Alienware m18x r2 Unable to get into BIOS after changing to Legacy

Hi ‌,

Did you try a power drain and also resetting the CMOS battery?

Thanks for your reply.  Yes, I detached the battery, completely discharged CMOS, etc..  I reboot, get 5 beeps, can't get into BIOS, reboot again 8 beeps, still can't get into BIOS.  Tried using F2, DEL, F12, function F2, function ESC.  I don't know what else to try.

Hi godlikemouse. nice User Name BTW.

i'm just gonna leave it here.

5 Beeps Problem.

Solution

To fix the issue and have your system working again, please perform the following steps:

• Remove the system battery.
  
  
• Remove the Ac/adapter.
  
  
• Hold the power button for 30 seconds without any power source.
  
  
• Plug back the Ac/adapter only.
  
  
• Hold the “FN” key and without releasing the key, Power "ON" the computer.
  
  
• After step 5, you will notice the system will try to turn "ON" and after 5 seconds will restart, at this point you can release the “FN” key.
  
  
• The computer will POST and starts loading Windows.
  
  
• Shutdown your computer and plug back the system Battery.
  
  
• Download the latest BIOS version for your Alienware System and run it.

Bummer, I had high hopes for this one being that I had not tried it before.  Followed all the steps, when holding the FN key on the first boot, the laptop beeped 5 times without restart.  I continued waiting for about 60s, but there was never a restart.  Let go of the FN key and did a manual hold power restart, tried hitting F2 again, but could still not get into the BIOS.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

I can try that, I'm not sure why disconnecting the hard drives would matter though.  The BIOS should load before initializing those devices or at the very least allow keycode input to the BIOS.  RAM is easy to reach.  I know for a fact that there are no hardware failures in the machine, everything was working fine until I switched over to legacy mode.  I was doing so to unlock the BIOS due to video card throttling.  Thanks for the suggestion.

hmmm....

worked for others. alright then.

disconnect all Cables, remove the Laptop Battery and the Coin Cell Battery, hold Power On Button for a Minute and then remove your Hard Drives. try to Boot without the HDDs installed.

not sure if i should tell you to Boot with only one RAM Module. are they Easy to reach?

i hope it works this Time.

Alienware Beep Code Table

1 Possible Motherboard (covers BIOS corruption or ROM error)
2 No RAM detected
3 Possible Motherboard Chipset
4 RAM failure (other)
5 CMOS Battery
6 Video card/chip
7 CPU
8 LCD 

the Idea was to try and Boot with bare Minimum. as you already noticed it should Post but it doesn't. apparently there is something wrong with the Coin Cell Battery. additionally you have Boot Problems after you switched Boot Mode for your OS / Hard Drive. checking Devices is a Part of the Post Process. so try to Boot after Power Drain + Clear CMOS without HDDs and only one RAM Modul installed and make sure the CMOS Battery is connected properly.

you don't have to do anything i suggested if you don't want to.

Edit:

Alienware-Eimy and other Mods here:

Thank You Guys for Fixing the Message Box. i missed it so much. very happy about it.

Thanks for the confirmation.  I figured that would be the case I just really didn't want to have to do that.  Pulling those cards in the m18x case is terribly complicated.  But it looks like there's no other choice.  Hopefully, removing the cards will do what I need.  Thanks again.

you would  be correct sir . the 980M's do  not like the M18X R2's legacy system bios..  this is one of the things I remember when  I swapped my 680's for 980's  in the instructions was to make sure Legacy wasn't enabled.. as it was known to cause issues with setup from company I purchased from anyway (offshore)

it should be able to post off the onboard card with both 980's removed .. to fix the issue.. 

That's for the advice, I do appreciate it.  I was hoping to get back into the BIOS without having to start pulling components.  What's more than likely happening here is that under Legacy mode the dual 980M video cards are being rejected by the BIOS.  Under UEFI it's not a problem however, when I switched back to Legacy the BIOS is just having issues driving the monitor for whatever reason.  I'll probably end up having to pull the video cards, boot into BIOS, update BIOS, then reinstall.  The process is enormously painful and I was hoping to avoid it, but that just may not be in the cards unless anyone else knows how to force BIOS entry.

As a follow up, removing the dual 980M video cards did the trick.  That allowed me to update the BIOS and then put the machine back into UEFI mode.  Thanks for the help.