need to reblind flash it and be patient with it.

 

By the way if you have a wife you need her to slap you for flashing that laptop lol Tho hast not learned his lesson sorry had to man but you did it again but atleast you can come back from this one.

 

So, you got your screwed up motherboard repaired and it is already messed up again?

As Codenamefa suggests, do another blind flash. Let it beep as long as it needs to. May take well more than 120 beeps and possibly 10 or 15 minutes for it to finish. When it is done, the beeping will stop.

I wonder if that ES CPU you have is causing some of your problems. It seems your computing life was turned upside down at the point that bugger was installed, but it has been kind of difficult to follow all the posts about it. It would be very unusual to find a defective Intel CPU, but it seems there might be some kind of correlation here. Thoughts?

 

Unfortunately this was not my messed up motherboard, this was my other M18x. I've tried to blind flash again but it does not seem to read the USB stick in the E-Sata. I took the system apart and put back the 3610QM to no avail. I have never had problems like this with any other desktop, laptop that I have owned. What is it with Alienware.

 

I don't see anyone else experiencing the same problem, so it does seem like an Alienware thing to me. If the same ES CPU was installed in each motherboard at the time it stopped working correctly, that might be a clue what the problem is.

 

Can't see it being the CPU causing the issue, since the audio disappearing is a known problem and the solution is re flashing the BIOS, which i tried with A09/10 as well as Unlocked A10. That's why I decided to flash back to A03, but I forgot to remove the battery before doing so. It did the process, beeped as usual, but on a reboot, it gives the Bios error. Resetting the Bios, doesn't clear. When I updated the Bios a while back to A10, I got the 8 beep, indicating GPU issue. A simple Bios reset solved that. Anyone with an idea to solve this would be great.

 

If this did not work, and you are still not able to blind flash, then your motherboard is possibly bricked.

 

If you try that and you require some extra help for the replacement motherboard send us an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll help you out.

 

Older thread... hope I still catch someone's attention.

So I enabled overclocking on my m18x r2 today (i7 3740qm) using the default settings that popped up in the BIOS. After a reboot, it wouldn't make it past post. The keyboard lighting would flash on and then the system would just power off. I tried to clear the CMOS by removing the CMOS battery / hold the power button down for 20sec with no power sources, hoping that it would revert to my last booted good config. Same crappy result. Did the blind flash with the A03 version. Now I get a 7 beep post. Did I really fry my hardware, or is my BIOS just humped? Is there a fix, beyond ordering a new motherboard or cpu?

 

Clear your Bios should do it. Did for me. Just never updated post back then

 

If the blind flash completed and the machine rebooted itself, then started the 7 beeps, try clearing the CMOS again and see if that does it.

It there any other change that was made?

 

Thanks guys for the quick response. Just tried clearing the CMOS again. Still getting the 7 beeps. I think my BIOS is borked. I sure hope I don't need to replace the whole motherboard just to fix this.

Here's the long version of my story: Dragon Age Inquisition was getting a little choppy on my CF 7970s so I figured a slight overclock would help (since I was still running stock clocks). I downloaded Afterburner for the GPUs and XTU for the CPU. Gave everything a 10% bump over stock, rebooted. Reboot failed. So on the re-reboot I did the F2 system BIOS and set everything back to default so I could go back into XTU and try a different setting. After the quit and save with default clock settings, I could no longer boot. Not even to POST. It would turn, keyboard light up, then shut off.

After some forum searching I figured the CMOS needed a good reset. Pulled the battery, did the 10 min hula for good measure... still same boot result. Next I tried the blind flash using version A03 from a file that the amazing Mr Fox posted on these forums since the Dell site only gives that crap exe which only works on the actual machine. The blind flash worked as advertised: beeped for about 5min then rebooted. That's when the 7 POST started. I have a hard time believing my CPU fried from a 10% clock increase. And every other function on the motherboard seems to work (all ports have power, able to perform blind flash from esata). What do you think? Is there anything else I can try short of hardware replacement?

TL; DR: 10% over clock didn't take. Default clock setting in bios crashed the boot sequence. CMOS clear no work. Blind flash causing 7 post beeps. CMOS re-clear no work.

 

So I guess the motherboard needs to be replaced. I'm sure its just a hung BIOS and that the board isn't physically bad (tried a reset/clear, tried blind flash, tried CPU&mem swap). It's very disappointing, since I love the laptop and was hoping to do the SLI 980m mod to it. I got Dell on the phone, and ordered a replacement motherboard from them, and they guaranteed 2 day business delivery. I'm relocating to Africa for a year this week, and the timeline would've been perfect to get the board and swap it out before I left. However, Dell doesn't have the board in stock, and 'forgot' to mention it to me. When it didn't show in the mail I tracked the reason down: order cancelled. No notification. No email, no phone call. Wonderful customer service! Now I have to board a plane with no laptop and little hope of getting one at my new location. And shipping an expensive laptop to a 3rd world country isn't on the top of my 'smart' list.

Thanks Dell! You suck. Sager NP9377 with SLI 980m's on order. Guess I'll buy a motherboard from China and have a buddy fix and play with it for the next 12mos...

 

I have a M17x R4 and am presently experiencing the 7 Beep issue after a normal reboot of the system. Dell Service Tag ---. There u can check the original and current configurations. My attempts thus far to work this problem are as follows: Cleared CMOS (also replaced battery with a new one), reseated both the GPU and CPU, swapped new CPU with a known working older one, all without positive result....any help would be appreciated

 

You should not advertise your service tag numbers. People can initiate ownership transfers with them.

 

Purchase a new BIOS chip find a good repair shop and have it soldered on

 

Wow someone has the same issue as me and its a recent-ish thread. I've got the M17x R3, updated my BIOS to A12, then went to a custom A12 Unlocked version, changed some settings and hoped to be able to reset BIOS if it wouldn't boot, ended up being right and reset them, didn't work out. Tried to blind flash, and foolishly aborted it when it seemed to fail (bad instructions from a different website) and since then haven't been able to get anywhere. If I try to normally boot, I get 7 beeps, when I just changed the fans to always be on high, no over clocking (I know better). I can disconnect all power and remove the battery, then press END and plug in AC to get to blind flash, but can't get the system to beep with or without flash drive in. Fans spin up on high, and I get power from the eSATA port, but it'll sit there like its frozen for hours. Could it be the flash drive I'm using? Or what? I've tried taking just the CPU out, everything, and with or without the CMOS battery. I may have left something out, but I've been using my DROID Turbo since January 2nd (the day I messed up my laptop). Any help would be great... Oh, and when I boot regularly, fans spin up for about half a second then stop, both CPU and GPU. Beeps 7 times for over 10 minutes and doesn't automatically shut off. Is there anything I'm missing with the blind flash?

 

If your under waranty call them up. If not time to buy a new motherboard.

 

That's too bad. I guess I won't be messing with my bios anymore lol