Lights Are On But Nobody's Home?

[dseidlitz]

Hello to all,

Searched the forums quite a bit looking for a problem like mine, but they all seem to be specific for desktops... so here goes.
My computer:

Alienware Area-51 m7700 NOTEBOOK
Intel Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz Processor
GeForce Go 6800
2 GB Dual Channel RAM

-And thats really all I know I guess.

Anyways, I've had this computer for almost 2 years already, and Alienware refuses to help me diagnose any problems now that my warranty is up (not that I can understand what they're saying 90% of the time anyways), and I can't order parts from them because they no longer make the m7700, or sum lame *censored* sh*t like that. My mobo was already replaced once by them, and my hard drive. So I have a feeling this may be my motherboard again.

My problem:
The thing just refuses to start up. When I turn on the power, nothing comes up, the screen is blank. THE LIGHTS ARE ON BUT NOBODY'S HOME. The fans come on, my cd drive makes some noise and thats the end of it. I've let it sit for awhile like that to see if it was just my screen and if it really was actually booting. But alas, none of the lights on any of my peripherals (mouse, wireless card) come on. Over the past couple weeks or so it had only been doing this occasionally, but now its not coming on at all. The last time I had it on i went through my device manager and checked to see if everything said it was working properly, and it did. And all my RAM showed up on dxdiag.

I've tore into the thing a couple times (what a pain in the *censored*), and tried reseating the cpu, and the RAM, and even removed the battery to reset the CMOS, but still no life.

However, lately the game I play has been lagging a lil bit more than usual. Might it be the onboard graphics part of my mobo?

Any other ideas? 

Thanks in advance,

-Dan S.

[patio]

I would borrow a known good PSU of the same or greater wattage and swap it in there to see if it's the culprit...
If it isn't my next suspect would be the vid card...do the same as instructed above.
This should narrow it down a bit.

[elxr06]

Well, maybe not PSU. You got a notebook so try a new battery?

And maybe the video card is not properly inserted? Did you by happen try to reseat the vid card too ? Vid card not working means nothing will show on screen. But other components may be ok as long as it gets power it needs.

[patio]

Sorry i didn't recognise it was a notebook...ignore my advice.

[gerdts13]

howdy

I am in the almost exact situation as you. I almost parted out my laptop which is exactly the same as yours but I am not sure whats the issue so I feel bad selling a bad product.

anyway here goes
I was playing a game one day and my screen froze completely. after turning it off IE holding down power it will not bootback up I turn on power lights come on Bios loads fans operate but after the bios screen goes away screen goes black and then I get 2 short beeps and then nothing. I let my computer sit for like a month ( i really didn't even want to look at it) then I recently tried to get it to boot but now I see no operating system found error when I turn it on. before when it first started faulty boot every now and then I would get a blue screen of death that had a memory error code. Now I have reseated my hdd on both sides reset cmos bat the only thing I haven't done is reseat the video card but I will try that today. My guess is my mobo has gone to crap which sucks because I bought it off my bro with no warranty and AW  is balls for tech support and me paying 6-7 hundred for just labor aint gonna happen. please any advice would be great before I just throw the darn thing in the garbage.

[devlin]

Okay... I had this happen to me as well on my old ThinkPad and a floor model Toshiba Satellite where I worked.

Try this before forking out any money on it.

Disconnect power cable
take battery out
wait 1 or 2 minutes
replace battery
replace power cable
press power button....

I've had customers call me in major panics with the same symptoms and this fixed 90% of them.

[gerdts13]

ok i will try this when i get home and post what outcome is hopefully good