Alienware Area-51 Desktop Problem

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tophatmadness

New Member
Hey there,

I have an Area-51 desktop from Alienware that I purchased 8 years ago. It's still in pretty decent shape and runs well most of the time until yesterday. I go to turn it on and it sounds like it's booting up but I'm really not sure if it is or not because the monitor immediately goes into power safe as soon as I turn it on. I tried a different monitor and the same thing happened with it. I googled and came up with something about changing the battery on the motherboard so we managed to take the battery out and brought it to Radioshack. Well, we replaced it and pretty much are in the same boat as we started. I still really like the computer, I mean it was top of the line when we bought it. Any suggestions or thoughts would be most appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Bodaggit23

Bodaggit23

Active Member
Does it have onboard video as well as a graphics card?

If so, try removing the graphics card and plugging the monitor into the onboard.

Remove the card while the pc is shut down, obviously.

If not, do you have another graphics card to try?
 
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tophatmadness

New Member
Well, I don't have another video card to try at the moment and there's no onboard graphics card. The computer has did this before but actually worked a day after it happened. Would it be able to boot up without a graphics card? The problem is, I can't be sure if it actually gets to Windows because I had to reformat awhile back and everytime I go to start it up I have to choose between both copies of Windows XP installed. -_-
 
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Hass

New Member
tophatmadness said:
Well, I don't have another video card to try at the moment and there's no onboard graphics card. The computer has did this before but actually worked a day after it happened. Would it be able to boot up without a graphics card? The problem is, I can't be sure if it actually gets to Windows because I had to reformat awhile back and everytime I go to start it up I have to choose between both copies of Windows XP installed. -_-
Click to expand...

It could boot up possibly... but you wouldn't be able to see what's going on, because you wouldn't be able to connect it to anything on the mainboard -> Monitor! :]

check to make sure the cable is connected nice and tight.
sometimes the cable can go bad (not very often)... could try a different one if you have one you can swap over.
 
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tophatmadness

New Member
Bigger problems then I could of ever imagined. I convinced my brother to let me use his video card just to see if it worked and it doesn't. Absolutely NOTHING comes up. I think it's my biggest fear, the damn motherboard. I don't have the slightest idea about replacing a motherboard or the cost of a new one. I dunno, I guess I should just get a new computer. -_-
 
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