Dell XPS M1530 won't boot

^^^I'm the poster above^^^ [Edit:...last poster on the previous page]^

Today, one day later it didn't boot again, even by using Linux. All day long trying to randomly press the ON and OFF button etc. to make it work by random magic like the other times.


However, I was able to get it working again by pressing the FN+POWER button.
My screen stays pitch black while the computer does its thing. Then, I forcefully shut it down by keeping the POWER button pressed, switch it back on again and it works.

I seem to have concluded that the reason by which this method works is because it heats up the laptop, and therefore it may heat up that faulty nVidia video card mentioned earlier in this thread, where people used a hair dryer to heat it up.

success!

this is crazy!

same symptoms:
+ fn + on shows left led blinking, 2 constant
+ on boot shows "power" led on, (front view), no hdd led on, could hear hdd in the beginning, was able to press buttons but nothing happend (saw the button feedback)
+ screen was dark, could hear noises


tried external monitor, but no success

based on the following posts i fixed the issue (THANKS to you folks!)
w ww.techspot.com/vb/post1013366-45.html
w ww.techspot.com/vb/post996928-42.html


1) disassemble laptop
2) locate nvidia chip (a single heatpipe explicitly for the nvidia chip, below the fan... the processor and another chip are on the left heatpipe...)
3) do a cleanup of the chips, get new heat-paste since old one was dry already (clean like shown in post 42)
4) without heatpipe i used a normal fan to heat up the nvidia chip approx 1.30min. be sure to only heat the nvidia chip (but i think you can leave this step out)
5) install the heat pipes (especially for the cpu), grab some isolated wire, wrap it around the nvidia heatpipe, insert battery, plug in AC, power ON, use the wire to get the heat pipe away from the nvidia gpu ... this way it gets hotter and hotter..
5.1) carefully listen to your fan.. at first it will be off, after some time it gets hotter and hotter and gpu sensor tells fan to start pulling away the hot air... after approx 3-5mins the fan will consantly be on full speed..
5.2) now stop pulling away the heatpipe, let it snap onto the gpu, apply some force (i used the back of my isolated screwdriver and hit it a few times.. be gentle!), seat it
6) power of (screen is still black)
7) power on -> screen shows dell logo!

thank you for this fix..
you really saved my day!


regards,
tin

Brilliant!

This is clearly a GPU failure.

Allowing the GPU to overheat will fix the problem (at least temporarily)

I will not reiterate the procedure since our good members have already offered a good solution. So go back and check these posts:

#62 (Thanks tintintin! Like the wire thing!)

#45 (Thanks saiber77! Great explanation for what's really going on!)

I will however add a few tips:
No 1: Skip the heat gun part for forcibly heating up the GPU if you don't know what you're doing. Too dangerous! Lifting up the heat pipe even by a few millimeters and a little patience will do the trick.
No 2: Be careful with that screwdriver while the system is running
No 3: Be careful with that screwdriver while the system is running... Seriously!

Other than that I think this is a workable fix. I don't expect it to be permanent but it revived my system. So make sure you keep those screws on the back panel a little loose and always pack a screwdriver and a piece of string, just in case. MacGyver style.

Good luck!

arghh

i think my XPS1530 has just joined the club!
used it until the batt ran out this morning, now it wont start up.

same start up issues as described. press power button, it lights up for 1 sec then goes off. did the Fn + power, first led flsashes, the other 2 are on.

had this happen once before, found that one of my RAM chips died, so it only has one 2gb chip.tried reseating it. i dont have any more RAM chips, so i ordered 2 x 2gb chips which are on the way...

and then i thought id search the web, and found this forum.
my warranty expired about a yr ago.

so ill try the RAM chips. if no success try the rest of the procedures in this thread.
hope something will work.

did alot of research at the time for laptops and chose DELL because it was a good known brand at the time. I paid top dollar for this machine, with all the features i required and upgraded CPU at the time, so expected good length of time. but nup its expiring after 3 years later. if i have to replace this machine, it wont be DELL, ill build my own using quality generic parts/names

it worked

got new RAM chips, which didnt change a thing.

read this thread again and tried the GPU fix
lifted the heat sink off the GPU a few millimetres. switched it on and let it run for about 1min or so.
put the heatsink back on, the screen flickered and booted up!

i think ill remove the heatsink and fan completely, remove the old thermal paste and reapply new stuff, give it a clean as it was a wee bit dusty. and hope for the best or flick it on!

good thread, thanks guys!

fixed

i figured out the problem its not the graphics chips its the cpu somehow the cpu got over heated and wont send power through anything at all so i replaced it and ta da! the computer turned on normal like nothing ever happened

Glad your problem was resolved so easily segovia, this is not what was wrong with every other computer in this thread and by stating that its not the Graphics Chip but the CPU you may unnecessarily send people on a goose chase to purchase CPU's when it is the Graphics Chip that is responsible for the symptoms related to the OP's problem as well as almost every one else who has posted here. The fact that it is related to the GPU is a well documented issue easily found all over the internet, and proved by all our experiences.

My advice for anyone reading would be to try the FN+Power button boot to read the LED code, then the heatsink lifting technique before anything else, if overheating the GPU doesn't get your computer to boot at least once every try then perhaps consider segovia's suggestion.

Weird

I had just the same problem as everybody else in here, same LED's and stuff...
But when i do the trick with overheating the gpu, my laptop reacts a little different.

So i move the heat sink a little bit away from the gpu, than i turn on the laptop, at first no fan, than quiet fan and at last fan at full speed... And than suddenly the screen turns on while i'm doing that and i see the dell logo and everything works. Than i screw the heat sink back on and i can work on my laptop.

But when i turn it off and try to turn it on again, i have to repeat all of the gpu heat sink stuff, which is a little bit annoying to do every time i want to use the laptop!

Any ideas?

grtz

If you read back in this thread you will see that this option is only a temporary fix, and is useful in diagnosing the GPU as the issue, in order to actually effect a repair you will need to either do the fix yourself or find someone willing to disassemble the laptop and use a heat gun (some others have been successful in using a hair dryer but in my opinion this is not enough heat to guarantee a fix) to re-flow the solder on the gpu, it is a well documented issue and instructions on disassembling the laptop as well as how to use the heat-gun is available on YouTube if you search for the laptop model and GPU fix. Heat guns can be readily picked up at various locations including hardware stores and are relatively cheap, just make sure you get one with a temperature gauge so as to not use too hot of a setting.

If you are not comfortable doing the procedure and don't know of anyone with the skills necessary I do hear there are some services on Ebay as well as some websites out there that carry out the fix for a nominal fee or flat rate, not sure as to the repute of the people on ebay but as with any website or ebay there are sure to be some reviews from people who have had it done. Otherwise they do make a rather functional if otherwise ugly doorstop...
:haha:

best of luck to you BanXafe and if you have any other questions don't hesitate to ask.

Guys, brilliant thread, really helped me with my M1530 which wouldn't start this morning!

I didn't need to use a heat gun in the end i just unscrewed the heatsink over the Nvidia chip and it started up fine.

Time for a backup and a look for a replacement chip!

Thank You!

It worked!
I opened the cover and set the block end of a nylon wire tie between the heatsink and the Video chip and let it run. And WOW in about 5 minutes my screen came to life. Now I need to pull the whole heatsink off and get some good heat sink compound on there. Ok now to get on my soapbox about this computer. I bought it exactly three years ago (Sept of 08) at the time it was advertized as a high end computer that I should easily be able to use for a mobile Audio DAW but in reality it has been nothing but headaches. I never was able to run a firewire or USB Audio card to even play music from Media player without severe latency issues. I finally learned through forums that the bus issues were due to poor design of the bus on the MOBO. i was ticked but needed a good computer so I spent another $2000 on a mac with a dual core processor and never had an issue again. What I was upset about was that Dell denied there was even a problem. My final thoughts are that it's always a good idea to read these forums and let a product become a little established in the market before dropping a cool $1850 on a computer like I did this one. thanks again to the genius who figured out this solution.

SDG

fix works!

I bought a Dell XPS M1530 in 2009. Spent a cool £1K on it, so was gutted to have this problem, and even more gutted to learn about the faulty nvidia chip. It's always run hot, I guess this due to the faulty NVIDIA gpu? Anway, in the last 12 months it was occasionally refusing to boot, in the manner described here by many posters. The other day it wouldn't boot at all, hence I started to look for a solution on the tinterweb. Luckily I found this forum, which led to my finding this video on youtube, as i'm a new member i can't post links but this is the vid title:

"DELL XPS M1530 bad video card fix! ( the redneck way)"

It's a really good video, and the laptop he does the repair on is indeed a 1530. I used a hair-dryer, the first time it didn't work, so I did the procedure again, and really heated the f*** out of the 2 chips the guy uses the blow torch on in the vid (no ****, he uses a blow torch!). The second time - hey presto! It worked. As the problem would appear to have been caused by overheating in the first place, I must admit to being miffed that this fix works. I don't really understand how, other than it's to do with 're-flowing' the solder on the gpu? If anyone can explain more I would be grateful. I have been using a belkin cushdesk to increase the airflow under the laptop on, but I guess this was still not enough? I know someone else with 1530, an IT professional, who recommends this powered fan solution (I have just ordered one on amazon, good value at £11.69):

"Belkin Laptop Cooling Stand in Black With High Capacity Fan (F5L001erBLK)"

Can anyone recommend anything else I can do to prevent the problem form recurring?

Best regards

Ben (uk)

Same issue

Hi, I am having the same issue as all of you. This is my second time that my computer won't turn on, after a free so called "repair" from Dell because of the Nvidia lawsuit. First I tried that guy's fix on YouTube "How to fix your XPS M1530 (the redneck way)". I tried a blow dryer, and that didn't work. Then I tried a lighter, and I started smelling this weird burning plastic smell, so I stopped and tried turning it on, and that didn't work. Before I tried those solutions, the computer would at least stay on, but the screen would be black. Now, the screen is still black, but when I try to turn it on, it shuts off immediately like I am trying to run it with low battery. I am going to buy some thermal grease and see if that works. Also, do any of you know how to get a CD out of the CD/DVD drive when my computer won't even boot up? Since it is slot loaded, it won't eject without the computer being on.

hi there, can you tell us what repair dell did? thanks.

They replaced my motherboard, and repaired a crack I had in the left corner hinge of my laptop from when I dropped it. I asked the technician if I would be getting new parts free from the defect, and he told me yes. I see now that was a lie.

Are you in the UK or US? If you're within the EU you're protected under consumer legislation and you can take Dell to the small claims court. Rules say high end consumer goods must last a 'reasonable' period of time, and I would certainly say 2-3 years is not a reasonable period for piece of electronic equipment costing in the region of 1000 pounds. How long did the replacement board last?

Unfortunately, I do not live in the U.K. I live in the US. The replacement board lasted about 2 years and one month because I got it replaced in June 2009, and it failed again on August 25, 2011. But during that time I still consistently got messages from Windows that the display adapter had crashed, and I got a lot of blue screen crashes with the message "Driver IRQ not less or equal." I do live in the state of Georgia, and we have a Lemon Law, so I thought I might pursue that. Plus I am filing complaints against Dell with every organization I can think of.

Hi guys,

It seems we are on the same boat here. I'll tell my whole story of the XPS m1530.
It's been 03/2008 since I've purchase this laptop. It was good when I first used it for atleast 1 week after the malfunction of my dvd rom after I've first used it. Good thing for me I still got my warranty and I spent 3 times going to best buy just to replaced this laptop and exchange it for a new one which is great.

Using this laptop is a pain in my *** for the past 3 years. I've been in an autoshutdown issue due to clogging of dust in my cooling fan. The problem occurs when I play games the use to much ram like online games and autoshutdown will activate after it exceed its maximum heat tolerance. The solution I've done for this issue is I remove the back cover and unscrewed the cooling fan and remove all the stuck dust on it. My laptop works fine again and I maintain cleaning my cooling fan every six months.

Now 2011, this black screen issue occurs on my laptop. My everyday daily used is like open my laptop, go online for 6~8 hrs then stayed it open until tomorrow. I do shutting down it once in a while but I preferred to lived it open and go thru a sleep mode status. And after yesterday I came back to work, I opened my laptop and hit some buttons, the screen won't go to its usual state of going back to life. I shut it down like my instinct told me to do so and wait for several secs but still black screen won't go out. After several turning ON and shutting it down I've gone tired doing it and get some info online and finally send me to this forum.

The quoted above is the first thing I've done and it works for me BUT only ONCE. After I revived my laptop to its normal state, I update my windows and when I download all the updates I need, I then restart my laptop to install all the updates. And the BLACK SCREEN problem occurs again.

I've used the quoted proceeding above again but it won't work anymore. I also do the fn + power button but the only thing happen is that it produce a 2 solid light left side of the power light and 1 blinking light following the 2 solid light. I dunno what is the meaning of those lights so please make me enlighten.

Do of my frustration, I manage to pull out the hard drive which is my first time and remove the front plate and keyboard to check it underneath to see if I can find a problem on that. I also do my usual doings of removing my cooling fan and remove some clogging dust and remove/switch my memories to make some adjustment. I also notice my thermal paste is fading away which is a bad sign.

Now that I wrote all the things happening on my laptop, my next thing to do is buy a thermal paste and put it on and hope some changes to happen. That's all for now and will be back here to update my situation.

It's the gpu mate. You need a new motherboard. Changing the thermal paste will make no difference whatsoever.

^^^^^
I've rather do something done spend a lot of money. )

I'm going now in the store to buy some thermal paste and blow this thing up with a hair dryer (do you have an alternative for hair dryer?). Hope for some changes.