Black Screen - how to perform a BIOS recovery on Alienware 17R3?

My Alienware 17R3 shut down after I changed some colors in AlienFX and hit "apply"... and now I'm stuck on black screen (power on -> all the lights and fans turn on but screen stays off, no backlight, no activity lights, no beeps)

This happened to me when I first bought it, and doing a CMOS reset via CLRP1 fixed it back then.  Now this just causes the laptop to start (lights on), stop (lights off), then start again as if it rebooted, but still no screen or error beeps/lights the whole time.

I'd like to try a BIOS recovery per the instructions here: BIOS Recovery options on a Dell PC or Tablet | Dell US  

but nothing happened when I disconnected the battery, held CTRL+ESC and connected the PSU.  Another forum suggested holding "END" instead of CTRL+ESC but that didn't work either.  Which keys need to be held down for the 17 R3?  I can't find the right instructions anywhere...