Possibly bricked M18X R1, rough morning...

Hi Everyone,

So it seems my M18X is in pretty bad shape. I recently flashed the unlocked A05 bios to help put on a modest overclock (4.2 ghz with 0 Vid, 99/56/99 & 2000 on the pri-plane). It ran great until this morning, when I went to turn the machine on aaannnddd - nothing. The only sign of life were the fans spinning, system lights, and speakers popping over and over again in 2-3 second intervals. I tried clearing the cmos using the power button drain method and a screwdriver tip placed lighty on the cmos pins, but no luck.

I then made a blind flash and attempted recovery - again, poor results - the system was stuck with the fans on full blast and that same "popping" noise from the speakers for more than an hour before I finally powered it down (red lighting effect when doing this just stressed me out more, worrying that was it's "dying breath") . No beeps, no blinking activity light on the flash drive.

Any advice/info much appreciated, cheers guys!


**Update**

So it took a bit longer to get back to y'all but here's the situation-

I tried a blind flash recovery with 3 other flash drives, all different brands, but the results were the same; Fans spin up, lights come on, cd-rom drives does it's mechanical noise, but no beeps or blinking from the drive. Work has been crazy lately, but I'm going to try and make time to sit down and pull all the ram out (and possibly the gpu's if necessary) to see if that can at least get it posting.


**Final Update**

After doing an almost complete strip-down, I got the system to post. The blind recovery method did not work in my case, but pulling the gpu's out, along with a thorough cleaning & re-seat job of all connectors/adapters, got things up & running again. The system's still on A05 unlocked, though settings will stay at "optimized default" for a good while I think. Cheers to everyone that read the thread, especially those who replied. You guys are the best (Y'all know this already, but the feels got to me)!

sense

 

I've heard of people having to remove the RAM to clear the BIOS. I think you just need to reset it and it should work again. Nothing happening upon boot could be so many things, hopefully it's a simple setting issue.

 

Have you tried the blind flash recovery method yet?

 

Hoping that's the case as well J.Dre. I ordered a few different flash drives online yesterday, as I read the esata port can be a bit picky with what it will read for a blind flash recovery. I'll be sure to try pulling all the ram out as well.

I did try the blind flash recovery DumbDumb, but had no luck (thus far). I'm currently letting the cmos drain out overnight and will try again using the new flash drives and ram suggestion from Dre. I'll post back with a results edit.


Thanks guys!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ry-process-all-m18x-r1-case-corrupt-bios.html

your following the guide? do you get beeps ? or can your explain to us what it is doing exactly please..

 

Yes, that's the guide I followed, pulling the .fd file from the bios archive, renaming it, then pushing the file to a FAT32 - formatted flash (4gb).

I don't get the beeps, just a steady *pop* sound from the speakers every few seconds (the same noise the sound card always makes, albeit only once, before a healthy boot into windows).

When I put the flash drive in and turn the system on via the adapter (holding the End key) the system fans immediately go full blast and the lights turn on, but that's it-no beeps, as I mentioned in the OP. It sits like that until I power it down, when all the system LED's flash red before the system turns off. That's as far as I've gotten, unfortunately.

 

sounds like you have the wrong file on the usb.. but i could be wrong..
are you taking the battery out.. and when the process start you will know it.. it will be full blast wake the neighbors loud beeps.. like a garbage truck backing up in your house.. and it will go on for what seems like forever..
if your sure your using the correct file then try it with a different usb stick and see what happens..

 

Thanks @DumbDumb for the method, we do not recommend it but it's pretty much the last resource before changing the board.

 

I'm actually surprised that it is not recommended as an alternative to motherboard replacement. It would save Dell a ton of time and money in unnecessary motherboard replacements and/or system exchanges if they would endorse it and a go as far as including it as a technical support resolution procedure. They could even have a script for tech support reps to walk customers through this simple process by phone as a prerequisite to creating a dispatch for field or depot repair. This would make a lot of customers really happy that do not know about this crisis recovery method. It's a terrible shame that they changed things with the BIOS to the point that it does not work on the new machines.

 

I know, it's just something that our Product Group can't recommend.

 

Yeah I read it's a pretty dramatic effect when it actually goes through with the recovery. I do have the battery out.

The new sticks come tomorrow, so I'll upate y'all on what happens. Thanks Dumb!

 

Hi Guys,

So I tried the blind recovery with three other flash drives, formatted correctly to FAT32 w/ 32KB cluster size and put into the e-sata port-still no luck. I also removed all the ram and tried again, but the system still won't read any of the drives. I suppose at this point all that's left is to remove the gpu's and see if that makes a difference. Wish me luck guys!

sense