Agree with this, the fan with "little spin , stop, another little spin..." could be a BIOS issue, therés nothing to lose with trying a reflash. also if you can reflash the ec is a effortless try.
I have the same Alienware with GTX 1070 happen with me processor red lights when I leave the laptop for around 1 month when take vacation and there where hella rainy season there so I guess it the dust and the moisture from humidity make wired resistance across the board and laptop thinks this was a fault so I just clean it with gentle hands with thinner and soft art brush well it works!!!!! Happen 2 months ago.
"I've had this twice. Called support and the trick is to disconnect the battery, hold the power button down for 30 seconds, re-connect the battery and then try turning it on. It seemed to happen with the battery running down and then plugging it in, although it only happened twice within the first couple of weeks of buying it (back in feb)." Try without the battery, not with the dc connected.
I have had laptops of every size and desktops since the early 90s and I am of the same opinion as Alex; laptops are suitable for light use and portability, anything else is way better on a desktop..
I don't use consumer level laptops and only go for business class unless to collect something interesting but anyway business class models are better built and do hold up to heavy use much better than the crap sold in places like walmart or newegg etc.
MOSFETs have relatively high operating temperatures, some have maximums of 125, some less, some more. In a tight space like a laptop, getting that heat out is difficult. So one way, simply put is they just get too hot while under operation.
technically not, they can handle heat very efficiently but when there is a circuit overvolt due to unstable powerdraw they go psst... there is always a problem with these laptop's power delivery because they are factory overclocked so cpu and gpu are both power hungry and have unstable power draw spikes... a desktop can handle these easily because they have psu rated higher than needed like if a pc is build they tak 650W or higher in psu but the watts are limited in laptop... so any overvolt and overclock bricks the board's mosfets when the charger is removed and reinserted under a unstable overclock... you rearely see these things happen in gaming pc's (desktop) and when this happens we change the psu... edit: any blown mosfet is basically a water heater as you know
i wonder if laptop manufacturers are intentionally putting high end specs on laptops while not paying attention to power delivery side of things that cause them to fail more often. i've been advising, repasting and in some cases undervolting my friends and family's gaming laptop as to also help the VRM's , Capacitors and MOSFET cool a bit in my own understanding
Especially when you see how people treat their laptops. Using them in bed where the blanket covers the ventilation holes or dirt builds up on the fan blades and reduces the flow of the already weak airflow. People ask me all the time about installing a copper IHS in their laptop. I typically tell them that getting the heat out of the CPU faster and more efficiently will not help since the cooling system will not be able to handle the higher heat load.
@@jackflash6377 yep, there are all kinds of things you can do to improve thermal transfer, but the heat still needs to get out. MOSFETs aren't particularly looked after when designing a laptop, even some PC motherboards are left bare (but that is totally ok, cause you aren't sleeping in the same bed as your PC). So, for the foreseeable future, laptop repair store is a good business to start.
depends on where the FET is being used like if its on the VRM then definitely it need cooling, but others dont need generally, on most laptops MOSFETs are cooled via the VRM heatsink, but if not done, the internal resistance of the FET will go up with the temprature and it will just burn out at one point, but one thing manufacturers can do to improve efficiency is to switch to GaN FETs which are a tad bit more efficient for power delivery
One reason those tiny power chips fail is that they doesn't have enough heat sinking. They rely on those even tinier source and drain pads to sink their heat in to the... well... motherboard, that too via those 5 or 10 vias. So most of the time when under heavy load, they are on the borderline of their thermal envelope. If there is a momentary spike in power draw by the CPU, and this unfortunate chip was on the switching duty at that precise moment, it sacrifices it's life.
@NorthridgeFix disconnect the battery, hold the power button down for 30 seconds, re-connect the battery and then try turning it on. It seemed to happen with the battery drained.hope this helped.
UPDATE on PC: so I ended up finding a similar computer with the same specs. swapped my harddrives, and ram into it and that became my quick fix to getting it back on its feet. need to fix a Wifi issue and swap the batteries on these cuz the new one I got has a dead battery that doesn hold a charge and the computer isnt reading a WIfi adapter rn. WIll see if swapping the wifi cards willl fix that
I’ve had a 17R5 for 3 years… LOVE IT! And no issues. I spent a lot on it because it had what I wanted/needed and it’ll be better than the cheap option available for the next 5 years
Love your videos; genius! MOSFETs can get hot when they don't switch between on/off or off/on quickly enough. During the transition, it has to limit current which causes rapid heating. Off is good, on is good, inbetween is not good. Check gate resistors etc. as these can increase switching times causing the MOSFET to heat up.
Agreed on high-end gaming laptops. Anything drawing 200+ watts in that form-factor is likely to cook its components sooner or later. My desktop PC uses 13 mosfets to power CPU vCore, not 2! There are plenty of more power-efficient options even with discrete graphics that might not quite push the same frame rates in games or complete renders as fast but they're a lot cheaper, have much better battery life, and are a lot less likely to spectacularly melt themselves to death like this one did. Not to mention how expensive these sorts of laptops are, you can likely get a more powerful PC in a tower form factor and a reasonable laptop for the same price.
I'm totally with you on the laptop vs desktop thing. I also know a lot of people who bought expensive laptops, but don't need the mobility and have the laptops sitting on their desks, plugged-in all the time. They are facing constant overheating issues and other quirks that they probably wouldn't have had with an equally or even better spec'd desktop. Plus, a desktop would have cost them a lot less.
True, only people forget to use a high end PSU and a good one, if you built a gamer/to do graphics desktop you need a lot of juice and electricity is expensive nowadays.Many people spend a lot of money on graphics card but go for a cheap PSU.
Mosfet failure are usually a result of surges or transient spike getting into the internal capacitance and coupling withe current to the drain, creating a short. There are about 8 ways or more that spikes or surges make their way into the gate.
Professional catch, I would suggest on these models, either to check the BIOS signal on pin 1 by oscilloscope or replace the BIOS ic with same SKU in order to confirm the CPU faulty at this stage. I like your troubleshooting strategy.
My Alienware M15 r2 laptop has those issiues: Sometimes it would start up with no issues Sometimes when I press power on button it shows blinking light 2red and 3 blue (which by Dell Alienware code means ram not found . Then it would take me few power on and power offs for it to start up normaly When the laptop starts up normaly I can work with it for days and days as long as I keep it on or standby I have no issues at all. Also laptop performance is top noch, 0 slow downs, as long as it starts up I have no symptoms of anything been wrong Once I hit in Windows restart (mostly) it would end up showing the 2 red and 3 blue lights and it would stay that way until I forcedly shut it off (btw screen stays black during this error) Since the 2 red and 3 blue means ram error I decided upon when the system do start up to run prine95 memtest/cpu for whole day . 0 errors showed. I have runned also 3dmark , the performance is just perfect, no complaints no slow downs nothing. It's intel i7 12700h Rtx 3070ti 8gb 16gb ddr5 ram My logic would say, when I press the power on button there are certain checks done before system is powered on. Is it the chip responsible for doing those checks malfunctioning? Or is the ram truly the issues, since it doesn't make sense that the ram is faulty as I have runned full diagnostics on the ram once it powers on
I have 10 custom made power PC in the office for 3D design and ONE MSI laptop. We use the laptop mainly for presentations at the customer's place and some rendering jobs when on the road. You are absolutely right: it is crazy to use a laptop as the main rendering unit for 3D design or video creation. No matter how good the laptop is (the MSI ones are really good) a custom build PC will always outrun it in speed and reliability.
My company has a farm with several workstations set up, so that people working remotely on laptops, can portal into the workstation to do the heavy CAD work.
i watched your videos for a few days now, apart from amazing skill what i have learnt is some things are best left to professionals, this is that type of work.
Alienware's biggest problem, like most laptops, is heat. What makes Alienware so different is they like to ship their gear overclocked out of the box to superficially inflate performance. Most people don't realize this, and end up running their systems ragged by doing incredibly intense tasks like editing, rendering, or gaming. I've had an Alienware desktop PC, and I currently have an Alienware 15 R4. They both came out of the box overclocked, and my laptop got exceedingly hot just doing basic OS tasks. After inspecting the performance in HW Monitor I realized that my CPU was hitting 3.8 GHz when it should have maxed at 2.2 GHz under normal load. After re-pasting the CPU/GPU, replacing the RAM, replacing the HDD with an NVMe M.2 for the OS, and a SATA SSD for storage, and re-installing a fresh copy of Win10 64, I immediately undervolted my CPU using a program called ThrottleStop to keep temps low while maintaining performance. The machine is over 4 yrs old, and just the slight tweaks I've done to the rig, have increased it's lifespan, and it's performance is much snappier than previously. I only use it for watching Netflix, and such when I'm either on the treadmill, in bed relaxing, or don't want to be at my desk. I'd never game, or do intensive tasks with it because the cooling solutions, while good, are not able to keep up with them nearly as well as desktop coolers can.
I recently found your channel and I love it. I have heard you mention "Repetition" a few times and I was reminded of a saying my old platoon sergeant used to say in the Army; "Repetition is the key to clarity" cheers mate!
Like with every electronic equipment, expansion and contraction from thermal changes cause heating fatigue on the materials (all materials). This is the main cause of the electronic failures that you are seeing in laptops. If they would run always on a same temperature, they would not break as soon (even if it´s a hot temperature). That´s why I recommend to tweak your systems so the CPU temp is stable and not raising and lowering all the time (hence the expansion and contraction would be avoided this way). One way to do this is to block turbo state or diminish it to a minimum. Also, set the system to not go to hibernation, just go to standby whenever it´s not in use. This way the internal components would have a slightly heated state all the time, avoiding the cold state at all times.
I have the same issue with my Alienware 17 R5 . Fight 2 weeks to find out what was the issue. Was in two services. Nobody know... and in the end its CPU problem, two red one blue light. THANK YOU!!!
I' am sure you are correct in diagnosing the problem; however, some laptops and desktops will cycle with a corrupted bios chip. I have run across this issue on a number of repairs usually caused by updating the firmware or a device failure.
Hey Alex ! Love your content. I've definitely learned a lot from your videos. I've noticed through my own refurbishing and repairing that on newer alienwares that have everything soldiered to the board that failures such as this one are extremely common. on older models where the cpu and gpu are removable, it's much less likely for the laptop to end up being bricked. I've fixed many m17x, m17x r2, m17x r3 and so on because the cpu and such can be replaced with relative ease. I guess it's more cost effective to produce the new models like this. possibly to help with weight and such. I still use and do light gaming on an m17x r3. it lasted this long due to the fact of parts being able to be swapped out. I feel more manufacturers should go back to this standard. Then again how would they make their money if the product doesn't fail and you have to purchase a brand new one. Anyway, wanted to share this with you. Thanks again for all the great content that you share !
You are the Bob Ross of electronics, your videos are the perfect working backround. I appreciate your craftsmanship, what you are doing is electronic brainsurgery (told by an technican in germany).
As someone commented before, gaming laptops usually have problems with components such as the MOSFETs or other components responsable of suplying voltage to the motherboard due to the exvcesive demand of power that those kind of boards need, the temperature just goes up and the MOSFET is no longer able to handle that much I really think that laptops (especially gaming laptops) are like a pug, if you take your pug for a walk and try to make it run again and again and again, it will end getting choked or something like that because it can't handle such activities
I travel so I need a gaming laptop to relieve stress after a long day, but I also know the pain of it failing and becoming a paperweight. I sent you my (2017) Sager to fix but unfortunately, you weren't able to find the issue and it was deemed a no fix. I'm current using my 11-year-old Sager, it is huge and old skool. It has socketed CPU and MXM GPU card (GTX 980m). It does what I need it to do but I will need to buy a new one sooner than later. Good work as usual!!
The number may be different, but it's the same chip... That part of knowledge is the one I respect :D I'm a big fan! Awesome work, big thank you from Croatia!
@northridgefix I noticed you have an oscilloscope. Do you ever use this? If so, could you make a video with an explanation of how you could / diagnose an issue using it? I've always been curious about these. Thanks
The saddest thing is that in the 2xxx Sandy Bridge era most laptops did have socketable CPUs and they weren’t that much thicker than now. I had a 14 inch ASUS laptop that I upgraded from an i3 to i7 out of a donor Dell Latitude that my work was going to throw away. I can understand the soldering of memory but the SSDs and CPUs take like 2mm less space when soldered… just make the damn thing thicker like someone is really going to care…
perhaps it's not just because "slimmer design" but more of if you could freely swap processor or hard drive. there's no point of making low end variant. since you could upgrade the CPU. or that's would be pointless making a design that purposely fail at some time and would take the cpu with it
I am in agreement with his sentiment about desktops vs laptops. I recently turned in my asus laptop which i used for bureaucratic work when i was in the services for all 4 years. unfortunately during the maintenance procedures of cleaning my laptop, I didn't disconnect the battery, and may have short circuited the motherboard during cleaning it, then removed the battery terminal a bit more forcefully than intended, and which broke the terminal. Laptops get HOT, and use thermal paste which lasts about 2~4 years tops before it becomes putty and loses it's performance and then you would have to re-paste it. And the motherboard, cpu, gpu are integrated so you can't just solder a new cpu/gpu into the motherboard. If you did the effort is just not worth it. You're better off getting a new computer. I am however working on a portable desktop powered by a battery idea.. only downside is having the actual battery being that Light, and energy dense.
Hello Alex, I'm new to border repairs and soldering and have noticed that your solder tips is always very clean. Could you please do a video about how to keep then nice and clean as what ever I try I still get them oxidised, and sometimes the solder does not stick to components, I do use flux and all, but probably just some silly beginners mistakes I do. Thank you!
I own 3 Alienware 17 ,s R3,4 and 5 . I use them for VM,s as they have 3 M.2 cards for storage . They have been reliable with only the R4 Bios flash killing one . I replaced Bios chip and all good . What bios codes were you getting on this board if any ? Cheers love ya work and channel from Australia
The reason some people is buying laptops instead of desktops are mainly (in order of importance): 1. Laptops require minimum space for fairly the same computing power. 2. They can be moved around even in long trips around the country. 3. They don´t sell as much desktops as they used to anymore. 4. They are cheaper than high spec desktops. 5. They used to be durable in the past, so we expect them to be durable in the present as well, but that might not be the case. Some of them are military spec even. 6. We love laptops.
I had an old Alienware laptop, it had my favorite keyboard and display of any laptop I have owned. The display had a glossy finish and the colors just POPPED
Last night, I was dreaming to be looking for houses for you & family… woke up very upset that couldn’t find House with all you wanted, one was missing the pool, other had outdated roof etc., I even had an argument with the landlord telling him off about the problems and why it was listed if these things hasn’t been sorted beforehand?… how wierd is that? Wry rarely I would dream with such vivid details but here we go, I’m proud of you! Keep up the good work and continue what you’re doing… lots of respect, from United Kingdom (brother from Azerbaijan)
Mosfets blowing is simply the designers or manufacturers fault. They get either too weak mosftes so they heat up way too much when operating, or they dont design the cooler properly. I've seen blown mosfets on a few Vivobooks with Core i3/i5 CPU but it makes sense that they fail more often on gaming laptops since they are hotter.
I wonder if the mosfets go bad because of the higher charger use. If I'm just watching youtube on my ASUS TUF Gaming laptop the battery will last for at least three hours. When it's plugged in and even full, the battery will sag to three quarters and never go above when I am gaming. So perhaps just extra load more often.
I don't think you pay 4000 dollars rent do you?everything is much cheaper in Romania than in the US. 4000 dollar in US is poverty, in Romania you live like a local mobster.
It's a shame that CPUs in laptops still don't use an LGA or PGA design instead of being directly soldered on the motherboard. They should be able to clamp it down enough with the locking mechanism and cooling solution to mitigate the cpu coming loose when transporting the laptop.
In the starting times when Dell introduced XPS range. They had PGA sockets in laptop's. The manufacturers don't want that now because they don't want us the end user to upgrade the system. Just wait a few years.... You will start getting soldered SSDs and RAM and other components. Some of the manufacturers like Appple have already taken that rout.
everything was fine with the chip, but between pins 5 and 6 there was a ball. if you carefully watch the video while you were heating the chip. look how the ball melts and connects pin 5 and pin 6
The high power and temperature nature of modern GaN or whatever process node MosFETS that are being used today are made to a lower process standard. I wouldn't be surprised if it has to do with the silicon shortage and companies cutting yield corners to make delivery deadlines (as it sits currently, chips are still on a 52 week delivery delay, the silicon shortage continues, btw). I would, at the very least, install input power protection after the VRM circuitry, in front of the CPU/GPU to at least protect the processor/sensitive components, but, "economies of scale" I guess...
I have some friends who work on cruise ships and they use gaming laptops - this is their only chance to have access to their games when they chillin' after work ;) In such case and similiar ones - this is a good solution.
I hope this helps you. I have a Dell 7566 Wich recently malfunction and I repaired, it had 2 capacitors blown up. After switching those with new ones, the laptop went almost with the same thing that you are expirienceing. Don't forget all computers are smart devices and they have their own way to check themselves. Just give the laptop some time and search on Dell website what actually the light circle in your button mean. Mine had to be left for almost half an hour and then started booting without problems. So my advice is that let the laptop be for at least a certain amount of time and maybe it will post. Good luck and have a great day.
Based on the information provided, it is likely that the error code you are experiencing on your Alienware R4 17 laptop is a RAM failure. One blue and two red flashes on the main LED is a common code for a memory error on Alienware laptops.
A very, very, good question. "Since you don't move the laptop from the desk why buy a laptop ?". I just think laptops just like other things a cool thing to have and play on ignoring the thing that heat in a thin space is no good.
I have an Alienware 17 (that's right, No R# because it was called just Alienware 17 aka Ranger). Still runs like a champ and it's my go to when need mobility and power at the same time.
The embedded CPU is a joke - if the CPU goes bad it's another motherboard - instead of just taking the CPU out and putting another one in - you have to replace the whole motherboard - which benefits the motherboard manufacturer
I am working on the exact same Alienware right now. Blinking 2 red and 7 blue. Found QM1 blown clean off the board. Replaced it and still getting the same result. No shorts or hotspots on the board, Schematics and boardview have helped to trace the circuit. I have always hated taking these monsters apart and reassembling again. Not fun.
Hi alex, do you usually mail the product to the customer or the shop? The shop might take credit for the fixed laptop and put the missing back cover blame on yours.
From my experience as a warranty tech I would never buy or recommend an alienware. These things have dozens of unnecessary screws and many models did a raid-1 on two hard drives as they were cheaper than a single double capacity drive - unnecessary complexity and more that can go wrong. Some components that should be user replaceable require the whole unit to be pulled apart. I totally agree with the final statement - for high performance workloads don't buy a laptop, custom build a desktop using well established and available components and give it plenty of air-flow. If you have heavy high performance video cards, be careful if you are compelled to transport the computer. Heavy cards can shear the pci-e slot off the mainboard with enough force. With my high performance system I put it into a 4U rack case and installed it into a 4U audio equipment/amplifier case usually used by bands. If you're doing serious work and you move around regularly like I do, this is the most rugged solution.
Wow, $149 for a repair attempt fee... I wish I could charge that much here. American income is much higher, so they can charge alot more, as people do have alot more money.
What matters is the location of pin 1 which is marked by a dot or something. The orientation of the writing on the chip can be different if it is from a different supplier though. I'm sure Alex checked. 🙂
Hello sir! Just a quick question. How much do voltage do you inject when checking for heat sources and what is the device you use to inject voltage? Thanks! I've learned so much from you.
I appreciate i'm not Alex but normally if your working with the first mosfett you can inject 19v or what ever the power supply is after the second mosfet use 3.3 if you have a short it will draw as much ampage as it can. even on 3.3v you can draw a couple of amps to make something warm.
i think you should buy big boss an electric screw driver, it will be better for his hand an wrist in the long run considering how many screws he removes and refits in a day🙂
Release the static build up on the board by disconnecting battery and charger, hold down power button up to 2 minutes. Plug in charger and turn on without battery present. HP’s are notorious for static build up on the board. I know it’s not an HP but same things happen on all laptops
I've had the same model for 7 years now and it's been very reliable, even used it for crypto mining. Alienware all the way for me. The battery did stop holding a charge after all the years because I kept it plugged, replaced it a month ago which was a pain with all the screws and panels. Now with a 32GB upgrade the laptop has new life in it, this thing was built like a tank and just won't die :)
The problem in laptop MOSFET is space (more in the gaming) they consume a lot but they put the minimum working . Compared to a gaming motherboard you see 12 to 16 in some expensives have more (some board say in the case 12 phase ''' meaning 12 MOSFET for CPU '''
Don't burn your bridges Alex - hahahahaha. Thanks for all your wisdom and these videos. Those light codes mean indeed a CPU failure, too bad but it happens. They are notorious for this, had one last year, also a Dell (Alienware is Dell) and out of the blue got these codes. Warranty repair in my case.
You are my favourite for you said "do not buy a laptop" 3 times, for the reasons you mentioned.... Buying laptop's for anything other then mobility is not worth in my personal experience.
For MOSFETs I think there are 3 Way to kill them. Over current, Over voltage, Overheating. In a Gaming Laptop Overheating and Over current may occur hence the Hardware can create current spikes and under load it gets quite toasty inside of the laptop.
about ten years ago, the first thing alienware users needed was replacing the thermal pads and using properly-applied paste various heat problems due to that crap
nice video, I agree if you demand too much from the Hardware dont buy a laptop. desktop can be customized with extra airflow to cooldown the components and increase their lifespan outside the warranty time. plus components can be replaced much faster and cheaper even if you buy a 300 dollar motherboard beats the costs of replacing Laptop or parts of Laptops.
Two red and one blue is bios. Try reset the bios. There is a bios battery on the laptop. Unplug battery and unplug bios battery to reset bios and try again or reprogram bios chip. The laptop is receiving power and power led codes is not suggesting CPU or board failure.
Still enjoyed the video. Is there a more detailed video on where you use your multimeter and actually show where both probes are touching when testing different types of components?
I choosed a laptop because if i need to move from my home i can carry it in a backpack and not have the risk of something breaking during the moving, and if the power goes out i can still use the laptop because of the battery, custom pcs are great for the ones that have their own house and will never have to move
Could also be the battery is depleted too much. With a hp laptop, it doesn't even turn on without a battery. When I left it on the adapter with the battery mounted for 8 hours, it came back on. The battery was in poor condition. The laptop worked after replacing the battery.
This man is direct and straight to point, no messing around and just gets the job done, great videos!
2 red and 1 blue is also very common for alienware failed bios chip. If you still have the laptop you can try to reprogram the bios chip.
Agree with this, the fan with "little spin , stop, another little spin..." could be a BIOS issue, therés nothing to lose with trying a reflash. also if you can reflash the ec is a effortless try.
Exactly what I was going to say, looks like the laptop failed to post, he can attempt to change the bios chip or force a bios recovery.
or a RAM issue, i've seen it before
I have the same Alienware with GTX 1070 happen with me processor red lights when I leave the laptop for around 1 month when take vacation and there where hella rainy season there so I guess it the dust and the moisture from humidity make wired resistance across the board and laptop thinks this was a fault so I just clean it with gentle hands with thinner and soft art brush well it works!!!!! Happen 2 months ago.
@@kikihun9726 If I had a dollar for every Dell I fixed that signaled CPU failure by reflashing BIOS, I'd retire by now.
"I've had this twice. Called support and the trick is to disconnect the battery, hold the power button down for 30 seconds, re-connect the battery and then try turning it on. It seemed to happen with the battery running down and then plugging it in, although it only happened twice within the first couple of weeks of buying it (back in feb)."
Try without the battery, not with the dc connected.
seems like corrupted cmos
@@maklogetrich2378 yeah could be cmos or bios issue on top of the mosfet, could also be the ram
I have had laptops of every size and desktops since the early 90s and I am of the same opinion as Alex; laptops are suitable for light use and portability, anything else is way better on a desktop..
I played cyberpunk 2077 on my laptop 12 hours a day and had no problems.
I don't use consumer level laptops and only go for business class unless to collect something interesting but anyway business class models are better built and do hold up to heavy use much better than the crap sold in places like walmart or newegg etc.
At that point it’s a laptop, being used like a desktop. Meaning you were plugged in, sitting in the same place going no where.
@@booma_ there is always that smartass who is smarter than others, luckier than others and has a better device than others.
@@chongtak Same I play BF4 Witcher 3 every game on my laptop and I can take it outside for 1 hour to work cause that's how long the battery lasts 😆😆
MOSFETs have relatively high operating temperatures, some have maximums of 125, some less, some more. In a tight space like a laptop, getting that heat out is difficult. So one way, simply put is they just get too hot while under operation.
technically not, they can handle heat very efficiently but when there is a circuit overvolt due to unstable powerdraw they go psst... there is always a problem with these laptop's power delivery because they are factory overclocked so cpu and gpu are both power hungry and have unstable power draw spikes... a desktop can handle these easily because they have psu rated higher than needed like if a pc is build they tak 650W or higher in psu but the watts are limited in laptop... so any overvolt and overclock bricks the board's mosfets when the charger is removed and reinserted under a unstable overclock... you rearely see these things happen in gaming pc's (desktop) and when this happens we change the psu... edit: any blown mosfet is basically a water heater as you know
i wonder if laptop manufacturers are intentionally putting high end specs on laptops while not paying attention to power delivery side of things that cause them to fail more often.
i've been advising, repasting and in some cases undervolting my friends and family's gaming laptop as to also help the VRM's , Capacitors and MOSFET cool a bit in my own understanding
Especially when you see how people treat their laptops. Using them in bed where the blanket covers the ventilation holes or dirt builds up on the fan blades and reduces the flow of the already weak airflow.
People ask me all the time about installing a copper IHS in their laptop. I typically tell them that getting the heat out of the CPU faster and more efficiently will not help since the cooling system will not be able to handle the higher heat load.
@@jackflash6377 yep, there are all kinds of things you can do to improve thermal transfer, but the heat still needs to get out. MOSFETs aren't particularly looked after when designing a laptop, even some PC motherboards are left bare (but that is totally ok, cause you aren't sleeping in the same bed as your PC).
So, for the foreseeable future, laptop repair store is a good business to start.
depends on where the FET is being used like if its on the VRM then definitely it need cooling, but others dont need generally, on most laptops MOSFETs are cooled via the VRM heatsink, but if not done, the internal resistance of the FET will go up with the temprature and it will just burn out at one point, but one thing manufacturers can do to improve efficiency is to switch to GaN FETs which are a tad bit more efficient for power delivery
One reason those tiny power chips fail is that they doesn't have enough heat sinking. They rely on those even tinier source and drain pads to sink their heat in to the... well... motherboard, that too via those 5 or 10 vias.
So most of the time when under heavy load, they are on the borderline of their thermal envelope. If there is a momentary spike in power draw by the CPU, and this unfortunate chip was on the switching duty at that precise moment, it sacrifices it's life.
Lost me at ‘they doesn’t’
@@SM0KE_0RIG1NAL English is not my language.
@NorthridgeFix disconnect the battery, hold the power button down for 30 seconds, re-connect the battery and then try turning it on. It seemed to happen with the battery drained.hope this helped.
UPDATE on PC: so I ended up finding a similar computer with the same specs. swapped my harddrives, and ram into it and that became my quick fix to getting it back on its feet. need to fix a Wifi issue and swap the batteries on these cuz the new one I got has a dead battery that doesn hold a charge and the computer isnt reading a WIfi adapter rn. WIll see if swapping the wifi cards willl fix that
I’ve had a 17R5 for 3 years… LOVE IT! And no issues. I spent a lot on it because it had what I wanted/needed and it’ll be better than the cheap option available for the next 5 years
Liar
@@Cidran100 Douchebag
Love your videos; genius!
MOSFETs can get hot when they don't switch between on/off or off/on quickly enough. During the transition, it has to limit current which causes rapid heating. Off is good, on is good, inbetween is not good. Check gate resistors etc. as these can increase switching times causing the MOSFET to heat up.
Agreed on high-end gaming laptops. Anything drawing 200+ watts in that form-factor is likely to cook its components sooner or later. My desktop PC uses 13 mosfets to power CPU vCore, not 2! There are plenty of more power-efficient options even with discrete graphics that might not quite push the same frame rates in games or complete renders as fast but they're a lot cheaper, have much better battery life, and are a lot less likely to spectacularly melt themselves to death like this one did. Not to mention how expensive these sorts of laptops are, you can likely get a more powerful PC in a tower form factor and a reasonable laptop for the same price.
Love your videos. Simple and Detailed at the same time. Fellow robotics engineer here. Big fan.
I'm totally with you on the laptop vs desktop thing. I also know a lot of people who bought expensive laptops, but don't need the mobility and have the laptops sitting on their desks, plugged-in all the time. They are facing constant overheating issues and other quirks that they probably wouldn't have had with an equally or even better spec'd desktop. Plus, a desktop would have cost them a lot less.
A quality cooling pad goes a long ways to bringing those temps down. It is amazing how many people place laptops flat down on a table, or their lap.
Agree! great advice for desktop and laptop usage
True, only people forget to use a high end PSU and a good one, if you built a gamer/to do graphics desktop you need a lot of juice and electricity is expensive nowadays.Many people spend a lot of money on graphics card but go for a cheap PSU.
Mosfet failure are usually a result of surges or transient spike getting into the internal capacitance and coupling withe current to the drain, creating a short. There are about 8 ways or more that spikes or surges make their way into the gate.
Professional catch, I would suggest on these models, either to check the BIOS signal on pin 1 by oscilloscope or replace the BIOS ic with same SKU in order to confirm the CPU faulty at this stage.
I like your troubleshooting strategy.
My Alienware M15 r2 laptop has those issiues:
Sometimes it would start up with no issues
Sometimes when I press power on button it shows blinking light 2red and 3 blue (which by Dell Alienware code means ram not found .
Then it would take me few power on and power offs for it to start up normaly
When the laptop starts up normaly I can work with it for days and days as long as I keep it on or standby I have no issues at all.
Also laptop performance is top noch, 0 slow downs, as long as it starts up I have no symptoms of anything been wrong
Once I hit in Windows restart (mostly) it would end up showing the 2 red and 3 blue lights and it would stay that way until I forcedly shut it off (btw screen stays black during this error)
Since the 2 red and 3 blue means ram error I decided upon when the system do start up to run prine95 memtest/cpu for whole day . 0 errors showed.
I have runned also 3dmark , the performance is just perfect, no complaints no slow downs nothing.
It's intel i7 12700h
Rtx 3070ti 8gb
16gb ddr5 ram
My logic would say, when I press the power on button there are certain checks done before system is powered on.
Is it the chip responsible for doing those checks malfunctioning?
Or is the ram truly the issues, since it doesn't make sense that the ram is faulty as I have runned full diagnostics on the ram once it powers on
I have 10 custom made power PC in the office for 3D design and ONE MSI laptop. We use the laptop mainly for presentations at the customer's place and some rendering jobs when on the road. You are absolutely right: it is crazy to use a laptop as the main rendering unit for 3D design or video creation. No matter how good the laptop is (the MSI ones are really good) a custom build PC will always outrun it in speed and reliability.
My company has a farm with several workstations set up, so that people working remotely on laptops, can portal into the workstation to do the heavy CAD work.
@@nunya3163 exactly! Don't use laptops for heavy rendering.
i watched your videos for a few days now, apart from amazing skill what i have learnt is some things are best left to professionals, this is that type of work.
Alienware's biggest problem, like most laptops, is heat. What makes Alienware so different is they like to ship their gear overclocked out of the box to superficially inflate performance. Most people don't realize this, and end up running their systems ragged by doing incredibly intense tasks like editing, rendering, or gaming. I've had an Alienware desktop PC, and I currently have an Alienware 15 R4. They both came out of the box overclocked, and my laptop got exceedingly hot just doing basic OS tasks. After inspecting the performance in HW Monitor I realized that my CPU was hitting 3.8 GHz when it should have maxed at 2.2 GHz under normal load.
After re-pasting the CPU/GPU, replacing the RAM, replacing the HDD with an NVMe M.2 for the OS, and a SATA SSD for storage, and re-installing a fresh copy of Win10 64, I immediately undervolted my CPU using a program called ThrottleStop to keep temps low while maintaining performance.
The machine is over 4 yrs old, and just the slight tweaks I've done to the rig, have increased it's lifespan, and it's performance is much snappier than previously. I only use it for watching Netflix, and such when I'm either on the treadmill, in bed relaxing, or don't want to be at my desk. I'd never game, or do intensive tasks with it because the cooling solutions, while good, are not able to keep up with them nearly as well as desktop coolers can.
then there you are again, why a laptop bro, if youre gonna underclock it anyway lmao, why not desktop ?
I recently found your channel and I love it. I have heard you mention "Repetition" a few times and I was reminded of a saying my old platoon sergeant used to say in the Army; "Repetition is the key to clarity" cheers mate!
Like with every electronic equipment, expansion and contraction from thermal changes cause heating fatigue on the materials (all materials). This is the main cause of the electronic failures that you are seeing in laptops. If they would run always on a same temperature, they would not break as soon (even if it´s a hot temperature). That´s why I recommend to tweak your systems so the CPU temp is stable and not raising and lowering all the time (hence the expansion and contraction would be avoided this way). One way to do this is to block turbo state or diminish it to a minimum. Also, set the system to not go to hibernation, just go to standby whenever it´s not in use. This way the internal components would have a slightly heated state all the time, avoiding the cold state at all times.
I have the same issue with my Alienware 17 R5 . Fight 2 weeks to find out what was the issue. Was in two services. Nobody know... and in the end its CPU problem, two red one blue light. THANK YOU!!!
It is always sad when the CPU dies and there is no replacement so you can never test it.
It might be upgradeable on some laptop but expensive parts
I miss socketed laptop CPUs!
@@karama300video yes, alienware used to have this removable cpu
@@Jonathan900S I don't know of any recent laptops with non-SMD CPUs
@@SalimOfShadow If you find any tell me
I' am sure you are correct in diagnosing the problem; however, some laptops and desktops will cycle with a corrupted bios chip. I have run across this issue on a number of repairs usually caused by updating the firmware or a device failure.
A lot of people bought laptops for gaming over the last few years because GPUs for custom PC builds were unobtanium.
Genuine man genuine repair center ❤
Hey Alex ! Love your content. I've definitely learned a lot from your videos. I've noticed through my own refurbishing and repairing that on newer alienwares that have everything soldiered to the board that failures such as this one are extremely common. on older models where the cpu and gpu are removable, it's much less likely for the laptop to end up being bricked. I've fixed many m17x, m17x r2, m17x r3 and so on because the cpu and such can be replaced with relative ease. I guess it's more cost effective to produce the new models like this. possibly to help with weight and such. I still use and do light gaming on an m17x r3. it lasted this long due to the fact of parts being able to be swapped out. I feel more manufacturers should go back to this standard. Then again how would they make their money if the product doesn't fail and you have to purchase a brand new one. Anyway, wanted to share this with you. Thanks again for all the great content that you share !
You are the Bob Ross of electronics, your videos are the perfect working backround. I appreciate your craftsmanship, what you are doing is electronic brainsurgery (told by an technican in germany).
As someone commented before, gaming laptops usually have problems with components such as the MOSFETs or other components responsable of suplying voltage to the motherboard due to the exvcesive demand of power that those kind of boards need, the temperature just goes up and the MOSFET is no longer able to handle that much
I really think that laptops (especially gaming laptops) are like a pug, if you take your pug for a walk and try to make it run again and again and again, it will end getting choked or something like that because it can't handle such activities
I travel so I need a gaming laptop to relieve stress after a long day, but I also know the pain of it failing and becoming a paperweight. I sent you my (2017) Sager to fix but unfortunately, you weren't able to find the issue and it was deemed a no fix. I'm current using my 11-year-old Sager, it is huge and old skool. It has socketed CPU and MXM GPU card (GTX 980m). It does what I need it to do but I will need to buy a new one sooner than later. Good work as usual!!
The number may be different, but it's the same chip... That part of knowledge is the one I respect :D
I'm a big fan! Awesome work, big thank you from Croatia!
leave the solder balls for Christmas 🎄 🤣👍
Decoration
@@premkxk Yes👍
I have started watching your videos recently, and I love your humour. Always find myself laughing at the things you say. 😂
Love that smile when you solve the issue .
Good for you man
Your talented
Test it with a different ram stick to verify
Alex did you disconnected the battery before pressing the power button for 30 seconds? i have seen people say that they fixed it by doing it this way
Battery & the charger also
Sheesh it worked
That blinking code means either a non-dell battery or charger is installed or it could means a CPU failure.
@northridgefix I noticed you have an oscilloscope. Do you ever use this? If so, could you make a video with an explanation of how you could / diagnose an issue using it? I've always been curious about these.
Thanks
Did anybody else see the surprised look on that air bubbles face at 20:41. Poor fella.
Thank you very much for the videos you make and I am very happy that you make videos every day
The saddest thing is that in the 2xxx Sandy Bridge era most laptops did have socketable CPUs and they weren’t that much thicker than now. I had a 14 inch ASUS laptop that I upgraded from an i3 to i7 out of a donor Dell Latitude that my work was going to throw away.
I can understand the soldering of memory but the SSDs and CPUs take like 2mm less space when soldered… just make the damn thing thicker like someone is really going to care…
perhaps it's not just because "slimmer design"
but more of
if you could freely swap processor or hard drive.
there's no point of making low end variant. since you could upgrade the CPU.
or
that's would be pointless making a design that purposely fail at some time and would take the cpu with it
I am in agreement with his sentiment about desktops vs laptops. I recently turned in my asus laptop which i used for bureaucratic work when i was in the services for all 4 years. unfortunately during the maintenance procedures of cleaning my laptop, I didn't disconnect the battery, and may have short circuited the motherboard during cleaning it, then removed the battery terminal a bit more forcefully than intended, and which broke the terminal. Laptops get HOT, and use thermal paste which lasts about 2~4 years tops before it becomes putty and loses it's performance and then you would have to re-paste it. And the motherboard, cpu, gpu are integrated so you can't just solder a new cpu/gpu into the motherboard. If you did the effort is just not worth it. You're better off getting a new computer. I am however working on a portable desktop powered by a battery idea.. only downside is having the actual battery being that Light, and energy dense.
Your website is really well laid out and the prices are very reasonable I love your videos
Hello Alex, I'm new to border repairs and soldering and have noticed that your solder tips is always very clean. Could you please do a video about how to keep then nice and clean as what ever I try I still get them oxidised, and sometimes the solder does not stick to components, I do use flux and all, but probably just some silly beginners mistakes I do. Thank you!
Could you please try programming the bios once ??
Another enjoyable video. Thank you for that.
Question, what are the specs of your custom PC and what do mainly use it for?
of course for editing his youtube videos, I don't believe he doing some gaming or else
I own 3 Alienware 17 ,s R3,4 and 5 . I use them for VM,s as they have 3 M.2 cards for storage . They have been reliable with only the R4 Bios flash killing one . I replaced Bios chip and all good .
What bios codes were you getting on this board if any ? Cheers love ya work and channel from Australia
The reason some people is buying laptops instead of desktops are mainly (in order of importance): 1. Laptops require minimum space for fairly the same computing power. 2. They can be moved around even in long trips around the country. 3. They don´t sell as much desktops as they used to anymore. 4. They are cheaper than high spec desktops. 5. They used to be durable in the past, so we expect them to be durable in the present as well, but that might not be the case. Some of them are military spec even. 6. We love laptops.
I had an old Alienware laptop, it had my favorite keyboard and display of any laptop I have owned. The display had a glossy finish and the colors just POPPED
Last night, I was dreaming to be looking for houses for you & family… woke up very upset that couldn’t find House with all you wanted, one was missing the pool, other had outdated roof etc., I even had an argument with the landlord telling him off about the problems and why it was listed if these things hasn’t been sorted beforehand?… how wierd is that? Wry rarely I would dream with such vivid details but here we go, I’m proud of you! Keep up the good work and continue what you’re doing… lots of respect, from United Kingdom (brother from Azerbaijan)
I wish I had big boss job. Good work by the team. Keep the tutorials coming.
Mosfets blowing is simply the designers or manufacturers fault. They get either too weak mosftes so they heat up way too much when operating, or they dont design the cooler properly. I've seen blown mosfets on a few Vivobooks with Core i3/i5 CPU but it makes sense that they fail more often on gaming laptops since they are hotter.
I wonder if the mosfets go bad because of the higher charger use. If I'm just watching youtube on my ASUS TUF Gaming laptop the battery will last for at least three hours. When it's plugged in and even full, the battery will sag to three quarters and never go above when I am gaming. So perhaps just extra load more often.
It is good to see that this business works in your area. In Romania we can charge 2 dollars for a no fix :))
I don't think you pay 4000 dollars rent do you?everything is much cheaper in Romania than in the US. 4000 dollar in US is poverty, in Romania you live like a local mobster.
@@Pfirtzer 4000$ in US is not poverty unless you live in New York or Las Vegas
It's a shame that CPUs in laptops still don't use an LGA or PGA design instead of being directly soldered on the motherboard. They should be able to clamp it down enough with the locking mechanism and cooling solution to mitigate the cpu coming loose when transporting the laptop.
In the starting times when Dell introduced XPS range. They had PGA sockets in laptop's. The manufacturers don't want that now because they don't want us the end user to upgrade the system. Just wait a few years.... You will start getting soldered SSDs and RAM and other components. Some of the manufacturers like Appple have already taken that rout.
everything was fine with the chip, but between pins 5 and 6 there was a ball. if you carefully watch the video while you were heating the chip. look how the ball melts and connects pin 5 and pin 6
شكرا اليكس على الفيديو وكالعاده اتقان وفن بكل احترافيه... بس تعليقي على رقم القطعه او الموسفت لانه الارقام بتختلف بالرغم من نفس مبدأ آليه العمل وشكرا
I love that you keep repeating jokes that you say. I dont ever find that it gets old. You remind me of an uncle I never had
@NorthridgeFix can you show us more how you check a defect fet and how do you inject voltage into the motherboard?
The high power and temperature nature of modern GaN or whatever process node MosFETS that are being used today are made to a lower process standard. I wouldn't be surprised if it has to do with the silicon shortage and companies cutting yield corners to make delivery deadlines (as it sits currently, chips are still on a 52 week delivery delay, the silicon shortage continues, btw). I would, at the very least, install input power protection after the VRM circuitry, in front of the CPU/GPU to at least protect the processor/sensitive components, but, "economies of scale" I guess...
I have some friends who work on cruise ships and they use gaming laptops - this is their only chance to have access to their games when they chillin' after work ;) In such case and similiar ones - this is a good solution.
I hope this helps you. I have a Dell 7566 Wich recently malfunction and I repaired, it had 2 capacitors blown up. After switching those with new ones, the laptop went almost with the same thing that you are expirienceing.
Don't forget all computers are smart devices and they have their own way to check themselves. Just give the laptop some time and search on Dell website what actually the light circle in your button mean.
Mine had to be left for almost half an hour and then started booting without problems.
So my advice is that let the laptop be for at least a certain amount of time and maybe it will post.
Good luck and have a great day.
Hi Alex, is it possible in the future to provide 4k video on TH-cam for us who watch you on big screens? Keep up the good work!
Based on the information provided, it is likely that the error code you are experiencing on your Alienware R4 17 laptop is a RAM failure. One blue and two red flashes on the main LED is a common code for a memory error on Alienware laptops.
A very, very, good question. "Since you don't move the laptop from the desk why buy a laptop ?". I just think laptops just like other things a cool thing to have and play on ignoring the thing that heat in a thin space is no good.
Another breath taking repair. 💕
I have an Alienware 17 (that's right, No R# because it was called just Alienware 17 aka Ranger). Still runs like a champ and it's my go to when need mobility and power at the same time.
مشكور على هذه الفديوهات انا من المتابعين .... صديقك نبيل من السويد
I have three of these boards at my shop right now just rotting away with the same symptom. Gonna see if I can resurrect them. Thank you!
The embedded CPU is a joke - if the CPU goes bad it's another motherboard - instead of just taking the CPU out and putting another one in - you have to replace the whole motherboard - which benefits the motherboard manufacturer
So start a motherboard company that doesn't embed CPUs to the board. Many people will really appreciate it
Still using an AW15 R3 since 2018, I7-7700hq and gtx1070, It's been always plugged on a UPS since I removed the battery. No issues ever
i really like your sense of humor :)
I am working on the exact same Alienware right now. Blinking 2 red and 7 blue. Found QM1 blown clean off the board. Replaced it and still getting the same result. No shorts or hotspots on the board, Schematics and boardview have helped to trace the circuit. I have always hated taking these monsters apart and reassembling again. Not fun.
Hi alex, do you usually mail the product to the customer or the shop? The shop might take credit for the fixed laptop and put the missing back cover blame on yours.
From my experience as a warranty tech I would never buy or recommend an alienware.
These things have dozens of unnecessary screws and many models did a raid-1 on two hard drives as they were cheaper than a single double capacity drive - unnecessary complexity and more that can go wrong. Some components that should be user replaceable require the whole unit to be pulled apart.
I totally agree with the final statement - for high performance workloads don't buy a laptop, custom build a desktop using well established and available components and give it plenty of air-flow. If you have heavy high performance video cards, be careful if you are compelled to transport the computer. Heavy cards can shear the pci-e slot off the mainboard with enough force.
With my high performance system I put it into a 4U rack case and installed it into a 4U audio equipment/amplifier case usually used by bands. If you're doing serious work and you move around regularly like I do, this is the most rugged solution.
just buy their tee shirts not their crappy pc's
Wow, $149 for a repair attempt fee... I wish I could charge that much here. American income is much higher, so they can charge alot more, as people do have alot more money.
Yes. It would be a waste of time and no profit otherwise. Mercedez dealer charges $180 /hour now.
How much do u charge for a repair attempt? to me looks expensive even in eeuu
@@scientist100 what sort of comparisons is Mercedes dealer lol
Do you think the orientation of the chip matters? The original chip was mounted vertically where as the replacement chip is mounted horizontally..
What matters is the location of pin 1 which is marked by a dot or something. The orientation of the writing on the chip can be different if it is from a different supplier though.
I'm sure Alex checked. 🙂
The magic of a thermal camera.
How about bios corruption in that?
do you do CPU's and GPU's reballing job ?
Good job Guru. I wish mine is also fixed. How does a fix like this one cost?
I see potential for Big Boss to have his own stream. We can just watch him do his magic too =)
I use a laptop for light use, I don't move it around, as this would create wear on the hard drives bearings as they spin on its axis.
😂
Hello sir! Just a quick question. How much do voltage do you inject when checking for heat sources and what is the device you use to inject voltage? Thanks! I've learned so much from you.
I appreciate i'm not Alex but normally if your working with the first mosfett you can inject 19v or what ever the power supply is after the second mosfet use 3.3 if you have a short it will draw as much ampage as it can. even on 3.3v you can draw a couple of amps to make something warm.
i think you should buy big boss an electric screw driver, it will be better for his hand an wrist in the long run considering how many screws he removes and refits in a day🙂
Release the static build up on the board by disconnecting battery and charger, hold down power button up to 2 minutes. Plug in charger and turn on without battery present.
HP’s are notorious for static build up on the board. I know it’s not an HP but same things happen on all laptops
I've had the same model for 7 years now and it's been very reliable, even used it for crypto mining. Alienware all the way for me. The battery did stop holding a charge after all the years because I kept it plugged, replaced it a month ago which was a pain with all the screws and panels. Now with a 32GB upgrade the laptop has new life in it, this thing was built like a tank and just won't die :)
The problem in laptop MOSFET is space (more in the gaming) they consume a lot but they put the minimum working . Compared to a gaming motherboard you see 12 to 16 in some expensives have more (some board say in the case 12 phase ''' meaning 12 MOSFET for CPU '''
Don't burn your bridges Alex - hahahahaha. Thanks for all your wisdom and these videos. Those light codes mean indeed a CPU failure, too bad but it happens. They are notorious for this, had one last year, also a Dell (Alienware is Dell) and out of the blue got these codes. Warranty repair in my case.
You are my favourite for you said "do not buy a laptop" 3 times, for the reasons you mentioned.... Buying laptop's for anything other then mobility is not worth in my personal experience.
For MOSFETs I think there are 3 Way to kill them.
Over current, Over voltage, Overheating.
In a Gaming Laptop Overheating and Over current may occur hence the Hardware can create current spikes and under load it gets quite toasty inside of the laptop.
about ten years ago, the first thing alienware users needed was replacing the thermal pads and using properly-applied paste
various heat problems due to that crap
This is the most relaxing job :)
Great work Alex!
nice video, I agree if you demand too much from the Hardware dont buy a laptop. desktop can be customized with extra airflow to cooldown the components and increase their lifespan outside the warranty time. plus components can be replaced much faster and cheaper even if you buy a 300 dollar motherboard beats the costs of replacing Laptop or parts of Laptops.
Two red and one blue is bios. Try reset the bios. There is a bios battery on the laptop. Unplug battery and unplug bios battery to reset bios and try again or reprogram bios chip. The laptop is receiving power and power led codes is not suggesting CPU or board failure.
Still enjoyed the video. Is there a more detailed video on where you use your multimeter and actually show where both probes are touching when testing different types of components?
my money is on the last repair shop, they messed it up
I choosed a laptop because if i need to move from my home i can carry it in a backpack and not have the risk of something breaking during the moving, and if the power goes out i can still use the laptop because of the battery, custom pcs are great for the ones that have their own house and will never have to move
Could also be the battery is depleted too much. With a hp laptop, it doesn't even turn on without a battery. When I left it on the adapter with the battery mounted for 8 hours, it came back on. The battery was in poor condition. The laptop worked after replacing the battery.