Before I throw this away......

[ssj92]

On 7/6/2022 at 9:41 AM, simon h said:

I just want to reiterate here one thing. My laptop was running beautifully until ;

 

The stuttering in windows on a few vids and graphics was lag.

 

but then ;

 

I altered in bios the integrated allocated memory and raised it to 512mb, and raised the reserved value to 1024mb saved and exit.

Laptop restarted and powered back on......then just powered off. 

  

Did you try removing CPU and booting up then putting CPU back in? 

 

At this point it doesn't matter but these are some things I would have tried. I was out of town for awhile but hopefully you don't have to pay too much to have it working again.

[Maxware79]

On 7/6/2022 at 12:25 AM, simon h said:

As it happens i randomly saw this guy on Youtube. I called him earlier and had a long chat. I have put it all back together and i am sending him my Alienware and have asked him to get the video on his channel....watch this space...........

This video and one other video where he takes off the bios chip to reprogram convinced me to call him.

 

This guy is great. I've been watching a few of his videos over the past few months. man, I wish I had these skills.

[Maxware79]

If you have no luck using the e-sata port for the flash then try the regular USB port. Someone on TechInferno tried that after having no luck with the e-sata and it worked. 

Just in case the guy can't fix it 

[simon h]

Omg max, now it's said....I only tried esata ....it's a conspiracy lol

 

Well the update is it you are watching this thread is I courier to him and it's in the queue. Spoke to him and he is mentally busy right now he will call me 

 

 

On 7/10/2022 at 10:37 AM, aldarxt said:

I dont know how you found this guy, but looks like you made the right choice, his list of video repairs is amazing! I hope he makes a video repairing your OLD 2013 18 so we can learn more about our Prized machines!!!

Fluke.....

But as soon as I saw his thought process I watched another. He isn't a pc repair guy, he is an expert electronics guy with supreme diagnosis skills and it seems doing what he can from a shop.

 

I'm a database developer, I write loads of stuff, I can just tell that I know this guy is a talent 

[Maxware79]

2 hours ago, simon h said:

Omg max, now it's said....I only tried esata ....it's a conspiracy lol

 

Funnily enough, I bought an M14x R2 off ebay this week and it arrived yesterday. Along with a few other issues it was listed as occasionally not booting with a beep code. I assumed it was the 5 beep cmos error but it turned out to be the 1 beep BIOS corruption error and it would only boot once for about every 20 non-boots. 

When it did boot, I found that it was still on BIOS A01 but I couldn't flash the BIOS as there was no battery installed (Stupid Dell) so I decided to try the USB blind flash. I picked A04, extracted the right file and changed the name to M14R2.hdr (just a guess) and threw it onto a FAT32 USB. The M14x doesn't have eSata so my only choice was a USB port. Started the process and walked away, not expecting it to work. Came back 10 mins later and it was working. The 1-Beep error seems to have gone. 

[simon h]

Why i love my Alienware.........

Long story short;

Injured ribs....few days off work

4 weeks of hell, im feeling worse and worse

Lung collapsed after a return flight to the UK

rib injury was a fracture and the fracture/splintered and sliced through my lung

Lung bled for 4 weeks inside and out filling up with congealed blood harboring infection.

I now had 41c temp, a punctured lung, collapsed lung, pneumonia and sepsis all at once. Each kills people.

woke up in intensive care with doctors and nurses all around me, and weirdly loads of people from work.

fell in love with my nurse........omg.

lucky to be alive...

 

Spent 3 months in bed after surgery playing Elite Dangerous on my Alienware....................

[jaybee83]

22 minutes ago, simon h said:

Why i love my Alienware.........

Long story short;

Injured ribs....few days off work

4 weeks of hell, im feeling worse and worse

Lung collapsed after a return flight to the UK

rib injury was a fracture and the fracture/splinter sliced through my lung

I now had a punctured lung, collapsed lung, pneumonia and sepsis all at once. Each kills people.

woke up in intensive care with doctors and nurses all around me, and weirdly loads of people from work.

fell in love with my nurse........omg.

lucky to be alive...

 

Spent 3 months in bed after surgery playing Elite Dangerous on my Alienware....................

LOL thats a hell of a backstory on why u love your alienware, glad ure still with us man!

 

soooooo....what happened with the nurse? 😁

[simon h]

13 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

soooooo....what happened with the nurse? 😁

Ssshhhh, she is sleeping!

 

I still laugh now. She was at my bedside and i was brought a drink by another person who asked if i was ok. i said i was because i had this beautiful nurse looking after me...She added, "so you have a soft spot for nurses then?" I replied, "Well i wouldn't call it soft!!!" LOL...been together ever since. English humor i guess

[simon h]

Well i'm still waiting on this guy. It's 2 months tomorrow that i couriered it to his shop.

 

Called him 2 weeks after delivery :- He was mentally busy and said he would call

Called him 1 month after delivery :- same as above

Called him 2 weeks ago 6 weeks after delivery said it was on the bench about to be looked at

 

Not heard a peep yet. Must be a bad sign

[jaybee83]

20 hours ago, simon h said:

Well i'm still waiting on this guy. It's 2 months tomorrow that i couriered it to his shop.

 

Called him 2 weeks after delivery :- He was mentally busy and said he would call

Called him 1 month after delivery :- same as above

Called him 2 weeks ago 6 weeks after delivery said it was on the bench about to be looked at

 

Not heard a peep yet. Must be a bad sign

well....definitely not optimal but at least hes replying and having some super slow progress? kinda? 😅

[Maxware79]

Fingers crossed he takes a look at it soon for you. Really hope he makes a video on it. 

[simon h]

I did ask him originally to make a video of it. He said he would try his best.

[WilliamF]

I actually did the exact same thing with my Alienware M18x-R2, I've been working on it for the past week trying to get anything going.

I took the entire thing apart, left it sitting for a few days, put everything back together and yet the issue persists.

Tried doing the BIOS recovery using the file from the A03 Bios (renamed to M18R2.hdr of course) and no luck.

If you ever hear anything back on this issue, please let us know.

 

[DoenerBoy123]

I had the same problem. You need to reflash the bios chip with a dump from another machine. After that you have to use the backflash method to get it working again

[simon h]

Hi there, its been a while, logged back in today. I waited for an age for the guy i sent my laptop to. The last time i phoned him was December 7th. That was 5 months after he received it. He said to me once again, he didnt know what was wrong with it and couldnt even tell me how far he got with it as he didnt have his notes at hand. I just didnt beleive that he had looked at it and if i cast my mind back to July when i first spoke to him, he was bemoaning gaming laptops to me on the phone, and he didnt like them. So he couriered my laptop back to me and i got it back week before Xmas. Now i know for a fact he didnt do anything with it as everything was wrapped exactly the way i wrapped it, including the plug. Waste of time i suppose, never mind onwards and upwards.

 

I built a new desktop in November, and i have just leached the two SSD's out the Alienware and will be using them for backup drives in my desktop. I suppose i have a few bits to Ebay now then. 

[simon h]

Kebab Hunter,

Glad it worked for you. I have no way of removing the bios chip and reflashing it external to the laptop to try and see if it works. Not sure what i am going to do. I wont rush into it though, i have time. I may just sell all the bits.

 

What i could possibly sell from this is ;

 

Intel 3740QM CPU

Intel 3820M CPU brand new unused

32GB 1866mhz HyperX RAM

12GB 1600mhz original RAM that came with the Alienware (2x4GB + 2x2GB)

Nvidia GTX 970M GPU

Both 3 pipe GPU heatsinks 

Original SLI cable

18" screen and lid

Original 1TB HDD with carriage

keyboard works (but no lights - the ribbon lead for keyboard lights is damaged and 1 key is not quite anchored down)

Motherboard for parts / repair -bios reflash externally perhaps

chasis

battery

Power supply

optical drive

Wifi card

 

Im weighing up the choices, i suppose i could make some cash, but how long would it take to sell that lot.

[sliderfra]

Hi mate,

Glad you're back on your feet buddy !

Did you try a CH341A with SOIC8 adapter (crocodile clip)? I costs only a few bucks on Ali or ebay. I got a few laptop back to life with that wonderful thing, including a few AW.

If you need the software for BIOS flashing or BIOS dump, PM me

 

[simon h]

Sliderfra, i'm not familiar with any of that you mention. Looks like i need to do a bit more research. 

[sliderfra]

When you get the laptop back, try to run it without any RAM to see if you have the 2 / 4 beep error code.

Then do the recovery process mentionned above (CMOS batt in, main batt disconnected, 1 stick of RAM, no hard drive)

Laptop should do loud beeps during all the process (around 5 to 6 min) then reset by itself.

Then you should get something on screen

 

Last resort is to use CH341A and flash a working dump of the bios. It's not easy and could do more harm than good so...

[kojack]

why not just do a mobo replacement. Quick easy fix.  You still have your machine for sentimental value, and it works again.  

[sliderfra]

Do you know how much an m18x R2 mobo cost??  As it may only be a BIOS issue, he should do whatever it takes to recover it instead of wasting 200 or 300$ into a refurbished mobo

[TheCodeBreaker]

On 3/8/2023 at 1:36 PM, simon h said:

Sliderfra, i'm not familiar with any of that you mention. Looks like i need to do a bit more research. 

 

 

If i recall correctly there was a trick to fix your issue, it was not well known. I cannot recall what exactly it was but maybe someone can pitch in about it. It was somewhere on the NBR forums.

 

but i believe you had to remove all ram sticks, power on the system, let it keep beeping and then put 1 ram stick in before power cycle.

maybe it was this:

Turn the system off and disconnect the AC adapter
Disconnect CMOS battery and system battery**
Do a power drain (press and hold power button 30 seconds)
Remove all memory modules
Reconnect AC adapter and power system on
Let laptop beep until it turns itself off
VERY QUICKLY, WHILE IT IS OFF, BUT BEFORE IT ATTEMPTS TO BOOT AND LIGHTS COME ON AGAIN, INSERT 1 MEMORY MODULE
System will start to beep 5 times
Power system off
Reconnect CMOS battery and system battery
Replace any panels removed for access to memory modules
Done

[DoenerBoy123]

On 6/10/2023 at 3:40 AM, TheCodeBreaker said:

If i recall correctly there was a trick to fix your issue, it was not well known. I cannot recall what exactly it was but maybe someone can pitch in about it. It was somewhere on the NBR forums.

 

but i believe you had to remove all ram sticks, power on the system, let it keep beeping and then put 1 ram stick in before power cycle.

maybe it was this:

Turn the system off and disconnect the AC adapter
Disconnect CMOS battery and system battery**
Do a power drain (press and hold power button 30 seconds)
Remove all memory modules
Reconnect AC adapter and power system on
Let laptop beep until it turns itself off
VERY QUICKLY, WHILE IT IS OFF, BUT BEFORE IT ATTEMPTS TO BOOT AND LIGHTS COME ON AGAIN, INSERT 1 MEMORY MODULE
System will start to beep 5 times
Power system off
Reconnect CMOS battery and system battery
Replace any panels removed for access to memory modules
Done

 

I had the same Issue and also tried that, but this does not seem to fix this(at least in my case). As I mentioned above, you first have to refresh the bios chip with a dump of whatever version. This makes the usb backflash working again which is what your machine brings back to life. I had to desolder the bios chip in order to be recognised by the CH341A programmer, probably because the 3.3V rail draws too much current.

My theory is that this Intel HD memory setting bricks the Intel ME portion of the rom which is absolutely necessary for the machine to run. This would explain why the USB backflash method does not work in this case as the ME is responsible for the usb flashing process(as far as I know)

 

@simon h Depending on where you live and if you are willing to, you can sent me your board and I can try to revive it the way it worked for me. Just PM me

Edited June 20, 2023 by DoenerBoy123

[simon h]

For the record, i have not forgotten any of the things you guys wrote. I'll come back to this later. I have not binned it