Anyone with experience Delidding an Alienware M16R1?

Hey All,

I have been having a heck of a time attempting to get this laptop to play nice without its internal display. Unfortunately, the dummy eDP cable trick does not work with this machine as it clearly isn't just looking for a connection, but its looking to receive something back to the EC. I have been stuck in Dell's 2 red light, 7 blue light hell for awhile now and I'm just hoping someone here has an idea of what to do.

What I have tried: Leave the display cable connected to the motherboard (worked with my old Dell G7, does not work with this Alienware)
connect it via DisplayPort

connect it via HDMI

connect it via USB-C

Turn off optimus in the BIOS and set it to discreet graphics only

I've asked Claude and Gemini. We went down quite a few rabbit holes to no avail. I may have to resort to finding a longer display cable and leave the display attached 🙁

Hoping someone here may have some other solutions. Thanks!