Alienware 17 R4 (2 months old) Motherboard / power failure?

Question

Hello all, I've just recently purchased my Alienware 17 R4 in June 2017 in Australia. The setup was quite good although it was quite hot when running games on max settings. I had it with the QHD+ screen with GTX 1080 and i7 7820HK - and 512 GB SSD + 1TB Harddrive. I also added another 1 TB SSD (Intel) after the purchase which I installed just fine.  I am currently overseas on business for a month (till mid October) in Indonesia, and a few days ago I had the laptop running as I run downstairs to the supermarket, and when I came back the laptop was suddenly off (it was plugged into the mains). When I checked the light indicator on the adapter brick, it was off - which was weird. So I tried turning it on, no power, no fans, no lights just dead. So I tried unplugging from laptop, then unplugging from mains - when I plug back into the mains, the adapter brick indicator light turns on again, but as soon as I plug into laptop, it turns off. I did this multiple times. I thought it was the power adapter being dead, so I ordered online for the same 330W power adapter (also Dell).  I got the new power adapter a few days later, and tried again with both new & old, and both exhibits the same behaviour. As soon as I plug into the laptop, the adapter light turns off. So I assume the problem is not with the adapter.  I remember that a few days before this issue, I remembered seeing a boot up error message something like 'The AC power adapter wattage and type cannot be determined' - I just pressed F1 I think and it went on to boot up normally. I did a few shutdowns and boot up after that and never saw that message again until the day the laptop just died.  So looking online and at the forums, I did the following: 1) Check the power adapter & plugs (did this with multiple different mains, tried different power cables and the 2 adapters, 1 brand new) - nothing can power up the laptop. 2)  Did the power drain - unplug battery and pressed the power button for over 30 secs - nothing happened, laptop still won't power up. Alienware: Power Drain - YouTube  3) Did the CMOS reset following the Alienware 17 R4 manual from Dell website (unplug the round battery for > 30 secs). - still laptop won't power up. I've contacted Dell support, and they believe that my motherboard is gone. As I'm currently not in Australia, they're trying to give it to Dell Indonesia to respond. It's been 3 days since  I first contacted support, and there's a few queries I wanted to get some suggestions about: 1) Is there any other thing I can do to diagnose & fix the issue besides the above? Have I missed something? 2) Is it better to wait for myself to get back to Australia in mid October rather than go for Dell Indonesia support? I'm worried about the spareparts in Indonesia (Medan - the city I am in) - will they have the proper spareparts? As the mobo is the one that's fried - if that's the case, wouldn't it also mean that they will need to replace the CPU & GPU too that's soldered onto the motherboard? I'm just afraid if they have it all in stock in the city that I'm in. Have anyone have experience with overseas laptop service or specifically in Indonesia? 3) As I will be travelling out to another city mid September, do you believe that this kind of issue can get resolved that quickly before I get back to travelling? Perhaps someone who had a similar problem with the Alienware 17 R4 motherboard issue before? Thanks and hopefully this gets resolved soon as I actually need the laptop for work quite urgently.

Eimy_B · Answer

Hi arclytesoul‌,

Yes, this behavior, AC Adapter light going off when you plug it into the system, it is a motherboard issue. I will suggest you to wait until you get back to Australia since a warranty transfer is not always the best thing to do in these type of situations when you are in a different country just for a few days. Please send me a private message with the service tag so I can review your case.

Arclytesoul · Answer

Thanks for your response Eimy - sent you a DM.  Hopefully this AU$4500 beast machine will be revived soon :-(

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