M18xR2 from hell - Is it possible the bios chip is going bad?

So I work for a computer repair place. I have never owned, nor will I ever own an Alienware computer. This is due to the bias I have, I only see broken Alienwares and they have ALWAYS given me a headache. This one takes the cake

So it's got 2x 675m in SLI and it runs Heaven 4.0 on max settings (Tessellation and AA) at around 20 frames stable. Sometimes, it will work for 3 hours. Sometimes, it only works for 10 seconds. About half the time it black screens and comes up with a bluescreen BCC 116. The other times it either blacks out and comes back up, like a display driver crash, or it freezes and has the audio stuck in a tiny loop, needing a hard reset.

I have reinstalled windows 7. I followed the driver guide. I have done this 5 times with no avail. It is never consistent.

Sometimes, it wont post and it beeps at me. It beeps once, pause, once, pause, etc.

Sometimes it says the power adapter isn't recognized.

I tried installing Win 8.1 pro today. Followed the driver guide. After the display driver, it black screened. Now it wont display at all half the time.

And now it's doing the wifi connectivity thing. I will check the card, it is a killer wireless, I don't know which one though

I have ran FurMark for 2 hours.

I have ran prime95 for 2 hours.

I ran memtest86+ for 8 hours.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS THING

Please Mr. Fox, I have followed your advice in the past, you mythical beast. You are our only hope

 

Sounds like you are abusing that M18x-R2 .

 

You definitely have some sort of component that is failing or failed. The 1 beep pause 1 beep is not a good sign at all. I would re-flash your BIOS and check to see if your problems go away or not.

 

Does diagnostics pass?

If so its time to start eliminating. Pull the gpu's and try one at a time. Try removing ram. If same results then try a CPU if you have access to one. Then motherboard will be last option.

 

Yeah, I've flashed the bios accordingly. It was at A10 for the first few installs, then I bumped it up to A11 for a few, and finally A12 when I was trying to get windows 8. The beep code indicates mobo or bios corruption, which is why I have a hunch the bios chip is going bad. It's the cheapest component to replace, and around the same in terms of labor.

The built in diagnostics all pass. Like I said, I ran Prime95, Intel Burn Test, Memtest 86+, FurMark, and Heaven on max settings. The only one that fails is heaven, and I believe that is due to using DX11 but I'm not sure. Even when it fails, it is never consistent and sometimes it doesn't fail at all. I'm almost positive it isn't the CPU or ram.

 

I had the one beep pause one beep on my R2 and it ended up being a dead primary GPU. I would do as @pathfindercod said and swap GPUs and see if that resolves the issue.

 

That may well be it....dead GTX 675M aka GTX 580M known to be unreliable cards that like to crap out and die.

 

good to know. I will do that thanks.

7970m a good cost effective replacement?

 

I wish I could say yes but, the 7970M is almost as unreliable as the GTX 675M/580M. Your best bet would be to go with a GTX 680M or 780M.

 

Well crap. I had an MSI (branded cyberpower) with a very fussy 780m in it a while ago. Ended up being that there was no stable drivers... Acted very similar to this issue. Those don't have the SLI connect on them do they? Thanks for your help mane

 

The Dell/Clevo versions have SLI connectors. Alternatively, you could look into a 8970M or R9 M290X, they don't fail nearly at the same rate as the 7970M did. Be careful though, some of the Dell R9 M290X do not have crossfire connectors.