Replace broken onboard VGA card with external GPU - Dell Alienware 17R5

There are only a couple of ways  you can get the system to POST without an internal GPU, so the answer is as good as your repair shop's ability to either bypass or rewrite the firmware in such a way as the system will boot with no GPU -- and that in doing either, they don't cause other issues with the system.

Thanks a lot

Hi @andyle welcome to this user to user discussion forum. This is not Dell Support. 

The GTX1070 GPU is soldered directly onto the motherboard. If its just the GTX1070 chip that has failed, and technician has soldering expertise, it is easy to remove solder and replace. Check the GPU specifications and if there is similar GPU with same pin configuration, I would be tempted to upgrade the resident GPU (e.g. NVIDIA GeForce GTX1080 Mobile, 8192 MB, GDDR5). 

Dell Support for Alienware 17 R5, Service Manual Diagnostics two number light pattern: 2,7 = LCD failure, 3,2 = PCI/video card failure, (3,3 = Recovery image not found). 

Please click on Kudos to say thank you for response from user that is not employed by Dell. Please share an update on progress, so that other users derive benefit from your experience. Thank you. 

I think that answer bears a bit of scrutiny.   While it is theoretically possible to replace the chip, you'll find three classes of people willing to try:

1.  The inexperienced hack without the skills to succeed,

2.  True professionals who will either refuse the job due to the high probability of failure or warn you the odds of a successful replacement are small, 

3.  True professionals who will take the job and charge accordingly.

Unsoldering a  411 pin micro grid package and successfully re-soldering it to the multi-layer board is something that's easy to do in the first place it you're an SMT machine - and very difficult to impossible to do for a human being.

Thanks for your advice. All 03 local repair shops at my hometown refused to fix my motherboard. They either said fixing it requiring too much effort or the outcome is not good in long term.

I will try booting my Alienware with disabled onboard GPU and test running game with Graphic Amplifier+eGPU.

Hope that will work. I will update the result on this thread.

Hi @andyle  try F12 at splash screen, and run (ePSA) Diagnostics to get more information about this hardware problem. Maybe GPU cable wants reseating. 

Here's my error, just for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE2Gy2HEn64 

I’ve bought a new cable that connect mainboard with LCD (part number: 0WXKDC).

Unfortunately, after installing new cable, the error was still occurred.

I will try the next solution: Disabling discrete GPU GTX 1070 and try starting laptop with integrated GPU on CPU instead (17R5 has integrated GPU UHD 630 on CPU).

Hi @andyle  thank you for sharing update. 

The POST beep and light error codes are saying that the LCD screen is not connected (there are a number of indirect fault conditions such as faulty RAM that invoke this POST diagnostic code) . Please connect HDMI socket to external monitor or TV. If the 17 R5 screen appears on external screen, the laptop's LCD has failed and both the CPUs onboard GPU UHD 630 and the discrete GPU GTX 1070 might be OK. Please note that the default is to use the CPUs onboard GPU UHD 630 during start-up. If the external laptop screen can be seen, run ePSA diagnostic.