17 R4, motherboard short circuit

No pre warning or indicators.  I powered my system down the night before and everything was working as usual.  I always disconnect the ac adapter from the laptop and then from the outlet.  When I woke in the morning and the laptop wouldn't start with battery power I connected the ac adapter and the led indicator light switched off.  I disconnected it from the laptop and cycled it (unplugged from the outlet and plugged it back in).  Then when I connected it to the laptop the led switched off again as it may be activating a fail safe when a short circuit is detected.  I tried with another ac adapter and got the same results.  After reading about some similar issues it sighted the main culprit as a short circuit.  While it may not be the motherboard as of yet it is indicated as the most likely problem.  Thank you for your reply.  I appreciate your help and any suggestions.

Unfortunately it could be the motherboard as that problem has been mentioned in the past. One could hope it is the battery causing the problem though. Have you tried disconnecting the battery and unplugging the adapter then press and hold the power button for 30 seconds. Then reconnect everything and try again. If that fails, call Dell tech support in your region and they can diagnose the problem and if there is a charge, will give you a quote for repairs.

Final conclusion on my situation.  Replacement parts are an option, however the price for a new motherboard for the Alienware 17R4 is around $1400.00 just a few hundred short of what I paid for the product to begin with.  And I don't believe that includes the i7 7700k processor which most likely was damaged if the motherboard short circuited.  Unfortunately it appears that I am out on this computer as I no longer have a warranty with dell support.  I should have spent the $300.00 to extend the warranty but financial issues didn't allow me that opportunity.  The laptop worked well for just slightly over a year before this happened.  My suggestion to anyone looking to purchase an Alienware 17R4 is to be aware that you may lose your motherboard in a short period of time, and to consider that on top of what you are paying for the system it will be a necessity to purchase an extra $300-$500 dollar warranty and include that in your budget for the system.  For myself personally I will not be spending the money to buy or replace the motherboard as I don't have faith that a new motherboard simply won't suffer the same fate sooner or later.  And at the prices I would be spending it is not feasible to maintain.  I am fairly certain that DELL won't be willing to help with my situation as far as good faith replacement as the warranty is expired (I could be wrong).  I was planning on purchasing the Area 51 alienware tower this spring however at this point I don't think I am willing to take the risk, warranty or no warranty.  And in final conclusion for myself personally I believe I will be avoiding DELL products all together. Hopefully you find this information useful if you are reading this and let me know if you had similar problems or even your thoughts on this.  If DELL reaches out to me I will update you with a post here.  Thank you.

I went ahead and tried your suggestions but unfortunately it didn't yield any results.  So I carried on by disconnecting hardware one at a time and trying the the ac adapter after each disconnect to see if the short was related to something else eventually reaching only the mother board.  I am fairly certain the motherboard is gone at this point.  Thank you and I appreciate the help and suggestions.

Today I just suffered the same exact problem, my Warranty just expired I think 2 months ago, I could not pay to extend the warranty at the moment. Yesterday it was working fine and today it has the same behavior as you described above.

I feel so disappointed since my Alienware from the beginning started with a Lack of performance and overheating issues.

I will avoid buying now dell products and start giving my feedback to anyone that wants to get a Dell computer.

It's quite weird that after the warranty expires this happens 

Hi, I just want to mention that the same issue happened to me and just after 3 months of warranty expiry. Anyway I took it to a Dell dealer to check and fix the issue and they confirmed that it was a short in the motherboard. And the cost of repairing it was around 280 USD.

Hopefully the issue will not repeat itself and could be well.

Dell’s Alienware laptop were my favorite laptops and this was my second Alienware since 2012. The first one is still operational and works perfectly, but the 2017 Alienware 17 r4 only completed 1 year and 3 months before it this issue.

Hi guys, same problem here... after 2 weeks of 1 Year and 5 mainboard replacement and 2 alienware 17r4 replacement... 

Same here. I'm on my 12th service. I just had my logic board replaced for the 7th time I believe and I'm on my refurbished model now. 

Same problem for me, exactly as described above. But with Alienware 15 R3.

Here is my post about it : https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware/Alienware-15-r3-dead-shot-circuit-when-plugging-in-AC-adapter/m-p/7527501#M27779

Same problem here with the 15 R3

I think it's a problem with this model overall that it has some components fails and shorts somehow.

I got to a local repair shop he tried to change the mosfets that seemed to be shorted but still not working. He said the processor is fried

That is not my first problem with dell or with that specific laptop either I had several problems with overheating since I got it. I don't think I will ever buy or recomend a dell product anymore.

Same here, only help from Dell was " give us more money"