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September 10th, 2023 14:06
15 R3, freezes randomly, help
Alienware 15 R3
Hello,
Several months ago, I bought a used 2016 Alienware 15 R3 from eBay. Since day one it randomly freezes. Only rarely it goes for blue screen, it just freezes. Nothing is responsive anymore.
I tried everything. changing several memory modules, tried different SSD slots, different OS, (7,8,10, Linux), disconnected everything unnecessary from motherboard and installing system on barebone motherboard + screen + SSD. Flashing bios. Nothing helps. it's completely random and there is no pattern at all. It can happen anywhere in first 30 seconds to 20 minutes. laptop is completely unusable.
Only times when it does not freeze is when bios, or in safe mode of windows where everything is disabled. It was also ok in one of the versions on Linux, but now it freezes again on installation.
I took it to several local service centers. they could not find any kind of hardware fault. Only one of them told me that it might be stolen and once laptop found internet connection some kind of mechanism kicked in and because of that it freezes.
In bios security section, everything is clear. no Computrace is activated and password is not set. Please give me any advice. I'm on seventh circle. Buying new board costs even more than it cost me to buy whole laptop. Is there a way I can check if the laptop is stolen? Whom should I contact?
mattyb3
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September 13th, 2023 04:03
@Nikaomadze Freezing can often be a sign of GPU failure. Even if diagnostic tests show that it's all good, it can still have a problem. Try disabling the dedicated graphics in Device Manager and see if it runs just on the Intel graphics. In reality, it could be just about anything.
I would usually tell you to remove the Dell Support Assist program as this can cause freezing in older systems but I'll assume this hasn't been installed when you reinstalled Windows and Linux on all those occasions. If you did install it each time after reinstalling your OS then make sure that you remove it and see what happens.