M18x R1 stopped working

Im sorry to hear you are having this much trouble. If you are seeing a mouse cursor, it sounds like it is booting into windows partially, but that some things may be corrupt. 

Are you able to boot into BIOS? If so, I would suggest running the BIOS checks. 

Otherwise, I would encourage you to start by removing and all peripherals such as: usb drives, printers, mouse, external monitor, any extra RAM, and then trying to boot. 

I would also test booting to an external monitor. 

Do you see anything at all during bootup? Do you hear any sounds/beep/windows load/etc?

To add to the above great advice from PHOENIXBENNU, here are a few additional troubleshooting suggestions you can try as necessary:

Try booting into Safe Mode and see if you still have a black screen. If you don't have a black screen in Safe Mode, use Windows System Restore to roll back your system to an earlier date when things were functioning correctly. If that puts you back in business, take a moment to disable automatic Windows Updates. Windows Updates can cause a plethora of issues if you have it configured to automatically install updates. Video driver updates from the Microsoft Catalog are notorious for causing serious performance and/or functionality problems.

If you are still having issues after using System Restore, it could still be a software/driver problem, but you could have a problem with a bad video card or even a dying hard drive/SSD. You need to determine whether the problem is hardware failure. If you were fortunate enough to have already installed one of svl7's awesome unlocked BIOS, simply switch your BIOS video setting from PEG to IGFX and see if you still have a black screen. If you do and the screen only goes black as Windows starts to load, you probably have a bad HDD or a corrupted Windows installation.

If you have a spare HDD, take out your existing drive(s) and do a fresh Windows installation on that spare HDD. I am making this suggestion because you seem concerned about data loss, otherwise I would simply suggest wiping out everything on your current disks with a clean installtion. Using a spare disk (even an old and slow one) would allow you to determine if a bad HDD or corrupt Windows installation is causing the problem without losing data on your existing drive(s).

If the above does not remedy the situation, pull your discrete video cards and see if things work correctly using Intel integrated graphics. If they do, install just the primary GPU. If the screen goes black using that graphics card, swap the heat sinks and put the secondary card in place of the primary GPU and see if it works correctly. If it does, you will know that the other GPU is bad. 

What video cards do you have?

Hi PB thank you so much for the speedy response!

Right then..... windows appears to start as normal with the soft glowing windows logo and plays the "open windows" sound / fanfare then just goes to the black screen.

I can move the mouse cursor around with the pad but that it nothing else works.

I can F12 to the BIOS without any problems, I have run all the checks there and all checks pass without any problems!

The only peripherals I use is a mouse which is unplugged.

thanks again

Right guys....thank you both loads btw 

Some progress is better than none....right?

Ok.....F8 on boot - safe mode same problem so - rebooted - F8 to run a kind of old skool ScanDisk on C: 

Messages shown: Deleting corrupt attribute record (128, "") from record segment 18923.

Once complete, rebooted...........started as usual If a bit slow.........then yep black screen again....so I left it...........many minutes later......

der der der (windows fanfare) eventually took me to my desktop, however: ridiculously slow and I mean really really REALLY slow.

Egg timer (spiny blue circle) is making a rare appearance!

Looks as though I'm back to basics regarding software........which I can live with.

Trying to run PC Checkup and the egg timer is earning its money and...oh hello......The application is not responding window has decided to join in the fight now!

Yep and there we go.........now nothing is responding! AVG widget is in the top right, the Alienware head wallpaper is there along with my faithful mouse cursor and that's it guys not even Ctrl, Alt + Del wants get involved.

Must be software guys what do you think?

Cool! Glad you finally got to a desktop. That is a small thing, but still progress compared to a black screen.

Yes, it is potentially a software, driver or malware problem. It could still be a problem with the hard disk. Passing the ePSA testing at boot is good, but it does not rule out hardware 100% as the possible cause.

If you look at your Windows Resource Monitor, do you see your memory or CPU resources running at 100%. If resource utilization is not off the chart, this further indicates the possibility of disk failure. If your system resource are being gobbled up, then it is likely a software (potentially malware) problem.

Did you try using System Restore to roll back to a date that the system functioned properly?

I would recommend backing up your important files as soon as possible so you don't lose anything critical and then try a clean Windows reinstallation or disk restore using AlienRespawn. If that fails, you will know something is going haywire with your drive(s).

Really appreciate the help guys!

OK....now I'm going to make myself look a right noob here....

I never created a restore point or rescue disc!

yep......I'm paying big for it now....lesson learnt and the hard way to boot 

Got to safe mode and now appears to behaving itself, however that's about all I can get.

So, I have gone and got myself a copy of Windows 7 to reinstall, I can't afford to waste any more time chaps.

Thank you for the help anyway!

well you can download and burn a copy of windows from digitalriver its a clean virus free download and is quick usually just make sure you get the same version you got, it will activate with your key no issues ive done it tomany times :O

windows install dvd(clean install) wont have all necessary drivers for everything so you need to go to dell's website enter your service tag and download...

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhh This is driving me nuts now guys, sure I'm going a little bit insane, I'm sitting here rocking back and forth grinning to myself 

All the drivers seem to be playing hide n seek! Or is this normal with a fresh OS install?

Even my wifi driver has vanished and I can't connect to the internet to download all the other drivers!

I have, however got a baby laptop which I have DLd the wifi driver and stuck it on a flashy stick!

am I being a dumb dumb 

Using the USB Flash drive is a good way. I have run into the issue with the wireless driver, sinc eit wont auto install or plug and play from a new install. Ive become good friends with my handy dandy flash drive. At least its not like it was back with windows xp when i had to redo a customer install disk to make sure esata drivers were included when normally they are not. Pain in the hind end.

 

Bug like suggested, use the USB flash drive to do the wireless drivers, then do everythign from the Dell website, :)

Hey thanks all, I think I may have stumbled on the problem 

All was running blisteringly fast until...........I installed my anti virus

Then it all went Pete Tong again  slow slow slow and hanging like a hangy thing from hangs vile!

Got rid of Anti V in safe mode DLd AVG & all seems ok at the min.

Just on Dell dot com doing a sys detect biz.....so fingers crossed.

Got to be honest I am very impressed with the help I've received  

So cheers guys really appreciate it.

we most of   us here are end  users like  you are and   run into  issues and  figured em  out... like me with my M18X R2 and software conflicts and  resolutions ...   or like Fox and much  own  at a lot  of  the  forums  I see him on :O

 

 

Ok...all is working great again.

Just installing 144 driver updates 

One last question, where do I get the alienware software that came with my laptop?

Not sure what it's called but it's the one that changes the colour of the keyboard & Alien Autopsy etc......?

to to dell downloads and enter service tag this will make sure you get proper versions/type Alienware Command Center (ACC) and On Screen Display (OSD) there is a few different revisions and newer models have a version that wont work, this is why I say use your Service Tag