Alienware M9700i starts and stops, repeats

Hey, all.

I've got an Alienware M9700i laptop. When power is applied either via battery or adapter, it starts up immediately (without use of the start button) with both fans going. Then, after about 1 second, you can see any lights on it go out for a split second and the fans kick off, then the whole thing starts all over again. Won't stay on long enough to post or anything. The entire cycle last less than 2 seconds, tops. And it'll just continue for as long as power is applied.

I've tried it with no HDD, no RAM, no SLI cable for the vid cards, no CMOS battery and even no processor - same thing.

If anyone would like a short vid of what it is doing, I can send it to you - forum won't allow me to post links just yet in messages.

Thinking the mobo is just fried.

Can anyone give me any other ideas before it gets parted out?

TIA!

did this just happen out of the blue?

No, I got it like that. Hoping the fix would be something obvious but so far. . . no.

Hey, I know this is a few months old, but I have repaired and troubled a lot of these similar model Alienwares, and I have found that more often than not, major issues lead to the video cards.

I actually just recently repaired one today (which inspired me to respond to this) with the same exact issue you are experiencing. The problem was the primary video card. For you, it could be either one of the cards, or possibly the slot, or it could be something else entirely. Try removing each card and turning on the laptop till you find the defective card.