No more display

I have Area-51 M17X R1 system with dual nvidia 8800 gtx in SLI. Yesterday when I working on the system, suddenly the display turned green and the system hanged. I restarted manually and went to SAFE mode, I couldn't find anything so I restarted again .. windows failed to boot (didn't move beyond 'starting windows'). I restarted the system and opened bios. It was showing N/A against the slave GPU temperature. I removed the slave GPU, restarted and now I am not getting any display at all. I have swapped the GPUs, installed slave in the place of master but no success.

I have started the system and waited for about 5 mins, no success. When I turn it off manually it turns off immidiatly so I am suspecting that it is not going beyond the first screen.

I need help with following

• How to make sure that problem is with cards and not screen ?
• Does integrated graphics option exists for every alienware system ? Do I need to remove the cards before enabling integrated graphics.
• As a contingency measure I was looking for spare cards, i am unable to locate the cards for laptop, any help please

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no the m17x don't have integrated

 

Also,

How can I recover the data in hard disk, its been 2 hrs and still I am unable to find the new/used cards ...

Anyone recommend 9800m GTX,

 

and is there any way to confirm whether motherboard is OK or not,

Thanks a lot

 

well the laptop is suposed to send sonor signal or something if there is any issue hat code would tell what the error is

also to recover the data on the hdd you can just pull it out and plug in an other machine if you don,t have a other machine with compatible plug there are adapter or dock availible at diferent places i got mine on think geek

 

easiest is to pop your drive ( s ) out and put them in a 2.5" SATA -USB enclosure and then pull your data to another computer

 

Or you can pop in an Ubuntu live Desktop session and see if you can get your data out if you don't have an external enclosure.

 

I am not getting any error signal at all, usually the system beeps if there is any issue (at least my desktop does) but here no beeping. My system is shutting off immediately when I press the alienhead so I am assuming that it is not going any further towards windows booting. That is why I asked about the motherboard check

 

Are you talking about this

 

yup it's plug and play for recovering data from hdd it's great


not making any sound have you tryed making a power drain ? depluging the csmos laptop batery and psu them pressing the power button so that the bios memory get cleared

 

Thanks Man, I will try it in the evening and will post the feedback

 

What you can also try is this

Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

I use this when I go to troubleshoot my systems. It has a lot of different tools that you can use including some data management software.....If anything you can use some of the tools to test different parts of your laptop and possibly get the data off your HD you want without taking the HD out......

 

OK, I removed the battery and kept pressing the alienhead for 30 secs, same thing ..

Here is the youtube video link

Any Help Please

Will give it a try and come back to you

 

so you took out all 3 part then pressed the alien head for 30 sec

then you put them all back n and it still did the same thing?

 

I removed the power supply, removed the battery and then pressed the alien head for 30 secs

 

inside the3 laptop there is an othe batterie like a watch size one wic need to be removed for the power drain to be sucessfull

i don't know where the m17x one is though

 

OK, I am sure I made a mistake yesterday,

when I was removing the cards, I forgot to remove the battery , i think I saw a tiny spark .. can anyone confirm if the condition is still hopeful

 

it is still if you can perform a power drain it would reset the bios and mabe it would boot


i had a screw fall on my master gpu while the laptop was runing there was a light and sound show and the screw flyed through the room and there it is my laptop is still functional

 

I have to find that third battery then, wish me luck

Just one question, laptop is booting means motherboard is OK ?, first I was thinking that I will connect an external display but immediate shutdown depicts no startup ... and no error make things more complicated for me

EDIT: Is it possible if I could get the BIOS for motherboard and GPUs

 

if the laptop can finaly boot ethier it's ok or it will finallly tell you what is wrong

 

Still the same, booting without any indication ... any other insight please

 

ît seem like your mobo is fried
one other thing that comes to my mind is maybe the ram could be the cause

maybe try swaping the stick removing one removing only the other

 

You want me to see whether one ram works at a time or not .. right ?

If mobo is fried, system shouldn't boot .. right ?

Is riply model mobo compatible with non-reiply model system ..

Thanks

 

ya cheq if they work one at the time for mother board some one with a m117x would be better help

 

rams are working ok, I have checked them one by one ...

still my question, If mobo is fried, should system boot ?

 

depends on what is fried on it i had a friend laptop that could boot even play some game but some randoom time it would freeze


but in your case it's ethier the mobo or the gpu so none of the ram stick changed any thing?

and i'm having trouble understanding what you said you have as issue in the first place sry english is not my native language

 

Yeah, I removed the rams one by one and started the system, nothing was changed. Actually I want to know what is fried before ordering for something new

I will try to put my problem simply, My system was running fine when suddenly screen turned red and green. I turned off manually, went to bios. In temperature section it showed N/A against secondary gpu. I opened safe mode during windows boot and found that secondary GPU wasn't there. Knowing that gpu was faulty I opened the system to replace the GPU, here I made a mistake and forgot to remove the battery. I saw a tiny spark when I was installing main gpu. Now I am not sure what fried.

I know I should have disabled the card in safe mode but this is a mistake i made. I want to be sure before I order something.

Thanks

 

well you would need an other system to test the mobo or gpu both can be faulty at this point how ever my bet goes on the gpu now

 

Hmm ... just a question .. my guarantee has expired but calling alienware tech support will help ?

 

yes and no depend on your luck

if you know some one with a laptop that has a mxm 2.1 type 3 slot in it you could test your gpu and test if his gpu is seen in your laptop so you would know if it's the mobo or the gpu that got damaged

 

That's the problem, everyone here has systems with integrated graphics so I am out of luck here

Any company that can take my damaged components, repair them and return these back to me ?

 

Can anyone confirm whether this is for my system

 

And to answer your question about 9800 gtx YES!!!!!!!!!!! its a 1 gig card and SLI capeable, but they can be pricey.

 

so what was the problem????

 

Not gonna work if it's a raid setup - drive won't be seen and slave machine will just ask to format it.. would need to be networked from a compatible raid setup

Thought you said earlier you could get into your bios? of you can go there then I'd say it's doubtful your board is fried and it's more likely the graphics card (assuming every thing else is ok? memory? )

only way to know for sure
hook up an external
if it works - it's your main screen/inverter/backlight
if it doesn't - it points to your graphics card/s - try sourcing a second test card of a friend if possible and test - vive-versa test your card in there machine - if works then look at MB - if not then you know it's the graphics card/s

 

I found it out I purchased the SATA Drive dock ,

Still I am not sure, all off my friends have systems with built-in graphics ..

I am still unsure, my job's tough schedule is preventing me to focus on the issue.

 

If you saw a spark when removing a video card something is going to be not working. Its a 50/50 shot whether its the video card or the mobo but judging from your problems it seems that video is the issue, not mobo related. The system would not boot/power on with a bad / faulty mobo.