Figures one final Alienware 18 issue!!!!

so I’m selling my alineware 18 for $900. And I was throwing another hard drive in it for the guy since I took out my Samsung SSD’s I had in raid 0. Everything was working fine. I went into the bios and turned off the raid back to Ahci because i was planning on reinstalling windows 7 for the guy anyway. Turned off the power. Closed everything back up and now I get no power at all. Unplugged it, tried with just battery . Nothing, no beeps no anything . Tried just power supply with battery unplugged . Nothing . Tried both disconnected and held down power on button to drain excess power, then try again. Nothing. Disconnected the cmos battery for about 5 minutes . Also tried holding down power again for any excess power and nothing. Even tried a spare power supply.
Anyone have any ideas? Literally I am getting no startup at all. Not even for a second . I’m hoping that info will help one of you think of what it could be. I literally have taken it all apart and put it back again Incase a ram chip was loose or something but still no luck .

 

I had that exact same problem too when I had the laptop. I never figured it out and gave up.

 

I took the entire thing apart and put it back together now the only thing it couldn’t be is the power inverter (might have messed that name up) it’s only a $30 part if Anything. Just sucks cause i wanted to sell it today now i gotta wait longer. I think $900 is a good price for this laptop . Parted out i could probably make around $1100. We will see. Honestly I’d take $650 for it right now as is .

 

I had the same issue recently and i had to look around for 30 min to understand from were comes this... short story long most likely is you’re internal power cable. Open the Alienware, now close to the battery cable there’s another flat cable have a good look on this one, is quite wide you can’t miss it. This one most likely is damaged a bit maybe a pin ? Or doesn’t sit properly in the socket, in my case was both at the same time. I was pressing the power button and there was no action from computer it was like is completely dead... if u need a picture u let me know. Hope this helps

Cheers

 

Hey all, I have the same issue. No power or beeps or fan spin or anything. I have an older 18 and tried swapping the cables and palm rest assembly on case there was something wrong with the power button circuit to the mobo. No luck. @giogrig, I cannot find this internal power connector you speak of Could you provide a picture or more of a description? @jtravapd8578 did you ever solve your issue? Thanks guys!

 

found later that what initially i called a power cable was the card reader flat cable, which due to a slight damage to one of the pins didn't allowed the laptop to start again after a disassembly/ reassembly process.

 

Be very careful with this connector, I've ruined two before, seems to be very fragile.

 

Yea mine slips in and out a lot too. Seems badly designed

 

i agree

 

So does this mean that my aw 18 mobo is probably still working ?

 

Good chance that the flat cable has broken pins or pins lifting from the cable making poor contact.