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

[mon2]

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

See attached.

Does your software offer a STATUS REGISTER view?

Inside this view will be the QE bit option.

Suggest that you do the following:

1) Verify the contents of your JV flash against the original backup. If it matches, continue.

2) If it does not match -> erase and flash the device. Verify again.

3) As the final step, enable the QE bit to a value of '1' or apply the checkbox. This configuration will then enable the QSPI mode feature of this flash device.

[Sephir0th]

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

Are you programming with a clip or with a small programming board? Also In my opinion it is not a good idea to randomly change the SPI flash with another one. There might be a list of flash chips inside of the VSCC table where the replacement is actually not supported.

[mon2]

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

Thanks @Seohir0th -did not know about this support.

Found this video on YT which is worth a quick view:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythqM6igaIU

From this referenced tool, we can confirm which flash devices are supported.

The key reason for this switch is that the original flash device is only available in Asia.

The QE bit configuration is of concern as well.

[waakye]

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

@ mon2, I do not have STATUS REGISTER VIEW on the software that am using for the flash.

@Sephir0th, I only change flash chip because I broke 4 pins when I desolder n use the clip to hold it to program it. I am using the 8 clip to grab the chip and program it.

Thank you guys for all the help and recommendation. I really appreciate it.

[mon2]

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

Review the YT video and apparently you can run this tool to dump the supported flash devices. The VSCC table can be viewed with the utility.

There should be a menu where you can select the QE bit. Let me see if I can install the program without the hardware.

[Sephir0th]

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

The alligator clip is the WORST you can do when programming BIOS and not daily doing it. If you doesn't make absolutely(!) sure you programmed the dump correctly (by reading it out again and compare the source and the programmed file) you might deal with a corrupted programming(!) all the time.

[waakye]

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

It is NeoProgrammer version 2.2.0.10
Thanks mon2 for your help.

Thanks Sephir0th for the info.

[mon2]

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

This programmer software does not appear to support the QE bit programming.

There has to be a program that is able to perform this task.

[waakye]

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

I will do a Google search on that.
Thanks

[waakye]

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

My knowledge is limited on which software that can support status register using Ch341a programmer. I will keep looking if there is any or I will have to order the chip from China.

@Mon2, @Sephir0th, @mcplslg123. You guys are really amazing. Thanks for all your help and support.

I will update this thread if I get any updates.

Thanks

[waakye]

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

Hey guys,
I seen this chip: Winbond W25Q128JVSIQ. I read the datasheet which is attached and it seems that QE is set as 1 by default.
I guess I can order this right?

Thanks again

[mon2]

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

Nice find !! Yes, do proceed to source the version you referenced with the JVSIQ suffix.

See attached. They actually built the JV series to be backwards compatible with the FV series if the QE = '1'.

The programming of this register is very straightforward and would be surprised if someone has not developed a program to perform this task.

On our many back burner projects to do is a much faster programmer as the hardware (RISC-V; FPGA; RP2040) devices are getting to be very common and cheap.

The WCH CH341A is ok but there are much much faster options that should be considered.

[waakye]

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

Thanks for the info.
Will update the thread when I receive the chips and flash it.

As always am very grateful with all the help you provided.

Thanks

[waakye]

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

update...
All thanks goes to mon2, Sephir0th and mcplslg123.
With the new chip soldered to the motherboard and the bios flashed. the computer exhibit the issue I had initially. There is no 7 beeps but now it turns on and then off. I was able to get to the bios recovery screen by pressing ESC + CTRL on the keyboard and plug in the power cable and the following image is shown:

Recovery Aptio Setup Utility - American Megatrends, Inc
Rom Image is not loaded
ROM Image update denied

Any help?

[mon2]

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

See if this helps...

https://community.spiceworks.com/top...-update-denied

[waakye]

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

See image below.
I cannot even get into the Bios at all

[waakye]

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

Read the information in the above link. I guess maybe the motherboard is done.
Still open to test anything to bring this machine back to life.
Thanks everyone !

[Sephir0th]

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

It shows picture which is a great success so everything what is left is to sort out the firmware. For what are you waiting?

[waakye]

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

Thanks Sephir0th!

So far I flashed the BIOS firmware with 4 différent firmware. One was the original that was cleaned in this forum one and 3 were from this forum were other users attached.
I also noticed some other bios looking chips on the board but I read those are for Thunderbolt firmware.

I will keep looking maybe I will find something.

[waakye]

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

No improvement . I flashed several bios firmwares n the machine still turns on and off within 6 seconds. At this point I think the motherboard board is just gave up.
ESC + CTRL still shows the laptop on but I cannot get to bios nor windows. Laptop still charges the battery.
I am willing to try anything. My guess is maybe the GPU is done.
Thanks to mon2, Sephir0th and mcplslg123. I learned alot from you guys.