Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

[waakye]

Hello Guys,
First off, I would like to say thanks for all the help and support this community is giving. Now to the issue at hand:
My neighbor gave me his Alienware 17 R3 laptop that is not working right. The issue is when I press the power button, the light on the keyboard turns on, fans spin and no image on the screen and the laptop shuts itself off. I took out the ram slot cards and when I press the power button, the laptop beeps twice for no Ram. As soon as I plug in the Ram card(s) and press the power button, the lights on the keyboard and around the laptop turn on and the fans spin n then turn off. All this occur in 6 seconds. I have attached the motherboard pictures.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks in advance

[mcplslg123]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

These are mere symptoms and dont help us to guide you. Measure resistance on all coils with no power attached. Then measure voltage on all coils for the brief time when its turned on. You may need to turn it on multiple times to do the measurements. Look for corrosion with a microscope/magnifier. If no corrosion is seen, then first step is to make a backup of your bios and then flash a clean me bios. You can ask for bios in "Bios Section" while posting your backup bios dump with mb markings mentioned.

PS: Attach or link schematic, if available.

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Thanks mcplslg123 for replying.
I was able to get the schematic and boardview from here. They are attached. I will take some measurements later today.
Thanks again.

[mcplslg123]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

I'll request other members to help OP as I'll on ashort vacation from 25th feb to 2nd march.

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Below are the measurements on PBATT1 with the battery connector disconnected:
PBATT1 Connector
Pin 1 => 0.219v
Pin 2 => 0.219v
Pin 3 => 0.219v
Pin 4 => 0.219v
Pin 5 (CLK_SMB) => 3.37v
Pin 6 (DAT_SMB) => 3.37v
Pin 7 (BATT_PRS) => 3.37v
Pin 8 (SYS_PRES) => 0v
Pin 9 (BAT_ALERT)=> 0v
Pin 10 (GND) => 0v
Pin 11 (GND) => 0v
Pin 12 (GND) => 0v
Pin 13 (GND) => 0v

Thanks to anyone willing to help out.

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Any help 🙏 guys?

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Update...
So I was able to get in the bios recovery screen by pressing on RSCAPE key and CTRL and plugging in the AC adapter and power button. The screen shown the following
- ROM Image is not loaded
- ROM Image update is denied

I went ahead and download the latest Bios from Dell after concerting the .exe to hdr and renaming the HDR to .rcv and put the file on USB flash drive formated as FAT32.
I plugged the USB into the laptop and hold the ESC + CTRL keys and power the laptop on.
The recovery screen was displayed and I selected Recover BIOS and the proceed with the update.
The laptop shuts off once it got to EC FIRMWARE UPDATE.
Anyone have any insight on this?

Thanks again

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Took out the uh4 bios chip and flash it with the 1.2.8 firmware and the same symptoms with the laptop turning on and then immediately shuts off is still present.

[mon2]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Have you ever been able to enter the BIOS and leave it at that stage? Or does the unit power off even if in the BIOS setup page?

This logic board has power adapter demands.

Are you using the official and suitable power adapter to power this logic board?

If the PS_ID is not being read out of the external power adapter, the logic board will behave as you have noted. The PS_ID line operates using the Maxim / Dallas Semiconductor 1-wire protocol.

Confirm the voltage to ground of the PS_ID pin with the power adapter connected.

Suspects are:

PD1
PQ7
PR4

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Thanks mon2 for replying. Really appreciate your help. You really helped in the past and I am grateful.

I have never been able to enter the bios page at all. I press on the power button, it turns on, fan spins, alienware writings light up and the system shuts off. Pressing F2 while turning on the machine does nothing. It shuts itself off within 6 seconds of turning on..

I am actually using the original dell 240W adapter. 19.5V 12.3A.
I will confirm the PS_ID voltage and report back tomorrow.

Thanks for helping out again

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Hello Mon2,
I confirmed that PS_ID to ground measures 3.31VDC.
I also verified the voltages at the pins the following component pins
PD1 = 3.31VDC
PQ7 = 3.31VDC
PR4 = 3.31VDC

Thanks again for helping.

[mon2]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Looks ok at this time.

Scroll down this page to the files posted by @SMDFlea,

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=93890

Apply these files with your programmer and update this thread. Both main and EC bios files are posted.

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Hi Mon2,
Unfortunately I brought one of the Bios chip while de-soldering it from the board. I ordered extra from DIGIKEY and will report after I flash the bios bin from the link you posted above.
Thanks again.

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

After flashing the Bios in the above thread, it now turns on but am getting 7 beeps. It does not shut off anymore. I cannot access the Bios recovery page anymore.

[mon2]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/e...20the%20system.

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

I tried the CLRP1 bridge in the above link and still 7 beeps and laptop does not POST.
I read somewhere the 7 beeps is usually a CPU failure.
I am out of ideas.
The original bios was only turning on and shut off.
Anyone has any insight.
Thanks

[mon2]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Could be a CPU failure but as a last ditch effort, consider to purchase fresh, known good and compatible RAM modules for this machine from Amazon.

Test it and return it if the logic board still fails to boot.

Also, if you have more than 2 ram sticks in your possession at this time, test all combinations to rule out a defective ram stick.

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Thanks Mon2,
I will do what you suggested and reply back.

[waakye]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

Got the 16 GB DDR4 2133MHZ Ram and tried in the machine. still 7 beeps so i guess the CPU is gone. Strange! then again i did not know the history of the machine. initially it turns on and shuts off and now am getting 7 beeps.

Thanks everyone that helped especially Mon2.

[mcplslg123]

Re: Alienware 17 R3 power on and shuts itself off and stays off

7 beeps does indicates cpu failure but that doesnt mean a failed cpu always. You need to check whether cpu is getting all the voltages required. If requirements are not fullfilled, then also you'll get those same 7 beeps. In fact, most of the times 7 beeps is not coz of bad cpu.

Btw, DRAMRST# present??