There is always a chance of causing an issue when you're working on electronics, especially if you aren't trained or experienced with it. If you give the system a static shock then you can fry a board component. Don't work inside your system while standing on carpet.  There's also a chance of bricking a system with a bad BIOS flash. There are sometimes ways of unbricking from a bad flash but not always. Make sure that you have the battery installed (Dell BIOS updates won't let you flash without a working battery anyway). If you lose power during a flash you are pretty much guaranteed a brick.  Yes, I'd go back to the Dell A12 before flashing the unlocked A12
Hello everybody, Looking for detailed steps, so can upgrade my Alienware 18 R1 video card. Found an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, MXM 3.1, 8GB DDR5 (see attachment). I tried to install it "plug and play" and all I had was an 8-beep code & blank screen, so I had to place again the original video cards. I've been doing research for a while, but I'm sure I'm missing some middle steps, so I humbly ask for help. Thanks in advance, people. MACHINE:Alienware 18 R1i7-4940MX CPU @ 3.10GHz, 32GBDual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M (SLI) [IMAGE]
18 R1, card upgrade from dual 860M to single 1070