Alienware R4 m17x Slowly Dying

Paul N

Paul N

Paul N

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Joined
26 Jul 2004
Posts
131
Just making a last ditch effort to see if anyone knows what could be the problem. My laptop is starting to turn off randomly. It happens without fail every morning from a cold boot. It generally gets to windows then turns off. I can get into safe mode no problems.

However, it could be a hardware issue because the problems began shortly after a lightning storm that took out my router and the ethernet port on the laptop (just shows a solid amber light). I have since disabled that in bios.

Today, it was harder to get it to boot. I had to switch out hard drives (from ssd to hdd) to get it to load up and stay on. However, tomorrow it won't boot on this hdd, and I'll likely put the ssd back in and it'll boot. Really strange things like that. Also, I plugged in my usb mouse yesterday, that turned the laptop off, so I'm thinking its the usbs. but I boot today with no usb stuff connected, and it still shuts down when loading windows. A number of times I've done fresh installs of windows and its gone through the entire install process without shutting down, so something is making me think it could be software. I haven't loaded any new drivers before this started happening, but the fact I can sit in safe mode with no shut downs makes me wonder if it is software related. Also, I've noticed it can shut down when putting the laptop into sleep mode. Not everytime, but sometimes. Also, temps are fine.

Any idea how I can trouble shoot this?
 
Have you ran the diagnostic from the bootloader? This could just be a faulty ram stick and the diagnostics would test that as well as other system components
 
ninja2000 said:
Have you ran the diagnostic from the bootloader? This could just be a faulty ram stick and the diagnostics would test that as well as other system components
Click to expand...

I've tried running the repair from boot, and often it will get to the gui part of it and shut down. But I have managed to get through the entire repair sequence and it says it can't repair it at this time. I've also run the repair from the windows disk but again, it doesn't do anything.

I've done a ram check using the windows built in ram checker and it came back with no problems. Also run chkdisk and disks seems okay.

Its completely given up the ghost today. I manage to get into windows, but it just turns off within a few seconds.

It will boot into safe mode when F8 works and it will sit in safe mode fine. But for some reason my keyboard starts to not work on boot and F8 stops working to get the safe mode option. It works at the point where you can push F2 or F12 for setup and boot sequence. But after that the keyboard doesn't seem to work. I get the message about starting windows normally or do a repair, or the start in safe mode option, but my arrow keys and enter do not work. So its stuck in an endless repair/boot sequence and won't allow me to interrupt it. I've even tried to boot from cd to reinstall windows, but I can't 'hit any key to boot from cd' in order to start it. If I could get a clean shut down I'd be able to boot from cd, but it turns off whilst shutting down. So ridiculous. :mad:
 
I think I'll try and get the extended warranty, then say the Ethernet ports out, which would require a new motherboard. If that doesn't fix it, the tech can go from there.
 
Paul N said:
I've tried running the repair from boot, and often it will get to the gui part of it and shut down. But I have managed to get through the entire repair sequence and it says it can't repair it at this time. I've also run the repair from the windows disk but again, it doesn't do anything.

I've done a ram check using the windows built in ram checker and it came back with no problems. Also run chkdisk and disks seems okay.

Its completely given up the ghost today. I manage to get into windows, but it just turns off within a few seconds.

It will boot into safe mode when F8 works and it will sit in safe mode fine. But for some reason my keyboard starts to not work on boot and F8 stops working to get the safe mode option. It works at the point where you can push F2 or F12 for setup and boot sequence. But after that the keyboard doesn't seem to work. I get the message about starting windows normally or do a repair, or the start in safe mode option, but my arrow keys and enter do not work. So its stuck in an endless repair/boot sequence and won't allow me to interrupt it. I've even tried to boot from cd to reinstall windows, but I can't 'hit any key to boot from cd' in order to start it. If I could get a clean shut down I'd be able to boot from cd, but it turns off whilst shutting down. So ridiculous. :mad:
Click to expand...

It is certainly sounding like a motherboard issue.
 
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