Help Please...

[BingBloke]

Hi Peeps!

Not sure if this is the right forum topic for this, but I need some help with my laptop..

I bought a Dell M50 second hand a few months back & lastnight it decided to fail on me..!

Basically the screen just went really distorted & funny colours.. then just blank!

The laptop was still running, so i imagine either the screen is dead Or the graphics card. Not sure though.. :?:

If i turn it off & then re-boot it brings the picture up (but still liney & distorted) and then the screen goes blank again after a few minuets!!!

Any sudgestions are much appreciated!

Cheers

BiNg

 

[BingBloke]

Hi wusy,

Thanks for the reply!

In answer to your question.. sort of..

Basically i turned the laptop off when it happened & left it for a while.
Then when i tryed it again it did boot up normaly & made it to the XP OS screen as normal, but then a minuet later the screen went wierd again followed by a blank screen. 🙁

Regards

Bing

 

[BingBloke]

Thanks Wusy,

That sounds like there maybe hope for the old M50 yet! 😀

I'll give it a bloody good clean out tonight and see how it goes!

Thanks for that, I'll let you know what happens..

Cheers

BiNg

 

[jap0nes]

you can also try to connect a regular monitor to see if the screen is working or the video card

 

[BingBloke]

Good idea Jap0nes!

I'll try that too if i get no joy with clearing the Laptop out!

Thanks!

BiNg 😀

 

[BingBloke]

Ok.. Thanks for all suggestions so far but unfortunatley i'm still stuck!

I stripped the laptop down completley and cleaned out all the dust contamination, but unfortunatley the laptop is still playing up as before.

I also tried plugging the laptop into my TFT screen, which showed the same faulty picture as the laptop...

So what do you think this could mean :?: (I assume that this means the actual laptop screen itself is fine now)

I'm guessing that it could be either the Graphics card, Processor or harddrive... or somthing totaly different!

Can anyone suggest what this could be or maybe some way of eliminating any of the above possibilitys?

Also, I booted it up in safe mode & it seemed to work ok.. strange!

Thanks for the help so far,

Cheers

BiNg 🙁

 

[BingBloke]

One more thing, Someone suggested it could be a driver problem as it booted ok in safe mode.. Could a driver cause all this???

Cheers

BiNg

 

[BingBloke]

Cheers for all your input Wusy..

Yeh it is baffling me!

I took the heat conducting pipe off with the cpu to blow out the cooling fins by the fans & all seemed pretty solid.

My last resort is to try re-installing the drivers and if that doesn't work, then blitzing a fresh install of XP.

failing all that, then I may have to bite the bullet & find out the cost of repair.. boo hoo £££!

Thanks for your assistance all the same!

Cheers mate

BiNg

 

[jap0nes]

if you boot in safe mode does it lock after some time of using or it stays up? it could really be a driver issue... try updating drivers before reinstalling windows... also, try to use your card manufacturer's driver instead of windows default if you using it.
on the worst side, it could be a damaged video card or even memory. you can test the memory with programs such as memtest
http://www.memtest.org