Alienware 17 R4 2 red 1 blue CPU Failure

[kamkam336]

Hello, I have a Alienware 17 r4 with a 7820hk / 1070 gpu. I get 2 red 1 blue error flash which indicates cpu failure. I purchased this computer broken / as is so not sure what the history is. The board and case both look to be in great shape, wondering if it was a failed bios update.

I have a ch341 programmer and have tried flashing the uh4 chip with a known good bios, the first time I did this and tried booting the system it gave a no memory error which made since because I had no ram installed so I thought I had it. But after I installed the ram it did a series of boots and reboots with no posting, and I seem to remember seeing the alienware logo flash orange a bunch. Then it went back to 2 red 1 blue with a little more life out of the board, now the keyboard lights up and fans spin but still no post.

Now after flashing and successfully verifying it and I try to boot up the PC and try to verify the uh4 chip it fails and I have to reflash it. I have pretty much exhausted my abilities on this board and I know there have been other people with similar issues with this system and wondering if there is more to try? I also contacted the Badcaps repair team to see if I can send it in but I would love to get this thing running myself.

Hope someone can make sense of that haha looking forward to feedback. And i can provide more information if needed. Thanks in advance

[Topcat]

Re: Alienware 17 R4 2 red 1 blue CPU Failure

I received your email....this is probably not something I'd have a lot of success with; it seems the Dell/AW R-series systems are known for bad motherboards. I've tangled with a couple of them without much success....

Here's what I did with a R7 that had a bad board....
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...t=66256&page=5

[kamkam336]

Re: Alienware 17 R4 2 red 1 blue CPU Failure

Ya that is what I figured, Thanks for the help. I imagine i'll be getting a new board for it but still hanging on to the hope of repairing it.

[kamkam336]

Re: Alienware 17 R4 2 red 1 blue CPU Failure

Any ideas anyone? Or is the concensus its time for a new board?

[reformatt]

Re: Alienware 17 R4 2 red 1 blue CPU Failure

Any repair attempts on the board? The most common issue I see on gaming systems is shorted DRMOS drivers or MOSFET failure for CPU/GPU power. So we replace the shorted component, but find that the CPU/GPU is damaged as a result.

Could be someone has already gone down this path and offloaded the board because the CPU is stuffed.

[kamkam336]

Re: Alienware 17 R4 2 red 1 blue CPU Failure

It is possible, the case didnt look like it had been opened before but you never know. I have a friend that has had some luck with that level of repair but hasn't had time to help me out yet. I don't suppose you'd know where on the board to test?

[reformatt]

Re: Alienware 17 R4 2 red 1 blue CPU Failure

You'll see a bunch of coils and FET's/IC's around the CPU/GPU area. If a driver/FET has gone short, the external adaptor sometimes goes into protection mode and shuts down.
But some of these gaming laptops have beefy power adaptors with high current capability so that is no guarantee. Sometimes you get liquid damage around the Vcore controller IC, which messes up the feedback and you get overvoltage on the CPU.

See if you get any voltage across the CPU Vcore coils (around 0.9V or so). I had Dell recently where it had liquid damage around the Vcore controller. Same blinking error code. Drivers weren't short, but no doubt the CPU had received overvoltage.

[kamkam336]

Re: Alienware 17 R4 2 red 1 blue CPU Failure

Perfect, i'll give it a shot this weekend. Thanks!