Operation "E.T. go home" Alienware Aurora restoration

[Marbo]

I have decided to document my restoration of this machine for anyone who might be interested. 

 

This is going to be a learning experience for myself, as I've never lifted a Swiss Army Knife (that hopefully has a Phillips head screwdriver) in anger to anything with so many proprietary parts. 

 

The back story

I've recently built myself a new Ryzen system, it's 90% complete, just aesthetics to finish. 

 

I was then itching to do another build, but couldn't justify spending the money for the sake of doing a build. 

 

Then up pops this very sad looking machine on ebay. 

 

 

Advertised as "Alienware aurora r4 gaming pc" 

 

"Spares or repairs

The computer powers on but doesnt show on the screen. I bought this to play games on but stuck to consoles mostly and when I've come back to try and use it again I've been having this problem." 

 

I felt an urge to rescue it. 

I put in what I thought was a reasonable offer, which was accepted. 

 

 

 

 

[Marbo]

The Machine 

 

Turns out it is not an r4 but an original Aurora, from before "r" designations, although commonly known as an "r1" 

 

Specs 

 

• 1366 motherboard 
• I7 950
• Gtx 560 ti 1gb
• 8gb ddr3 1333mhz (4 X 2gb sticks) 
• 875w oem psu
• 500gb seagate Barracuda
• 60gb ocz ssd
• Corsair 120mm aio (as yet unidentified model) 

The issue with no video output brought up the prospect of a number of problems. First port of call was to replace the thermal compound on the cpu and gpu and switch it on to see what happens. 

 

The compound on both was solid and just flaked off. Unfortunately I did not have the for sight to take a photo of this, but you can imagine what it was like from this image. 

 

I found a dvi to hdmi adapter and fired it up. 

Booted into Windows 7 ultimate on first attempt. No graphical problems in sight. 

[Marbo]

Where it stands now 

 

Apart from looking like it has a family of rats living in it, it does work. However it is not without issues. 

 

The CPU reaches 100c at idle. I suspect the pump on the aio. 

Most of the lights are not working and it's missing a dvd drive. 

 

It is booting from the hdd and not showing the ssd. More investigation needed when I can get it running at a more reasonable temp. 

 

My Plans

 

I aim to restore it pretty much to original spec. 

 

First thing will be to strip it right down and give it a bloody good clean. 

 

I will temporarily fit an Intel stock cooler for testing purposes, while I decide on a more permanent solution. 

 

Add a further 4gb of ram to fill the 2 remaining slots. 

 

Add an optical drive of some sort

 

Repair the lighting

 

And possibly paint the side panels, as they are pretty rough. 

 

 

Install windows 10

[AlienALX]

I had one with rough side panels before so I wrapped them. You'll never get to the original finish as it has flake in it. It's quite difficult to wrap, but I got there using a hair dryer.

 

The right side panel (as you look at it straight on) requires pretty much a full tear down to get off. It's a real PITA.

 

Good luck I'll keep my eye on this.

 

That isn't the original cooler, BTW. That's a H55 with super short tubes. I would fire that up on another PSU and stick your ear to the pump. You'll soon know if it's dead.

[Marbo]

3 hours ago, AlienALX said:

I had one with rough side panels before so I wrapped them. You'll never get to the original finish as it has flake in it. It's quite difficult to wrap, but I got there using a hair dryer.

 

The right side panel (as you look at it straight on) requires pretty much a full tear down to get off. It's a real PITA.

 

Good luck I'll keep my eye on this.

 

That isn't the original cooler, BTW. That's a H55 with super short tubes. I would fire that up on another PSU and stick your ear to the pump. You'll soon know if it's dead.

Thanks for the tip on the panels. I thought afterwards wrapping might be a better idea. Although If painting is done correctly it would last years. 

 

Yes am aware of the cooler not being original. I have seen some for sale at around £50 but just don't trust them, they are going to to be old so probably won't last too long. 

 

I don't want to spend a huge amount of money on it so air cooling might even be considered. 

[Yogi_DaBear221]

Are you gonna replace the mustard and ketchup?

[Marbo]

22 minutes ago, Yogi_DaBear221 said:

Are you gonna replace the mustard and ketchup?

No it's part of the system, and it doesn't have a window anyway. 

 

I'm trying to keep the cost to a minimum. Once done I'll probably sell it on and move on to another project. 

[AlienALX]

1 hour ago, Marbo said:

Thanks for the tip on the panels. I thought afterwards wrapping might be a better idea. Although If painting is done correctly it would last years. 

 

Yes am aware of the cooler not being original. I have seen some for sale at around £50 but just don't trust them, they are going to to be old so probably won't last too long. 

 

I don't want to spend a huge amount of money on it so air cooling might even be considered. 

I had a NHD-14 in mine. I had to cut it a bit to get it over that stupid northbridge cooler (and remove the fan off that because it was pointless) but it worked really well.

[Marbo]

8 minutes ago, AlienALX said:

I had a NHD-14 in mine. I had to cut it a bit to get it over that stupid northbridge cooler (and remove the fan off that because it was pointless) but it worked really well.

Did you manage to get it working from the CPU fan header, to get rid of the fan error message on boot? 

[AlienALX]

I would imagine so. I mean, that was a looooong time ago tbh but I don't recall any errors.

 

I had to rotate the cooler and just run the central fan. I have some pics but I am away from home at the moment so don't have access to them.

 

 

[Marbo]

Well I've removed the aio.

 

Part of the problem is the suboptimal power delivery.

 

 

The pump works intermittently, look at it the wrong way and it quits. I've yet to try it directly connected to the MB.

 

The Second issue could be this......

 

 

 

 

 

[Marbo]

Tear down and deep clean has begun. 

 

 

I'm so glad this lot is labeled and/or colour coded. 

 

Tbh I'm really impressed so far with the detail in this build. 

 

And here's a few bits after a wipe over. 

 

 

 

[Marbo]

Should get the case cleaned up today. However that's as far as it will go for now, as muppet here forgot to get thermal paste before lock down. 

[Marbo]

This is the most over enginered pc I have ever worked on. 

 

It's also the dirtiest. 

 

I'm also wondering what the 2 fans  on top are supposed to do. 

They are tiny and not enen attached to the case. 

 

[AlienALX]

 

Found it.

[Marbo]

It's looking much cleaner now. Though I'm still thinking I need to do something with the side panels. 

 

I also need to wait for my thermal paste before I can start testing properly. 

 

And I might have one or two cables that I'm not sure what they connect to. 

 

 

 

 

[derr12]

Old school Alienware, making me think of the olden days... 

[Marbo]

OK got some thermal paste, fitted cooler, switched on and......... 

 

No video output. 

 

Fans, pump, HDD and some lights on but no signal. 

 

This was the fault described when I bought it, although I had it running before I stripped it to clean. 

 

Now a matter of elimination. 

 

Hoping if anything it's either psu or GPU, don't fancy laying out £160 on a mobo. 

[Marbo]

Bit of a frankenpower setup but it's working

 

[Marbo]

This thing is getting stranger. 

 

I plugged the hdd back in switched on and nothing. So then thinking is it an issue with the hdd not the psu. 

 

Connected the original psu switched on it booted to bios. Then connected hdd again and it booted onto Windows. 

 

Runs for a few mins then freezes. 

 

I haven't got a clue what's going on. 

[derr12]

id check the ram.

[Marbo]

22 hours ago, derr12 said:

id check the ram.

Run check disk no errors. 

Tried running memtest it froze. I have 4 sticks in dual channel. 

Trying them one stick at a time and I can't even get to bios. 

 

So ram not looking too good. But I seemed to have ruled out most of the other things. Although my gpu has now only 1 fan running. 

[derr12]

unlikely all the ram sticks are bad.  you may have a dead mobo

[Marbo]

2 minutes ago, derr12 said:

unlikely all the ram sticks are bad.  you may have a dead mobo

Could this be intermittent, as it sometimes boots?

[derr12]

iffy memory controller, correct me if im wrong but this gen still had memory controller on mobo right?