NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Alienware Notebook Forums › Alienware Area-51 and Aurora Notebooks › Alienware Laptop Area51 m7700 black screen of death
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Alienware Laptop Area51 m7700 black screen of death

post #1 of 10
5/28/09 at 10:40am
Thread Starter 
Hello everyone,

i have an issue with my laptop it's an Alienware Area51 m7700. Im sure im not the only one with problems with this product. My problem is that it worked fine then when i power it on i get the black screen of death. The front side cd player works and plays my music. The eyes light up and the drives open, the fans also turn on. I do not hear the windows theme, the hdd light turns on but when i hit the caps lock or num lock they do not light up. I've tried to connect to an external monitor but nothing. I have seen other people say it could be the board of video. I dont want to go and spend money on things it may not be. Is there anyway of telling excatly what it is? Ive read it can be grounding issues inside or other factory forgetfullness.
i am in college right now and i do need this laptop working, any help would help me out thanks.
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 10
5/28/09 at 5:11pm
Just happening, out of the blue? Have you tried reseating ram modules, battery, ac , hard drive?

cheers ...
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 10
5/29/09 at 9:49am
Thread Starter 
It's doing it all the time now, when ever i turn it on i get the black screen. I've read that it may be a capacitor also. I do not want to invest alot of money for it to mess up on me again. But i would be willing to don minor repairs on it, if it is a capacitor or resistor. Would like to get it working for at least another year in a half until i finish college.
Willing to work for advice
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 10
5/29/09 at 7:27pm
Hope that someone can come by for you. My weekend techies know-how are limited to swapping the whole part

cheers ...
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 10
5/29/09 at 7:43pm
Can you enter the BIOS?
Have you tried with an external monitor?
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 10
5/29/09 at 7:52pm
OP did ... but not panning out well.

cheers ...
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 10
5/30/09 at 1:40pm
Thread Starter 
yup no luck with external monitor cant go into bios. screen is dead no activity
sad thing is opened it up to check it our everything is brand spanking new no dust or anything...reapplyed thermal paste to cpu and video card took it apart to check all is connected, and it was. im lost right now
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 10
5/30/09 at 6:48pm
I guess that we can go back saying that the video card is a goner :-(

cheers ...
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 10
6/18/09 at 3:08pm
See my other post in reply to the m7700 Respawn DVD. I think that it may be the motherboard rather than the video card. The big problem is that you will basically need to sink at least $150 into this to fix it. Unfortunately the cheapest mobo is $150 and the cheapest GPU also goes for about $150. If you can find a half-working GPU for cheap, I'd snap it up and test it. Just make sure that you mobo revision is above 5.2 (I think) for the 6800 Ultra an up. Someone had a post on here explaining which mobos work with which GPUs, but I haven't looked for it in a year or so.
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 10
7/11/09 at 3:07pm

Me Too

I'm going through the same thing right now. I could get my machine to fire up maybe 1 in 20/30 tries. I had the same symptoms you describe. I looked for solutions for 3 months but found none. I finally sent my machine to Ztronics and they ran a diagnostic on it. My motherboard (Clevo D900t v 5.3) displays random video. AND, my 6800 ultra overheats and shuts down..


Here's what they have in stock and the prices they quoted me. These prices are in addition to,
$30 to ship from Florida to California
$10 to insure for $1000 (USPS)
$125 for diagnostics and return shipping.

For Motherboards we have:
v.6.1 Motherboard and it goes for $329.00
v.6.2 and it goes for $369.00
Currently we don’t have v5.3 in stock but will be getting some next week and the price is $229.00


For Video Cards we have:
FX14000 and the price is $225.00
Nvidia GeForce Go 6800 Ultra the price is $300.00
Nvideia GeForce 7800 GTX and the price is $369.00




If you are handy, and know how to ebay, you can find what you need and do the work yourself for around $300. (Vid card & Mobo)



Ztronics offers a 90 day warranty and ebay only offers what ever the sell offers. (usually 7 days).


You can go buy a new computer that will be equal to or greater than your repaired AW for around the same $$$.


Check out cyberinfinity (Power seller) in ebay.



Uninstall your vid card driver the next time it fires up, then shut down and remove your vid card. Try to restart a few times and see what happens. I bet it won't start. It sounds like you need a new motherboard.




Good luck
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Alienware Notebook Forums › Alienware Area-51 and Aurora Notebooks › Alienware Laptop Area51 m7700 black screen of death