Alienware m17x R4 black screen no beeps

RobinMaesDG · August 29, 2023

Hey

first time posting, i have a problem with my alienware laptop (m17x R4: ivy bridge i7, 16gb, gtx980m 8gb, ssd+hdd)

it powers up but aside from the keyboard rgb i get nothing, no beeps no backlight (alien logo not lit up which is the backlight i think), no rgb on trackpad or under the display

it has a geforce 980m as the og card died (675m), it did this once before earlier this month but i turned it off and back on and thought nothing off it, it runs windows 10 with custom gpu driver (not relevant i think) and it does the same thing without the dedicated gpu in it which should work because i ran it like that for over a year when i was looking for a replacement gpu, i have a 330W brick but also have the og 220W brick

so far i tried removing the 2 ram sticks on the bottom, removing the gpu, connecting through hdmi and i tried turning it on without battery and i replaced the bios battery which was old and empty with a new energizer one (left it out for 10 minutes without the main battery to reset bios), it runs the latest stock bios

i can only find the 8 beep thing and alike but mine does absolutely nothing except for powering on

thx in advance

ItTakes2ToMango · August 29, 2023

Sounds dead. Sorry

RobinMaesDG · August 30, 2023

i kinda figured it was dead but i was hoping it would be something i could fix like bios reflash or something, i just dont have the experience to pinpoint the issue, i have another one that doesnt work but i think that was a w7 system without uefi, could i swap parts if the board is the same? or is there something else i can do to find the issue

MattyB79 · August 30, 2023

Do you have the 60hz or 120hz 3D display? If you have the 60hz then try removing the 980M and see if you get a display. You can sometimes get a black screen with no beep codes if the GPU is having an issue.

If you have the 120hz then you won't be able to run the system without a dedicated GPU as the Intel graphics are permanently disabled. You will have to find another MXM card to test the system with.

You didn't make any BIOS changes before this happened? The 980M has to run in UEFI mode with Load Legacy Option ROM disabled or you will get a black screen just like this.

RobinMaesDG · April 6

On 8/30/2023 at 11:31 PM, MattyB79 said:

Do you have the 60hz or 120hz 3D display? If you have the 60hz then try removing the 980M and see if you get a display. You can sometimes get a black screen with no beep codes if the GPU is having an issue.

If you have the 120hz then you won't be able to run the system without a dedicated GPU as the Intel graphics are permanently disabled. You will have to find another MXM card to test the system with.

You didn't make any BIOS changes before this happened? The 980M has to run in UEFI mode with Load Legacy Option ROM disabled or you will get a black screen just like this.

I eventually bought a dropped laptop with the right board and just did a mobo swap, I also upgraded my storage with some faster drives I had and upgraded the ram to a faster 32gb kit so it’s practically fully loaded now apart from gtx 1000 series and 120hz display but I don’t think that would be worth the money