XPS M1730 won't boot - blank screen with LED Lock Code after fn+power

Question

Hello All, I've searched in vain to find a definitive list of the LED Lock Codes after a (FN + Power-on) diagnostic boot, but I can't seem to find one that matches mine, or perhaps I'm interpreting my codes incorrectly. Here's what happened: Screen started playing up, showing lines, garbled sections, blurry bits etc. After a few reboots it all came good again, so I thought it might have been heat-related. After a few days, it eventually wouldn't boot 8 out of 10 times, but would instead sit there with either a blank screen, or at the boot-post screen. Rightly or otherwise I interpreted this as a graphics card issue, and googling turned up many horrifying stories about this laptop/nVidia card combination. I purchased a new nVidia 8700M card for the M1730 off eBay (a step backwards, but a new 8800 was out of the question), and installed this today without success - I still see a blank screen after the optical drive makes a few sounds. LCD BIST test shows various full-screen colours, so I think the LCD is okay I tried a FN + Power diagnostic boot, and the LED Lock seem to be; All on, all off, caps caps caps, all, all, all, then caps repeatedly. I've posted a link to http://fwd4.me/U1H of the video showing this. These codes don't seem to match anything shown at http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/p/19271072/19473587.aspx, or Should I interpret this as a dead system board? Or a dead system board AND memory? Perplexing, and becoming expensive! Thanks for any help. Codenix.

icashootnstar · Answer

I know it's been a while. But did you get any answers to this? Was the problem ever solved? I'm having the same issue. Mahalo, Shannon

dgkpcon · Answer

The MOBO is shot i just went thru the same thing with a tech repair of my fourth MOBO,i'm lucky i have the 9800M GTX SLI system so,i don't have the GPU problems most users with this system do.The 8700M's are nothing but garbage and the 8800's are not much(if any) better as far as crapping out every 3-5 months.

icashootnstar · Answer

Oh, dear. Not what I wanted to hear. (Also, guess which GPU I have. Sigh.) I wonder if I should just chuck the whole thing to avoid throwing good money after bad.

Thanks for the info. I won't shoot the messenger ;-)

dgkpcon · Answer

Well i can say that this is an awesome system with the 9800's.But the cost of those versus a new system is the choice,as yu pointed out.Plus the new Ivy Bridge systems will be shipping here within the next week or so from what i have read.

Thanks for not shooting,hehehehehe.I was just being honest about the GPU's from personal experience with them.

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