rufus76

The best forum to post this in, is the Alienware Owners Club, I am moving the thread to it.

 
Bev.

Power off, unplug and press/hold power button for ~15 sec

Open case and remove motherboard battery

Press/hold power button again for ~30 sec

Reinstall the battery (right-side-up!)

See if it boots now

If necessary, you can buy a replacement motherboard and install it yourself. There should be instructions in the manual for this model on the support site. Or maybe take it to a local PC shop.

Ron,

thanks for the help, much appreciated.

I tried to follow your instructions as closely as possible but struggled a bit and perhaps due to this I did not execute your instructions correctly.

Couple of questions if i may:

What does the "press/hold power button" do and is this only relevant when there is no power connected to the pc?

What should i have connected to the Motherboard when attempting this kind of critical first boot?

So from powered off starting point, is the sequence like this:

1. Unplug power.

2. Press/hold power button for ~15 sec.

3. Open Case.

4. Remove Battery.

5. Press/hold power button again for ~30 sec.

6. Reinstall the battery (Writting side up I presume).

7. Close Case.

8. Plug power.

9. Push power button.

Sorry to pain with the sequence but I want to make sure I execute your instructions correctly.

Regards,

Rob

Press/holding the power button after the system is unplugged will drain away any residual charge on the motherboard which a) helps makes sure you don't cause a surge or short circuit and fry things and b) makes sure that BIOS actually gets reset.

In cases like this, best to have only mouse, monitor and keyboard attached. No network connection, no phone lines, no printers, scanners, iPods or anything else.

As for the battery, I meant "correct-side-up". Check the manual for this system to make sure the + side is supposed to be up, which is the typical installation, though there might be exceptions to the rule, and I don't know exactly which system you have.

Hi All,   After failed BIOS update, my Aurora when powered up with 1GB RAM ends up in boot loop in which the PC powers on and off.

Just wondering (and I don't mean to get involved in this discussion because it looks like you are in good hands) but ...

1. What "Release" Aurora do you have ... or ... if you don't know, what Intel processor model is installed?

2. Was the first attempted BIOS flash done via Windows or bootable USB flash drive?

@Tesla - All comments, questions, solutions are welcome.  I don't have an 'exclusive'!

This thread actually started in the Desktop General Hardware where I picked it up but then it got moved over here.

Gents,

all comments welcome and appreciated.

here's the details:

Model: DOIM Type: DOIMOO1 P/N: K9OFW Rev: AOO October 2009

Via windows (Dell Support/Drivers/Bios download package). The failure was squarely my own fault, I noticed that I had something running on the background and panicked. Not sure what I did but I ended pulling the power out in the end.

Dell-Chris kindly advised me that getting Dell Service to sort out the situation would be expensive so I guess I am doing it my self now then. Before I order a new MB I suppose I need to work on the old one to establish that it is beyond help.

I was wondering if somekind of BIOS flush from an external device could be option for me?

Then again, I took the battery off for a night, on the next day played around with the jumper and finally connected the battery and tried reboot and ended up back in the loop. So not sure what is the logical next step...

Regards,

rob

here's the details:   Model: DOIM Type: DOIMOO1 P/N: K9OFW Rev: AOO October 2009

Not sure what the above means.

@Tesla - All comments, questions, solutions are welcome.  I don't have an 'exclusive'!   This thread actually started in the Desktop General Hardware where I picked it up but then it got moved over here.

Tesla,

Thanks for the article, I ll be doing some work  based on that tomorrow then.

The handbook notes the model as Aurora ALX, Processor Intel core i7, Intel X58 Express.

I Believe I tried to do Windows Bios flash.

Regards,

Rob