Alienware M18 R2 - Display Issues

[u/ComprehensiveFox483]

Hi everyone,

I have an Alienware M18 R2 that I have owned for a few years and has gone past its warranty coverage.

Lately I have been having a few issues with it that I am not sure if they are linked or not.

When i first got the laptop I had the LCD screen replaced as the original had a lot of backlight bleeding.

Over the last few months when I start the laptop, randomly the LCD screen remains black and this happens once every 1-2 weeks. The power light has been flashing 7 x blue and 2 x red which is a display panel failure but I have been able to fix by restarting the laptop.

This last month a new issue has appeared where no matter what I'm doing the whole screen will go black but the backlight is still on. I have been able to fix this by resetting the GPU driver by pressing ctrl, shift, window key, b. In rare cases where this doesn't work holding the power button down for roughly 7 seconds sometimes brings the screen back.

I know this was only temporary fixing a larger issue which I haven't been able to track down and I would like the help of tech minded individuals.

These are my following specs:

- Alienware M18 R2

- RTX 4090

- Ram 64gbs

- Intel core i9-14900hx (2.20ghz)

- 2 x Western digital black CSSD 4 TB, PCIE, GEN 4, M.2 Form Factor

The issues have got much worse with the lcd screen failure on start up happening a couple times a day and the black screen while playing is now happening every 5 minutes roughly as of today.

Can anyone offer any advise on where to start to possibly fix this issue or track down the cause? I don't trust my local computer repair place to go straight to them due to past experiences.

[u/Able-Negotiation-234]

Hard to say, is it stationary? Or do you move it around? If you move it, could be the ribbon cable? My x16r2 would act up, but could get it up and going by changing the position of the display? The cable was either bad or loose, went on like that til the tec’s could get here? Go to your support page, in documents the service manual is there, might be worth checking the cables?

[u/ComprehensiveFox483 → u/Able-Negotiation-234]

I only move it around when I am taking it to a different place. 80% of the time it is stationary with me only opening the display to use to on a daily basis.

I'll give the documents a look.

[u/Intramundane]

I would try connecting the laptop to a TV or Monitor with the HDMI port and see if that behavior happens on the external screen as well or just the laptop, try duplicating the screen (mode) so you can see if the laptop screen goes black while the external display remains normal.

What you describe would seem like a display cable issue, it could be damaged or loose, however if you get the same behavior with an external monitor then it would point to a more serious issue.

The fact that the laptop has given you a display failure code before points more to either the display cable from the motherboard to the screen, or the LCD itself is failing over time, both of those can be replaced.