[SOLVED] Alienware Aurora R5 motherboard failure?

Aug 18, 2019
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Woke up this morning to all four monitors displaying no signal. Restarted computer. Nothing. Called NVidia, they told me to pull the Titan XP out, check for dust, and put it back in. Done. Still doesn’t work. Pulled it again, put a new graphics card in. Nothing. Called Alienware who immediately started wanting money, but ended up beating it out of them: “It’s probably the motherboard”. Generally, I agree with this. Only there’s a couple of odd things I noted. All the USB’s have full functionality and all my peripherals work. The lights on the graphics card are working, so there is AT LEAST power going to it. All the fans are working on the computer. What do you guys think? Is it possible there is some sort of command I might have accidentally hit to turn off the display?
 
Solution
Sorry, I think you’ve misunderstood. The motherboard is doing NO beeps, even with the ram stick removed. If the ram stick is removed, it should beep to alert. It doesn’t. This is telling me that there is an issue with the motherboard, in audition to all the other evidence pointing to the motherboard. There is no post. I also just tried switching the card to a new slot, and still nothing.

I see, if the motherboard is supposed to beep and it doesn't there might be something with the board indeed.
Last thing you can try is putting the RAM in a different slot, if that don't work I don't think there's alot you can do. Except try another RAM stick if you can get a hold of one.

And otherwise I think it's pretty much confirmed that...
Aug 18, 2019
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Tried plugging the GPU into the second PCI slot? If that doesn't work try the integrated GPU (if your cpu has one)
I’ll try that when I’m home. If the motherboard was bad, wouldn’t the fans not work, and the usb wouldn’t work?

Called nvidia again and they suggested holding the power for 60 seconds to get static electricity out. It’s probably unrelated, but a month ago my mouse had static electricity built up and I had to reset that too.
 

LrnzpKiller

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I’ll try that when I’m home. If the motherboard was bad, wouldn’t the fans not work, and the usb wouldn’t work?

Called nvidia again and they suggested holding the power for 60 seconds to get static electricity out. It’s probably unrelated, but a month ago my mouse had static electricity built up and I had to reset that too.

Depends what's gone bad on the motherboard, many things can break. Ram slots, PCI. But complete motherboard failure is unlikely if the fans still work.

You can try holding the power button without the power cord won't hurt. But you'll still have the battery on your motherboard.
 
Aug 18, 2019
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Depends what's gone bad on the motherboard, many things can break. Ram slots, PCI. But complete motherboard failure is unlikely if the fans still work.

You can try holding the power button without the power cord won't hurt. But you'll still have the battery on your motherboard.
Looks like it’s the power supply I installed for the Titan XP. Geek squad said that there would be a “beep” if the motherboard was bad and the bios would flag me. The fans aren’t running very fast and he said that it’s probably the power supply. Gonna hook a voltage meter up to it and see what it does.
 

LrnzpKiller

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Looks like it’s the power supply I installed for the Titan XP. Geek squad said that there would be a “beep” if the motherboard was bad and the bios would flag me. The fans aren’t running very fast and he said that it’s probably the power supply. Gonna hook a voltage meter up to it and see what it does.

Could be a cause, if it's aftermarket it might be worth checking the warranty on it.
 
Aug 18, 2019
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Could be a cause, if it's aftermarket it might be worth checking the warranty on it.

Alright. So I’ve checked the power supply. I did the paper clip trick to jumpstart it. All the voltages are correct on it. It also should be noted that when not connected to the motherboard, the power supply made the fans run properly. Without it, they are running slow.

I removed the ram stick and turned it on and I heard no beep, like it’s supposedly supposed to do. I tried removing the graphics card and using onboard, and it still does nothing.
Even though the voltages are correct, could the power supply still be bad?
 

LrnzpKiller

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Alright. So I’ve checked the power supply. I did the paper clip trick to jumpstart it. All the voltages are correct on it. It also should be noted that when not connected to the motherboard, the power supply made the fans run properly. Without it, they are running slow.

I removed the ram stick and turned it on and I heard no beep, like it’s supposedly supposed to do. I tried removing the graphics card and using onboard, and it still does nothing.
Even though the voltages are correct, could the power supply still be bad?

Sadly I don't have alot of experience with dying PSU's.

However, what exactly do you mean with "When not connected to the motherboard...", you mean you disconnect the PSU from the motherboard and the fans spin?

Also, do you have a single RAM stick or dual, triple...?
 
Aug 18, 2019
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Sadly I don't have alot of experience with dying PSU's.

However, what exactly do you mean with "When not connected to the motherboard...", you mean you disconnect the PSU from the motherboard and the fans spin?

Also, do you have a single RAM stick or dual, triple...?
It’s a single ram stick.
I mean that when the 24 pin connector is removed from the motherboard and jump started the fans run fine.
 
Aug 18, 2019
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If the beeping stops with the ram stick taken out it could be the ram. Is it a single beep or a series of beeps?
Sorry, I think you’ve misunderstood. The motherboard is doing NO beeps, even with the ram stick removed. If the ram stick is removed, it should beep to alert. It doesn’t. This is telling me that there is an issue with the motherboard, in audition to all the other evidence pointing to the motherboard. There is no post. I also just tried switching the card to a new slot, and still nothing.
 

LrnzpKiller

Distinguished
Sorry, I think you’ve misunderstood. The motherboard is doing NO beeps, even with the ram stick removed. If the ram stick is removed, it should beep to alert. It doesn’t. This is telling me that there is an issue with the motherboard, in audition to all the other evidence pointing to the motherboard. There is no post. I also just tried switching the card to a new slot, and still nothing.

I see, if the motherboard is supposed to beep and it doesn't there might be something with the board indeed.
Last thing you can try is putting the RAM in a different slot, if that don't work I don't think there's alot you can do. Except try another RAM stick if you can get a hold of one.

And otherwise I think it's pretty much confirmed that the motherboard is dead to a certain degree as it should still get to post without CPU/GPU.
 
Solution