Question Alienware R2 13" WHEA Uncorrectable Error When on Battery - Thermal Issue?

[BluescreenLover55]

I've been tearing my hair out on this one for a couple months. I have an Alienware 13 R2 that works perfect plugged in, but when the power is unplugged, it BSODs on WHEA error (0x000000124) within a minute or so of being disconnected. Obviously this seems like a voltage issue somewhere, so I replaced the battery. No luck.

It passes all stress tests (including the built in 40min long Dell stress test), has the latest drivers and latest BIOS on default settings. I also did a complete clean install of Windows 10. This model has OC locked down, so I can't mess with the voltages directly. Before repasting, I'm wondering if there is some thermal condition that is ok when plugged in, but is bad when on battery. Is this possible?

According to the Dell support guide, after completing all steps with this error code the processor needs to be replaced, but the processor has no problems under heavy work load on mains power. It never blues screens plugged in, very stable. There is no Dell support in the country I am in, so I need to figure this out myself.

 

[fagetti]

• remove battery and charger. press powr button for 1 minute
• go to bios and disable intel speedstep and if you see C3 state options there those too ( you will run 24/7 at stock clock when you do this so beware but you can maybe solve the issue when you find exactly the fault)
• try charger with more wattage, if you have 180w try 240w example to see if problem persists
• in windows use power plan maximum performance temporarily and check if problem persists ( you might get this problem only when CPU is idle or lower clocks)
• flash newest bios when you have only plugged in charger and without battery, if it wont let you flash without battery then add battery and try to charge it as max as you can before flashing the new bios ( if you find upgraded )

try hwmonitor and hwinfo for thermal monitoring your cpu and gpu

 

[BluescreenLover55]

The problem is only on battery power and occurs when booted just on battery, so I can rule out a bad DC jack or charger. All of the thermals appear normal after some more testing this morning. I was looking for uneven cores, temps normal. I had tried disabling speed step to see if that kept CPU constant, but it still BSOD even with a new battery that passes all tests. BIOS is latest, 1.7.

I am thinking it might be a voltage regulation issue from the battery. It doesn't BSOD until there is some spike imposed. If you leave it sit, it will idle without a bluescreen.

Is there anyway to test the regulation issue on battery with software?

 

[fagetti]

Take pics of your bios if we see power states can be tweaked a bit more. Quick google about this issue seems like happening for alot of people and is motherboard related, however you can still function with it since it only affects idle states and not under load.

 

[BluescreenLover55]

I don't think I can change the power in the 1.7 BIOS. Will add some pics shortly though. I think you are right on that. If you have a particular thread to share I'm all ears too. If I can figure out the component, maybe I can repair myself. If it's broke round here, we fix it. 🙂

 

[BluescreenLover55]

 

[fagetti]

Its been years when i worked as computer repair tech so this kinda is a crapshoot from this point on. You can try disabling CPU performance mode and see it if affects anything. Try changing standard charge to express charge if that makes any difference with charging battery. Disable adapter warning if you dont have original charger, it should only disable the warning though which you dont even have this is just guessing. Try higher wattage adapter in computer shop where you can test adapters free of charge and check if that charges your battery.

Is your new battery original ?

 

[BluescreenLover55]

Yes, the new battery is OEM, direct form Dell. I haven't had luck with anything. :/


I think I will just take the hit and sell it as it is. Frustrating.

 

[fagetti]

Well this is one problem which could still be solved, open device manager and check if you see any driver which is not installed correctly (it can show a yellow "!" on it)
If you find driver like this, we can figure this out, also :

However 124 bsod is always been (90% of time) too low cpu core voltage for me and happens frequently when overclocking, so this is probably problem caused by latest few bios versons.

- (do THIS first!) Try a bios downgrade, by looking at previous version atleast 1.3.10 .ver looks suspicious, might be the culprit. Try first bios version A07 which is the first release, just when you see bios version on support look for "previous releases or versions" and you will find earliest bios released. If problem resolves you can try update versions until you see it adds "battery function improvement or something related to power states or EC updates"

-Go to Alienware site and reinstall all important drivers like chipset, USB etc

- Look for DDU and how to use it to reinstall your video drivers "from manufactor site", use ddu first in safe mode then boot normal windows and install from website

 

[BluescreenLover55]

Everything in Device Manager good, stress tests still good.

Downgrade blocked from 1.7. I tried some workarounds but failed to downgrade.
Reinstalled all drivers. I guess it really is a hardware issue. Sigh. Thanks for your suggestions. Hopefully these might help someone else.

 

[fagetti]

Make bootable Linux operating system (USB) something like ubuntu example and try boot with that, if you bsod with battery only then it cant be solved by windows clean install