Help: Alienware 18 wont boot

Sigh

I was using IGP for a while. Have GTX 970M SLI installed. Tried both single and SLI and both worked 2 days ago with editing INF on the 347.09.
Tried FN+F5 today to enable the GPUs and finally try some benchmarking. Now all I get is a black screen. Can hear the CPU fan spin for a second, the LED lights on the keyboard is on plus on the side, but dark screen. No windows icon loading, no access to BIOS. I dont even think I see the HDD light blinking.

What have happened? The GPUs worked 2 days ago. Im using 347.09, Windows 8.1, 970M SLI and 4940MX (downclocked and downvolted).

What should I do?

Please dont say this is related.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...eaking-4940mx-underclocking-undervolting.html

Intel XTU loads after Windows have booted right?
Is it my GPUs?

:/

 

Reboot in Safe Mode and use DDU to remove those crappy 347.09 drivers. The black screen using those drivers on an SLI machine is a known issue. Try using one of j95's driver mods or my desktop driver mod and you will not need to worry about that. 347.09 is a horrible driver.

Hopefully, you enabled the Legacy boot menu for Safe Mode. (Admin command prompt: bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy) That makes getting there a lot easier by using F8 like Windows 7.

If not, you may need to intentionally fail to boot a few times to invoke the option to enter Safe Mode. You can do that by holding down the power button a few times in the middle of loading Windows. Gotta love that WIndows 8 piece of crap.

If the screen lights up and you see the Alienware logo and then the screen goes black, it is likely the display driver. If the machine doesn't POST (meaning no BIOS logo) then your CPU tweaking probably did it. Do you hear any faint beeping? If your CPU tweaking is the cause you may need to reset the BIOS using this method: **Alienware 17 (Ranger) /18 (Viking) Owners** - How to 'Un-Brick' Your Mobo

You can also try disconnecting the system battery (not the CMOS battery) and holding down the FN key, then powering on with AC power only and continue holding down the FN key until the machine reboots. That will sometimes (although not always) reset the BIOS to defaults.

 

Thanks Fox.
I cant access BIOS. The display shows nothing, not even the Alienware logo. I guess thats NO POST :/
I will try the FN trick and see if that helps. I fear I might have to use the first method involving removing all RAM and of course have to open it completely up again.

Seriously this is messed up. First the heatsink, now this although I could be the one to blame for this. Strange if its the XTU tweak, because it did stress test easily.

The CMOS battery is the one right next to a fan right under the bottom panel right? I tried removibg that and the battery but it didnt help

 

This always happened to me under two conditions:

- attempting to set CPU voltage too low

- setting memory timings manually that the BIOS did not like

There may be some other unacceptable XTU setting that could trigger it, but this happened to me a number of times under the above two circumstances. Setting CPU voltage too low made my machine refuse to POST about 5 times. I have done the RAM removal reset about 8 or 10 times back when I was still trying to find the best CPU overclock settings for the 4930MX.

The CMOS battery is by the mSATA card. It's shaped like a coin and has two wires that connect to the motherboard. Removing that does nothing like it use to do back in the good old days before Alienware started storing BIOS settings in NVRAM. Using the RAM removal trick dumps everything out of NVRAM and forces the BIOS to reload factory defaults. Be sure to confirm the machine boots in Windows while it is still disassembled, as resetting the BIOS this way may change the BIOS to Legacy Boot. If your 970M SLI requires pure UEFI boot like my M18xR2 does with 980M SLI, you will need to remove the GPUs, get the machine to POST, then set the BIOS back to pure UEFI mode, shut down and then put the GPUs back in again.

When you get back into the BIOS, be sure than Non-Turbo Flex Support (in the menu above the multipliers) is set to "Disabled" as having that enabled can cause issues switching between integrated and discrete graphics.

 

I downvolted it by -100mV, so perhaps you are right.
FN trick didnt work. Crap, now I need to dissasemble the whole thing again.

 

Yup, that absolutely can cause it, depending on what you had set for the baseline voltage. -100mV was probably enough to prevent the machine from booting. If you were set on 1.175V or less, that would definitely cause it.

I stopped using adaptive voltage with an offset. I use static voltage, set it where it needs to be, and have not had any issues as long as the voltage is not set too low. There is no reason to set the voltage below 1.175V, IMHO. That should support up to 4.2 or 4.3GHz and it's not too high for lower clock speeds. If you get a 0x124 BSOD at 43x4, that means the voltage is too low for stable overclocking and you would need to bump it up a little bit (1.185V or 1.200V) to stop that.

 

Crap, something is missing here.
I did everything. Removed battery and CMOS. Inserted 1 RAM slot after it beeped 20 times and shut off. Got to 5 beeps. Turned it off. Removed the one RAM slot and disconnected the power. Inserted all 4 RAM slots and reconnected all the wires again, inserted the HDD and CDROM and put panels on again. Lastly I connected CMOS and battery.

But I still get 5 beeps. What am I missibg here Mr Fox? I wasnt suppose to keep the laptop plugged in after 5 beeps with the 1 RAM slot still inserted and keep it plugged in while putting everything back together?

 

ITS ALIVE !!!!

The RAM trick worked. Now I will do a full reinstall with format and start from scratch again. Turns out the BIOS was reverted but also my 1 SSD suddenly was filled with partitions from when this notebook had HDD and SSD in RAID.

But atleast it works now. I do not wish anyone to go through this crap

Thanks Fox

 

Cool. Glad you're back in business. I forgot to point out you would get a 5 beep memory error on the first boot, but it goes away after you power off and immediately power on again without making any other changes. Sometimes doing the blind flash on the M18xR1 and R2 will do that. This is because the BIOS needs time to read from the SPD and establish settings for the memory and if the POST runs fast and skips basic checks it will do that. Sometimes installing new memory with different timings it will do that on the first boot attempt if POST completes too fast for the BIOS to react to the new memory. Older motherboards often used to have a "Quick Boot" feature that would skip checking memory settings and that would happen if you had Quick Boot enabled on those systems also.

 

Thats exactly what happened with mine I think. Had 5 beeps several times and thought I didnt fix it. Shut it off and thinking I had to redo some steps.
Tried to power on one more time, and suddenly it worked.

I imagine this is something Alienware deal with on an average workday. Customers thinking the laptop is dead when encountering this issue for various reasons. And most send it in or have it replaced because they dont know how or even us able to do this trick.

There should be an easier method of resetting bios. Like a switch hidden under the notebook, or a keyboard sequence or something

 

Had they not screwed up the BIOS on the new systems so bad with NVRAM and Secure Flash to try to block us from unlocking it, none of these problems would exist. All you would need to do it disconnect the CMOS battery and bridge the terminals where the wires connect (just like using the jumper on a desktop motherboard) and it would reset everything. Owning an M17xR2, M18xR1 and M18xR2 has been a completely delightful experience in every way. They have brought many problems upon themselves and the brand trying to play God and control us instead of leaving well enough alone. In a sadistic (and somewhat pathetic) way, I am actually looking forward to switching my brand preference to Clevo because of this sort of nonsense, along with the new BGA filth. I'd really like to wring the necks of the stupid yahoos responsible for these changes.

 

Yeah I totally agree. My first thought which I thought would fix it was CMOS+battery. I also wish there was some components underneath the notebook that you could do the swap trick with. Without having to remove palmrest and cables and screws etc. Like having all 4 DIMM slots in the same place. Oh well.

What about Clevo and MSI machines? Are users able to reset BIOS there?

 

I think so. The 18 is still amazing and very lovable. I still view it as being an aesthetic and architectural masterpiece as I do the previous model. There is no match for this anywhere in the industry.

If I was more gamer and less overclocker most of this would be more of an annoyance than a grievance. You never would have needed to go through that hassle except for your tweaking curiosity. It's too bad some of my early posts when the 18 was first released were not fresh on your mind, as it might have saved you a little time and inconvenience. However, what you learned from the experience is priceless, so there is a good aspect to it.

 

Mr. Fox,

I'm very interested in what you said. I too own an Alienware M18x R2, and last night I attemped to upgrade from my stock 680m SLI, up to 970m SLI. I had heard about turning on the UEFI boot, which I did in the Bios. However, after I took apart the laptop and back together, when I turned it on, the laptop will not Post, as you have mentioned before, and it goes into a black screen and has a continuous cycling Beeping. All I can do is shut the computer down by pressing the alien head power button.

I however, did not disable the Legacy boot. So my question is. Should I take the laptop apart again, put back on 1 single 680m card, hopefully it will boot, then I should go into the Bios and disable Legacy boot, and just have UEFI boot enabled, and then try the 970m card again?
Might be also important to note I'm running Windows10 9226 build, which is the latest. And I was running a L3 overclock setup directly from the Bios. Should I get rid of this overclock or does it not matter?

Thanks for your help!

 

Option 1: Optimus Mode (single GPU only) - change the video configuration from PEG to SG mode. This will enable Optimus if you have only one GPU in the primary PCIe slot. The machine should then boot into Windows and let you install the NVIDIA drivers. If you ever change the BIOS to something besides SG mode you machine may not boot unless you take it apart, remove the 970M and set the BIOS back to SG mode again.

Option 2: SLI - Take out the 970M out and boot with Integrated Graphics only. Change to UEFI without Legacy Option ROM, no Secure Boot, no Fast Boot. Reinstall Windows 8 with the BIOS set this way. You cannot install Windows 7 without Legacy support, so Windows 8.X.X is your only option. Put the 970M back in again, then install the NVIDIA drivers. If you enable UEFI without Legacy Option ROM Windows won't boot if it was installed with Legacy support. You'll get a BSOD every time until you reinstall Windows.

Hope this helps.

 

Hi Mr fox

Thanks for your reply. I still have a question, im running win10, not windows7. I just removed the 970m cards and half built up the laptop so i could boot it, and it did boot using the integrated graphics card like you said. My question now is, when i go into bios wand turn off legacy boot, u said it could render my laptop unbootable if it wasnt win8.1, however win10 is mostly similar to wjn8.1, so would the latop be okay? With only the uefi boot enabled?

Thank you again

 

Mr fox

I disabled the legacy boot, only enabled the UEFI boot and the windows8 fastboot, when i rebooted the laptop, it said checking media, then it said no media found and the pc just hung. I restarted but was still able to go into bios via what i believe to be the windows8 fastboot. My concern is that if i disable fastboot like u said in your post, then i perhaps might lose access to the bios F2 entry? And then i would be forced to have to reinstall my windows from a cd iso?
When i went back into bios, under UEFI boot now there is a new entry: UEFI onboard lan IPv4.

In this boot menu, should there be something else so that i could know now if my pc will be able to boot if i only enable UEFI by itself and disabled even the fastboot option?

Thank you

 

Mr fox

I tried the uefi boot by itself, it didnt boot, but i was still able to get into the bios.

So as i understand it, im currently downloading the win10 tech preview ISO, i will make a bootable dvd with it. Then i will only enable uefi boot and boot from the dvd and install win10. Then i will reinstall the 970m sli and boot up, if everything goes ok then windows should load and all i would need to do is intall the nvidia drivers, is this a correct assumption?

I will keep you posted of my progress.

Thanks again!

 

Mr Fox,

Okay, I have installed windows via UEFI boot, it's all working now. I had to wipe out my hard drive because the old partitions were all using MRB format, and in order to install Windows via UEFI the partitions had to be GPT format. Okay, so after Windows got installed and rebooted to test the new install worked fine, I first installed one of the 970m, and restarted my laptop, the computer posted and booted into windows without any problem.

To make a quick note, all of this time the laptop had been using the integrated graphics card, even after I installed the first card. So, after I saw that windows booted with the first card in, I turned off the pc and installed the second card and the sli cable. Then I booted again, and windows started up, no problems. Once logged in, I went to open the latest NVidia driver 347.52, double clicked and right after it says its checking the System Compatibility, it gives an error message, saying Nvidia Installer cannot continue, because the Graphics driver could not find any compatible graphics hardware.

What's up with this?

I opened up Hardware manager in control panel, and under display adapters I see this:
Microsoft Basic Display Adapter
Microsoft Basic Display Adapter

Which I assume are both 970m cards, which are being detected by windows as something else...

Any ideas?

 

You need to mod INF to install drivers
1. Install 7-zip
2. Download driver from Geforce.com
3. Extract the driver (EXE file) using 7-zip to a folder
4. Go in to the folder and "display drivers" and "nvdmi.inf"
5. Replace all "780M" inside the inf file with "970M"
Replace all "119F" with "13D8"
Save and exit
6. Disable driver signature within windows. Use mouse on the upper right corner til a charm appears. "Settings" - "Change PC settings" - "Update and recovery" - "Recovery" - "Advanced start up" - "Restart now" - "Troubleshoot" - "Advanced Option" - "Startup settings" - "Restart" - "F7".
7. Run the installer from the folder you made in step 3.
8. You are done

 

Cloudfire,

Thanks a lot for your very clear step-by-step procedure!

Okay, I did exactly as you posted, however, after I run the Installer from the folder I made in step 3, it stops like before when it's checking for system compatibility, and it continues to say that the graphics driver could not find compatible graphics hardware.

Nevetheless, there was ONE difference inside the control panel Device manager, the Video cards are now shown as:
Video Controller (VGA Compatible)
Video Controller (VGA Compatible)

And these are now under 'Other Devices' menu, there is no longer an Icon with Display Controller

I suppose we might be getting closer at this working....anything else you think I might be missing?

I was just thinking....what if I took off the 970m again....put the 680m back on, installed the nvidia drivers, then took the 680m out, and put the 970m on.....would this make a difference at all? considering that right now I have no drivers for video cards at all?

 

Then you didnt do the INF mod correctly. Did you replace ALL "780M" entries with "970M" inside nvdmi.inf? And all 119F with 13D8?

NVIDIA_DEV.119F.05AA.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M"
NVIDIA_DEV.119F.05AB.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M "
NVIDIA_DEV.119F.05AD.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M "
NVIDIA_DEV.119F.05AE.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M

Should be

NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AA.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M"
NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AB.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M "
NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AD.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M "
NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AE.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M

EDIT: Also, you ran the installer inside the extracted folder yes and not the one you downloaded from Geforce.com?? The one in the extracted folder is the one you modded. Thats the one you need to use.
Remember that you need to disable driver signing each time you reboot until you have the driver installed

 

Hi

%NVIDIA_DEV.119A.05AE.1028% = Section219, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119A&SUBSYS_05AE1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AA.1028% = Section126, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AA1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AB.1028% = Section222, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AB1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AD.1028% = Section120, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AD1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AE.1028% = Section225, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AE1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0550.1028% = Section228, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_05501028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0551.1028% = Section231, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_05511028

%NVIDIA_DEV.119A.05AE.1028% = Section220, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119A&SUBSYS_05AE1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AA.1028% = Section127, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AA1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AB.1028% = Section223, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AB1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AD.1028% = Section121, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AD1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AE.1028% = Section226, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AE1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0550.1028% = Section229, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_05501028

%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7.0688.1028% = Section324, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7&SUBSYS_06881028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.0685.1028% = Section324, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_06851028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.0688.1028% = Section324, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_06881028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D9.0685.1028% = Section324, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D9&SUBSYS_06851028

%NVIDIA_DEV.119A.05AE.1028% = Section221, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_119A&SUBSYS_05AE1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AA.1028% = Section128, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AA1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AB.1028% = Section224, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AB1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AD.1028% = Section122, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AD1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AE.1028% = Section227, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D8&SUBSYS_05AE1028
%NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0550.1028% = Section230, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_11A0&SUBSYS_05501028

NVIDIA_DEV.119A.05AE.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M "
NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AA.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M"
NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AB.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M "
NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AD.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M "
NVIDIA_DEV.13D8.05AE.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M "
NVIDIA_DEV.11A0.0550.1028 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M"

Yep, these are all the ones I changed myself. Yes, after I remove the signature thing from windows, I went back into the same folder that was extracted by 7zip and which also contains the folder that has the file I edited, and I ran the SETUP.exe file in that folder. The installer starts up, and stops saying the same thing about not finding any compatible hardware....... :-((((

 

Aha, I think I know why. You need to use 680M instead of 780M. The machine ID you used with 780M doesnt match your R2 (M18X R2 isnt using the same ID as my AW18)

Replace all "680M" with "970M" instead. And replace all "11A0" with "13D8". And revert all the previus changes you did back to normal again (970M/13D8 to 780M/119F ) so that the installer wont get confused

 

OMG!!!!! You ARE THE MAN!!!!!!!!

It installed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are sooo awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, for future updates, will I have to do the same every time? or will the new drivers install directly from the installer?

THANKS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!! just waiting for Dying Light to finish downloading again, since I had to wipe the hard drive to install windows via uefi

 

I`m glad it worked

Yep, you need to do this everytime on all drivers you download.
It only takes a minute to do though. Just use the replace function.
First 680M with 970M. Then 11A0 with 13D8 and you are done.

 

got it!
Really thanks so much! and now that I know, I can also pass on the knowledge!!!!

CHEERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D