About a week ago, I started having a peculiar problem with my Alienware 14 (which I ordered late January of this year). Upon startup of most games, it would run and then spontaneously shut down in the middle of gameplay. I figured this was a heating issue, so I adjusted some settings and tried to continue.
The issue persisted, but developed a new feature. When attempting to turn on, before even reaching the POST screen, the laptop would spontaneously shut down, try to start back up, and repeat for about four times before remaining off. The lights would come on and the fan would spin, then an audible click would accompany a shutdown.
After a little time, though, the computer would start up as normal, run system repair, and login, but it appeared as if the fans were failing to operate, so I downloaded HWINFO64 to manually set the fans to about 3200rpm constant, placed the laptop near a functioning air-conditioning unit, and tried to see what was going on. I tried to run a game again from Steam, and while loading the main menu, the whole apparatus shut down again.
Again, the laptop would power on and then shut down before reaching the POST screen. I thought maybe there was an issue with the power, so I tried it with just battery and with just AC, but neither seemed to remedy the situation (though when the casing was off to remove the battery, it appeared like there was some heat damage to a chip-like component in the top-left corner [if the battery is in the bottom-right], around the AC input).
Time passed and the computer would turn on and get all the way through the startup procedure, so I tried to run Autopsy's hardware tests, which were all passed within a few hours of waiting. I tried to start another game, which resulted in the same immediate shutdown. This time, upon starting up, after failing several times, I would run system repair and would be given a notification that a problem could not be repaired at this time (I sent the information in after being prompted to do so). Now, when starting up, assuming I can even get past the POST, Windows fails to start up functionally and the whole computer shuts down and has yet to make it to login.
What, if anything, can I do to fix this?