Question PLEASE HELP! No display after i3 CPU upgrade to i7.

[DunK99]

Hello, everyone!

I'm working on upgrading an Alienware Aurora R2's CPU. Previously was an i3-540, but hoping to upgrade it to an i7-860. When I do though, there is no display.

Having lurked over many forums and posts, I can see this isn't an uncommon issue, but I've seemingly done every step? (I think? New to all this.)

• The MoBo is 0RV30W, so I made sure my BIOS was A04 (seemingly the newest one available) - which it was.
• Fully powered down, and swapped out the i3 for the i7, applied the 'pea' method of thermal paste, reattached cooling (not too tightly) and made sure to double-check RAM sticks were still in place afterwards.
• No display on the first boot (but fans and LEDs turned on).
• Attempted to reset CMOS using the... little plastic thing on the MoBo (?) for 5 minutes and then moving it back. Still no display.
• Swapped the i7 BACK to the i3 and booted perfectly fine first time. Which leads me to assume the pins for the CPU port aren't damaged?

Am I missing something? Is there something I need to do with the BIOS before swapping the CPU?
Any help would be really appreciated. I can tell this question gets asked of you all a lot, but after following all posts I could find I didn't see any other solution. So presumed I was missing something or there's something specific I need to do for the Alienware R2 to make it all work? Am happy to provide any more information that could help me get this working.

Thank you in advance for any help!

 

[ElectrO_90]

To be honest, I think you have done the correct things.
5 mins on swapping the jumper over is a long time, since it shorts it out and resets instantly.
Can you strip it back to just CPU and 1 RAM and see if you get anything from the i7 then?

EDIT: after new information, make sure there is a GPU in your machine!

 

[13thmonkey]

Is your Screen plugged into the mobo or the GPU?
The 540 seems to have an iGPU (I'm surprised), whilst the 860 doesn't (not surprised).

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/tr/tr/ark/compare.html?productIds=46473,41316

 

[ElectrO_90]

Is your Screen plugged into the mobo or the GPU?
The 540 seems to have an iGPU (I'm surprised), whilst the 860 doesn't (not surprised).

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/tr/tr/ark/compare.html?productIds=46473,41316

Learnt something new there then. I never knew it didn't have an iGPU

 

[13thmonkey]

Learnt something new there then. I never knew it didn't have an iGPU

It's pre Sandybridge, I thought those iGPU's were all on the mobo like for C2D and C2Q.
It might be a red herring, it might be referring to chipset based GPU's, it was a translated page.

 

[DunK99]

Is your Screen plugged into the mobo or the GPU?
The 540 seems to have an iGPU (I'm surprised), whilst the 860 doesn't (not surprised).

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/tr/tr/ark/compare.html?productIds=46473,41316

The GPU, I believe. (Radeon HD 5670?)

BUT after I figured out the CPU upgrade, I have a new graphics card ready to install too (Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti G1 4GB).

This is the first time I've heard the term 'iGPU' in any of my CPU research too! So thank you already for the help.

 

[ElectrO_90]

I wouldn't be installing 2 difference things at once.
Choose the old GPU with OLD CPU and make sure it works
then change the CPU and keep the old GPU

 

[DunK99]

I wouldn't be installing 2 difference things at once.
Choose the old GPU with OLD CPU and make sure it works
then change the CPU and keep the old GPU

Yeah, that's the way I figured made the most sense!

I've not touched the 5670 this whole time. It's been there throughout my CPU swapping. So it's currently working with the i3 but it didn't with the i7.

 

[ElectrO_90]

Since its Alienware and they offer great support, I suggest you ask them why it's not working. Unless of course, the CPU you bought is dead.

 

[DunK99]

Since its Alienware and they offer great support, I suggest you ask them why it's not working. Unless of course, the CPU you bought is dead.

I emailed Alienware yesterday, but haven't had a response yet (and my Service Tag is nine years old!).

So I didn't do anything wrong? Really hoped to get this up and running for the weekend. If I installed the new Graphics Card first would that help if I did the CPU afterwards? Or would it potentially fry it all?

P.s. Sorry for all these questions. I'm new to all of this, so I'm still learning - but it's all been really fun so far!

 

[ElectrO_90]

its not posting bios, so not really.
but if you want working computer just do gpu now with i3 and wait until alienware to contact you.
Although, I still think its CPU is probably faulty and not your system

 

[DunK99]

its not posting bios, so not really.
but if you want working computer just do gpu now with i3 and wait until alienware to contact you.
Although, I still think its CPU is probably faulty and not your system

Bought the CPU and was promised it was fully working. I'm not holding my breath on Alienware responding as my Service Tag is LONG expired. SHould I complain to the person I bought the i7 off then?

Is there no more option for me to try? 💔

 

[13thmonkey]

There's a possibility that with the new CPU it's defaulting to a mobo based graphics solution, (i'm 50% convinced they didn't have iGPU's.). So try the monitor in the mobo video output? Then go into bios and change it (assuming it is posting, just not where you can see it)

 

[ElectrO_90]

True it could be defaulting to it, but if the i3 is working with the GPU in, it would be changed to that. I would have thought anyway.
No harm in checking.

 

[DunK99]

There's a possibility that with the new CPU it's defaulting to a mobo based graphics solution, (i'm 50% convinced they didn't have iGPU's.). So try the monitor in the mobo video output? Then go into bios and change it (assuming it is posting, just not where you can see it)

From what I can tell - my MoBo doesn't have any video output? It seems to run through the graphics card HDMI only (currently a Radeon HD 5670). Unless there's a port I'm missing?

I do currently have a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1050 Ti G1 ready to go, but haven't attempted to put it in the PC yet as I presumed the CPU would be better place to start in terms of upgrading. If I upgraded my 5670 to the 1050 Ti first AND THEN swapped out to the i7 would that then cover the Integrated Graphics part for the i7 which does not appear to have an iGPU?

P.s. Thank you all so much for keeping up with the replies! Would love so much to get this done by the end of this weekend.