I have an Alienware Area-51 PC I got in 2011. About 4 months ago, I did a Shutdown. When it was off, I pressed the power button and it did not turn on. You can hear a 'click' as if it was attempting to turn on. If you press and hold the power button for 8-10 secs, you will hear another 'click' as if it were force shutdown. I used to be able to remedy this by unplugging the AC power from the wall for 3-5 mins and then re-connecting it and it would turn on normally. ALSO note that if I EVER selected RESTART it would reboot with NO ISSUE. Only SHUTDOWN gave me an issue, even SLEEP was fine. Tonight, 5/3/2013, I was not able to turn on my PC no matter what I tried. I unplugged AC power for 5-10 mins and re-connected and it would not turn on. I disconnected each device one at a time with the power out and then connected power and tried to turn it on and it would not, up to the point where all I had connected was AC power. Inside the LED light is light up on the small sub-board between the PS and the MOBO as well as the LED on the mobo, as well as the case lights, so I do NOT believe it is the PS. This process took me about an hour an a half.. so I finally called Dell tech support. When I spoke with someone they promptly informed me my Warranty was expried. After explaining the problem he believed it was a motherboard issue, but to replace it without a warranty is $800 which I do not have. I am 23 yrs old with no credit cards. I bought it for $3600 which I gave to my dad in cash and then he put it on his CC. Dell would not approve me for a Dell preferred account either and he told me there was nothing he could do. I am at a loss of what to do. Can I buy a new Mobo through newegg, ect. and swap it out with no Issues?? Would I need to reformat my HDD's? Also it has Water cooling, so I don't know if that has any factor in choosing a replacement MOBO. I know I need triple socket ram and the right CPU socket. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks, Will
I would first buy a new Dell Power supply, It has to be a Dell, because Dell uses Proprietary Parts in there computers... 3600 Really !!! Man .. What are the specks of this computer ???? CPU /Ram /Hard drive and power supply watts ... How much ram does it max out @ ?
After taking out both GPU's it turned on. I shut it down and put one back and it turned on again. After adding the 2nd back, it did not turn back on. I proceeded to remove both again, but now it won't turn on with no GPU. Is that pointing to the power supply? Is my PC trying to pull too much power?
Sorry, CPU is Intel Core i7 970 LGA1366 GPU is 2x nVidia GTX 460 RAM is 4GBx3(12gb) Tripple Channel a xeno killer network card PSU is Dell U662D HP-s1k03a001 1000w Mobo MPN is j560m
Also I connected the keyboard and mouse, 1display and 1gpu and after holding the power button for 30 secs I plugged it in and it turned on! It asked me if I wanted to check my bios settings and then I saved and exited and it shut off and then again would not come back on. This was after I had the psu disconnected for several hours.. So now I unplugged the psu and ill wait another extended period of time and see if it will come on again.
I was able to order a psu from eBay for $50 so ill have to wait for that to arrive. Also I had taken the battery out at on point and cleared the CMOS, but I have a few extra batteries too. Thanks for the help this far guys.
Well this problem would really point to PSU issues. 2 GPUs would really require a powerful PSU and even if it ran for over three months already, your PSU will eventually reach its threshold. I hope that you ordered the right PSU (right voltage capacity) because if you ordered pretty much the same PSU, you will have the same problem within a year. And you also have to check that other GPU. It could also be another problem.
I received the New PSU yesterday. After hooking it up, it turned on, I was able to change my BIOS settings to recognize my RAID setup, and then it rebooted fine! I have been able to fully turn it on and everything seems to be working. I have powered it on and off a dozen times at least so I am pretty satisfied. And for $50 I may just buy another one to have just incase. Thanks for all the help everyone.
Good to hear that from you! Your always welcome here and I think having a spare PSU is always good so that whenever things like that happen to you again, you would not waste much time wondering what to do or waiting for the delivery whatsoever.
