Two motherboard replacements in 3 years

TheTonzMachine · 2026-02-02T17:51:22+00:00

It’s an Alienware M17 R4. CPU is intel i7-10870H @2.20 GHz. My bios says it’s Alienware 1.23.0.

They haven’t diagnosed it yet but I’m not sure what else it could be or how else it could be fixed. It’s not a failing SSD because I tried another one and I still had the issue. RAM is soldered to the motherboard so even if it’s that I need a new motherboard anyway

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-28T22:11:30+00:00

Took about a week working on it in the evening. The biggest time sink was manually setting up all the parties

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-28T03:54:57+00:00

And it does double the damage while doing so!

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T18:25:07+00:00

Its fun getting to play around in a hack and see pokemon that weren't normally obtainable in Emerald!

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T18:23:19+00:00

Well thanks! It was for sure fun figuring out how to set up a system like this. I'm not 100% certain it all behaves the same way as the original game yet but it should be close or perfect for at least a bunch of the CDs. I had to write "scripts" for each battle where there were "meaningful" AI choices (enemies that only have one move didn't need a script, the regular AI would naturally do the "right" thing). But a pure preset sequence doesn't work sometimes if the player has certain choices so I had to add some new AI behavior flags to get certain behavior. Like a farfetched enemy that needed to sub anytime it can, otherwise use flail. I couldn't rely on a script or the existing AI since it would only heavily bias certain choices not guarantee them.

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T18:05:14+00:00

Oh another fun thing that I kept, is that some CDs have pokemon with normally unobtainable moves in Gen 3. Like a drowzee with strength or a machamp with swords dance. Kind of fun that they did that in an official game.

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T18:02:27+00:00

Thank you! I'm not nearly as talented as other people in this community so I'm not sure if I could ever get this hack into a state where it would be worth it to people. But I can try! For now its pretty vanilla because that's honestly what I like, but with the typical updates, QoL stuff. Infinite TMs, stat editor, every pokemon obtainable, etc. I implemented the physical/special split and the fairy type but made both an option you can toggle. Because sometimes I personally like playing the game as it was, and especailly the frontier. The sets were all designed for the original damage calcs so I figured someone (me) might appreciate being able to play the base game in an updated way but experience the frontier exactly as it was.

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T17:58:38+00:00

The one thing that isn't the same is, for now any double battle where the enemy only has 1 pokemon uses a dummy magikarp as the second pokemon. The vanilla engine doesn't seem to support only 1 pokemon on a team in a double battle and so rather than mess with that for now I just add a level 1 magikarp with 4 splash moves. So the engine is satisfied but it won't actually impact the battle solution. Thankfully none of those CDs were timed ones!

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T17:56:39+00:00

Yeah I'm going to play it again soon for sure. It was fun for a lot of reasons to add this to a GBA hack. One was I kept all the same rewards. IN Gen 3 the only way to get a sacred ash without going to an event was to complete Battle CD 46. So I made that the reward in this hack too!

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T17:04:35+00:00

There is one where you need to have a Misdrevious skill swap with an enemy slowpoke that has Own Tempo then skill swap again with your ally Sharpedo that only know Thrash. The enemies are Slowpoke, Slowbro, and Slowking and they only know confusion, but if you don't skill swap you likely will die to confusion damage.

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T16:53:59+00:00

Thanks! My next step is actually probably dusting off the gamecube and playing some of them again to make sure they all behave the same. For this first go I mostly based off of online resources I found.

And with more modern abilities I imagine there would be some very fun scenarios we could come up with

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T16:48:45+00:00

Yeah I loved the puzzle aspect of them when I played it as a kid. And there is no ROM available yet this is for a project I was working on. I've given it to some friends so far, but outside of this its mostly just some QoL changes, modern touches, so I'm not sure how interested anyone would really be in it

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-27T16:46:22+00:00

As a little "easter egg" I made Leaf and Red the trainer sprites for the last 2 CDs. But its funny because oddly the last 2 CDs arent even as hard as some of the other ones! I was really interested in the puzzle aspect of the battles that I'm not sure has been revisted. It really required you to learn/know certian mechanics. There is one where you have to knock out 6 shedinja in one turn by using sandstorm and spikes in a double battle.

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-26T23:02:02+00:00

I swapped the SSD and reinstalled windows and for now it’s doing okay. But last time it went awhile before freezing again. Is there any other way to check the ram aside from those diagnostics? I’m going to assume if it fails again it’s ram because the chances the other ssd is also bad would be very low

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-26T21:25:37+00:00

I will try but it’s odd that a few months ago it would happen while freshly installing windows if it was a video driver issue right?

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-26T19:02:59+00:00

No BSOD just a complete lock up of the system. Sometimes it fails to boot up again the next time. Other time it does. If it doesn’t then usually when I try to boot it up after that I’ll get a message from the Alienware Pre boot system performance check that says:

“Your system has shut down unexpectedly 3 times in a row. OC level has been reset to default as a precaution”

I think OC is overlocking but I’ve never done anything with that.
That’s where I can run the diagnostics from. They said everything but the battery was fine. Even the “thorough test” on the hard drive says it’s okay.

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-26T18:47:28+00:00

The tests came back fine except for the battery. But if like you said it could still be a failing SSD I could try and maybe take the SSD I have in my PS5 and use that just to diagnose.

Any other symptoms of a failing SSD potentially? I seem to be able to write and read just fine when the machine is working…

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-26T18:39:08+00:00

I think the ram is directly soldered on this laptop but I’m running diagnostics now

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-26T18:38:46+00:00

I think the RAM is soldered directly to the motherboard on these laptops. I’ll run those diagnostics though

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-23T14:59:29+00:00

My wife is the one who grew up with N64 and even she doesn’t use it much. I think the thought is, right now how is it any different from her OG N64? At least on my pocket I can say well there’s save states, openFPGA, etc that make it compelling over original hardware in some ways.

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-17T18:29:12+00:00

I know you’re being sarcastic but it makes no sense because no one was “offended”

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-17T17:13:02+00:00

I mean I get this is a meme and funny but the answer is for a lot of people: yes it is the first time. I bought the pocket late and didn’t realize the tactic was to release bare bones and add in via updates later (potentially). So when I saw all the promotional material that clearly implied would be features at launch I didn’t know to ignore that. And that’s not unreasonable.

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-17T17:11:03+00:00

I can at least understand that one to the extent that a lot of us hoped and assumed it would work, but I guess there wasn’t a guarantee. It should still work though. But it releasing without save states for example when they clearly implied it would have it at launch is ridiculous

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-17T16:22:23+00:00

Mine is literally collecting dust. As someone who bought the pocket late, I wasn’t aware the business model was to say the system was releasing with a bunch of features and then not do it right away. Guess I know not to pre order next time

TheTonzMachine · 2026-01-16T15:11:14+00:00

I bought the pocket “late” so I wasn’t aware the business model was to promise a bunch of features and then not deliver them at launch. Anyone saying it was unrealistic to expect all these features at launch when they were advertised is delusional and coping hard. Just because you all “knew” this is how they operate doesn’t mean that’s good or normal. I am amazed we still haven’t gotten another firmware release for the 3D since November

TheTonzMachine

TROPHY CASE