So yesterday after streaming, a person I had been speaking to informed me that my second gfx card (and strongest one of the two) inside my laptop wasn't working, and this is what was causing such horrendous FPS for me (30~60 even while playing on Korea, during battles). Whereas normally this laptop should be able to easily have like 120fps streaming on all ultra, it never made sense to me before, and everyone else that just generically looked at it never found out a solution for it.
Anyhow so after determining this and looking into alienwares bios stuff, we came to the conclusion there was an error inside the bios locking or disabling the gfx card, and I guess alienware is/was aware of this and there is a downloadable fix/re-flash for the bios.
After doing the first flash, I was able to gain access to the video-graphics or something, I changed some setting inside of it to something called PEG and made the nvidia gtx460 my primary I think, or I just disabled the integrated gfx card.
After this, I saved changes and exited. What followed next was the laptop beeping loudly for 5minutes in 3-beep intervals. I shut it off and turned it back on, the fans sounded like they were on their last leg, and nothing was booting up etc. However the fxlights would come on, but the keyboard/mouse were unresponsive. Anyhow after a while the fans fully kicked in and then the beeping resumed. When the beeping resumed I noticed I was able to charged my iPod and also regain control over the external keyboard/mouse (qsenn/kinzu) and also the USB-FAT Flashdrive I have also turned on/activated.
Anyway I couldn't get on skype or the internet and thus had to travel to GOMHouse, I was given these links to look at:
I got the FD file I needed and put it on the usbstick etc I have for the eSATA/USB port, and thus should be able to follow the steps to get the bios to re-flash.
So I went back to the house I was at after talking with the guy etc and a few others confirming this method should work.
It did, well, everything until the part where the screen should've came on. The fans lit up super fast, everything was working, except now my ipod/etc can't charge unless i let it make the beeping-noise (wtf?)
The screen never ever turned on. However it said this is possible and to remove my GPU nvidia card.
I followed the steps given in guides and also from this youtube video:
A few things happened, a) the copperrods thing (sorry im still kinda bad at names) seen in the video overlapping the gfx card came detached from the gfx card, and it seemingly has a lot of thermal paste/thermal layers under it, like some sort of extra cooling, is this fine?
B)Finally when I came to the VERY last screw holding in the GFX card became stripped, to the point where nothing grabs it, and it refuses to budge. It's microscopic and surrounded by some other stuff within maybe 1/4th an inch from it, so it's not able to be gotten at with pliers. There is a copper ring around the screw tho, I assume this is a 'safety' zone for any damage surrounding the screw, and thus I have hope something can be done.
Anyway the computer repair shops in Korea I've brought it to with my Korean friend translating refusing to touch it, since alienware isn't a product they're familiar with and they didn't want to be held liable for any damage caused to it, I however, at the time did not have it down to one screw, and they assumed they would be removing everything.
Anyhow, can I bring it there to them and tell them just to remove the 1 screw and I assume all responbility? How would they remove it?
Can I remove it any other way? I tried the rubber band method and gently tapping in a screwdriver with my ipod to try to get it to "stick" but to no avail. It's not pinchable as I said earlier. And I'm unsure if a drill to this around such a fragile thing is even safe ... I was recommended by someone to take a saw to it and cut off the top, but where would I get such a small saw capable of cutting this? Is this even logical?
Also two things: There are two film-like pieces of "film-esque-tape" inside the laptop that when I slipped on the screwdriver made a dent in one of them, again, it looks exactly like a roll of film, does anyone know what this is? Will the very small impression make a difference to this? I couldn't find it on google, and no one knows what I'm talking about without an exact image. Other thing is: Is there any other way to disable this GFX card so I can re-flash the bios without needing to physical remove it? Again, the GFX must be unrecognizable upon startup of the PC...
Please help/give opinions T_T I need to get back to playing sc2/streaming/etc ;;
Oh and lastly, what if the bios still doesn't load? I mean, the Motherboard is obviously working, the fans all still work, everything is still working but bios just won't load ... I mean... it should load after this right? Otherwise what options do I have..
The "copperrods thingy" is most likely a heat sink, which...should not be removed. I know they are different cards, but my GTX480 gets HOT AS HELL and laptops are already kinda poor with heat dissipation...
If you rounded the screw head out (stripping a screw is different than rounding the phillips head into a circle) then you are kind of in trouble...I've only ever used a screw-tap set, or a drill to get it out...both not what you want to do to a laptop.
The copper ring around that screw is a grounding zone so that you don't short the screw to your circuitry in the laptop.
Not sure what your film-tape stuff is without seeing it...either some form of ribbon cable (does it have copper conductors inside it?) or just an isolator...if it's just keeping things from touching each other, you'll be fine, but if it's a cable, it might be broken.
Someone else gonna have to help you with the bios issue...if you google the beeping pattern you might come across something.
Okay i'll give as good as advice as i can, and for the record i owned my own laptop repair shop for 3 years and i did all the soldering/fixing etc myself.
The beeping sounds to me like either RAM or GFX problem, since normally you either get longer beeps and more conitnues beeps if the mainboard or something is fried
It's okay to drill out the head of the screw to get the GPU card loose, as long as you don't drill straight into another component. the "copperrods" as you call them are named Heatpipes, and are the most commonly used heatsink tech in a laptop and in normal desktops.
Don't be TOO shy, computers can handle alot of stuff thrown at them before they die.
Once you have the GPU card out, you should clean the card and the heatsink with as pure alchol as you can find and q-tips. Again here it's really no big deal as long as you don't break off any components. Once you have cleaned everything up, you should have a new tube of thermal paste ( arctic cooling 5 silver psate is great stuff ) if you find silver paste you should spread it thinly onto the new GPU card, unless you get a replacement with the heatsink still on it ) once you have replaced the GPU card you should try to boot up.
If it doesn't boot up due to bad bios flash, you need to get a new ROM-chip from alienware, or bring them to a shop where they can flash a new bios onto it with a external BIOS reader/flasher. Not all shops have this so you might have to wait till someone ships you the correct chip + bios already on it.
The second part might be the hardest, and you might wanna consider ordering one before you even try rebooting it, just so that you can de-assemble and re-assemble quickly instead of waiting another 1-2 weeks before you have the chip.
A chip shouldn't cost you more then 15-20 buck or whatever that is in korea ^^
@Torenhire the film stuff has nothing in it or around it, no screws or anything it just slips into some stuff which I can't see. The head still has some 'grip' but it's very minimal... Also about the beeping, I can't get it to beep anymore, I've tried to let it sit on and beep, it doesn't. I don't know if this means it's been reflashed or not but then why isn't the monitor coming on... I suppose I still need to remove the gpu, because as some people have said it could be reflashed by the video will not appear for it or anything.
@Nouar it would cost more to send back to Alienware in America, then have it sent back, and the wait period (6-8weeks) than it would be to probably just get a new computer...
@Chill No sadly I have none . The beeping means things related to the BIOS apparently (just found this out) and it is is standard if there is trouble with the BIOS.
EPT
. The beeping means things related to the BIOS apparently (just found this out) and it is is standard if there is trouble with the BIOS.
