No power problem after unexpected shutdown

My m15x shutdown while I was in a game last night, may have overheated something, although it didn't feel overly warm at the time.
Until earlier today the power button would light up when the charging cable is plugged in, but would go off when pressed with no response from the laptop, and then earlier today it stopped lighting up altogether.
Was hoping to get it started up to give me an error code at least. Anyone experienced similar issues or know what might be wrong with it?

 

Most likely GPU, i've seen this exact behavior with faulty GPSs numerous times...

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

Ah, I wouldn't have guessed that. I do have the 260m card which I saw people saying there were problems with. Is there any way I can check it? I thought it would still at least switch on if it was the gpu.

 

Could be the motherboard. My last board failed suddenly by not accepting power through the jack, but weirdly worked with the battery. Needless to say, the battery eventually emptied, leaving me with a dead computer. So it could be that as well. It's quite common on the M15X. I found this site a while back when trying to troubleshoot mine. The problem in this case was the ITE I/O controller.

http://computer911.byethost10.com/example/e01.html?ckattempt=1&i=1

Have you tried a power drain procedure (remove battery, unplug power, hold down power button for 20 seconds)?

 

Yeah like kosti said, do a power drain frist,
After that i'd try to turn it on on ac only, with battery out, if it trips, do a power drain again and try to turn it on battery only.
If neither helps, you can remove the GPU and insert the PSU cable, if it doesnt trip, there was your problem, otherwise we'll try diagnosing furter

 

I just had the same problem today! Did everything mentioned above and nothing light up the alien head.
Even after remove the GPU, plugged in the power cord is still not lighting up the power button, is that a motherboard/power jack issue now, rather than a GPU issue?

thanks!

 

I have had same problem before.

Check the power button board cable. I replaced mine (same cable that connects trackpad to mobo just longer).

 

The new motherboard came in yesterday and I replaced it right away. The power jack on the old is indeed burned.
But there is something else also broken I guess:
So after I replaced the motherboard and plugged in the power supply, the head lights up (yay!), and I can power it on and even got in to Windows.
Just at the point I thought I fixed it from death, I noticed that both my monitor software and Throttlestop doesn't not show all the CPU cores and the system is running slow.
I immediately turned it off and trying to resit the cpu, and after that I can't even turn it back on again. It wont even show the BIOS screen, and the alien head on the case lights up for about few seconds then off. The light on the power supply stays on though.

Should I suspect a CPU issue then? I will try your suggestion on the power cable thing, but I doubt thats the issue for me.

Any suggestion is appreciated, really want to bring it back to life even I have to move on and get a new gaming laptop...

 

Pretty sure it is the ribbon cable powering the power button that is faulty. To test. Simply pop up the instrument panel. you will see the power button board is plugged into the mobo. This ribbon cable can get damaged and eventually no longer give power to the power button. This happens quite easily as the ribbon cables are delicate. I would say yours is practically completely broken.

The trackpad uses the same ribbon cable albeit perhaps a different length. Try swapping it and see. When mine went faulty I swapped the cables and I had power back. The trackpad oddly then lit up but wouldn't work (didn't care as I use mouse) until I replaced the bad cable for good proving it was on its way out.

The M15x mobo is pretty robust so it is highly unlikely it burnt out. To buy llook here: https://www.ebay.com/p/Dell-Alienware-M15x-Power-Button-Board-Flex-Ribbon-Cable/1719250735

 

Aha, you're right! It is the cable that was broken, after switching the cable my m15x came back from death. Is the cable also provides power for the alien head on aluminum case? I remember before I replaced my mobo, even that head is not lighting up.

I have another question for you if you don't mind: I've encounter some sudden shutdown while playing game even before all these rescue/replace, and it still happens from time to time after all these. I'd assume it is related to the battery since my battery is completed dead now (after almost 10 years of service ), because if I removed the battery and play on power supply only it rarely happen. But I have also seen some posts here that "too many connected use devices and power consumption" could also lead to this. It shoudn't be a heat problem since I've monitor the temp which is around 80 only. Have you experience this issue before, and what's your suspicion?

 

Even a 940xm at 3.2ghz with properly managed TDP/TDC plus the 970M you shouldn't have any trouble with a 240W brick. The 970M sups less power than a 680M I believe. My question would be how long have you had this PSU? The 240W PSU's are cheap and easily obtainable but in my experience die fast. I had exactly your symptoms after just a year of heavy use. When I changed the PSU the instability and shutdowns ceased.

Word of advice steer clear of this PSU. Instead get Dell's 210W chunky no nonsense PSU. Part number: DA210PE1 or D846D. These are high quality PSU's that can easily withstand 250-260W sustained load unlike the crappy slim 240W ones. I even got a couple running in series via a dual PSU adaptor to deliver up to 420W + I never use it these days as I run a 5850 currently and my 920xm is pretty much broken due to my overvolting days years ago.

One day when money isn't always needed elsewhere I hope to spruce her up one last time:940xm, a/c + blutooth card and a 970M. Or if feeling adventurous I might even try to convert her to DP and put an even faster card inside...

PS: another advice. The display of the M15x is proven to be of very high quality. Most if not all users on here with 970M have been able to overclock stable to 120hz on it. A very notable feat and one that will be very good for FFS games!

 

Thanks for all those good advises about PSU. Unfortunately, my m15x has given up on my again two days ago, and this time I really don't know what I can do save her anymore. Here is the story just in case you're interested: After playing games on my "back from death" m15x for a few days, I've also encountered some DX errors during game, so I decided to update the Nvidia driver and reinstall directX one day...the installation went through w/o any issue, but after playing game for 20mins for so, the screen start to flip and hang the game. After the forced reboot, the Nvidia's driver seems to be gone or not working anymore cos i was getting the 800*600 resolution. I was thinking it might be just software issue back then since thats the only I changed I made. But after several failed attempts to re-install different version of the drivers, none of them actually works. Some of them gives me normal resolution and properly read in sys info etc. but just not stable enough and the screen just freeze from time to time, others just not even able to install or reboot after installation but nothing happen. I've also try resit everything a couple of times, but it only get worse...it starting to show signs of broke lines during boot time well before entering the os, and finally just only giving me black screen after I push the power button. Can't see the customized vbios message, can't see the AW Bios options anymore, nothing...It has to be either the 970M dead on me or the new mobo I got has a bad mxm3 connector on it, btw, my old mobo's power jack is definitely burned, so I can't test the 970M on the old mobo to rule out the card being dead.

At this point I really feel she's gone now, if it is indeed the dead GPU. Unless the mobo turn out to be the fault one, or I get the 970M fix somehow...both I doubt are realistic. It doesn't make much sense to get another 970m/980m for $400 in 2018 either...so this might be it, time to move on I guess...

 

Damn that is a shame. I would say test on the "burnt" board but perhaps as you say there isn't much point. Where are you based. I may be interested in taking the 970M off your hands dead or alive as it were. I can at least give it a last test before putting it to rest.

Btw did you run driver sweeper or DDU before reinstalling the drivers? If you didn't this could corrupt things badly on the software side. That said lines at boot isn't a good sign at all!