My 3 yr old Alienware area-51m 7700 finally died I think. When I turn it on, The hdd indicator light runs but it wont boot into DOS. The cooling fans kick in and it tries but fails. For a while after 7-8 tries it would fire up but not now. There is a digital clock/cd player controls on the front and the only time the computer would work was if the lcd's came on during start-up. They don't any more. Does anyone know if there is a utility disc I can use to run tests, flash the Bios, or possibly fix/find the unknown problem? I have quite a few new parts in there and I would hate to waste them. I know it's old but it has served it's purpose well and until now continued to run strong and hold it's own. And, I kinda like it. Thanks for any suggestions other than "Get a new computer".
Hit it with a hammer until bits fall out.... then get a new computer.. this time avoid overpriced alienware junk XD seriously.. open it up and unplug stuff. Unless it runs and completes it's POST (one beep) you are wasting your time asking for suggestions. unplug all the drives.. any cards but the graphics.. and try again. if still no joy pull the graphics card too.. and the ram.. what you want is a load of beeps or one beep.. or a mixture of them.. Once you get thoise they go from there adding one bit at a time until it fails.. then you have your likely culprit. If it won't even beep with just a psu mobo and cpu then I would think long and hard about whether it's worth wasting money on guesswork buying parts when you might as well buy a new bare bones which does work.
