Wacked out Video Card?

[GenMarshall]

This has just happened recently. I was playing on Garry's Mod and suddenly got hit with a bunch of artifacts. I quickly restarted my laptop and now I am experiencing frequent black outs (Monitor shuts off and on).

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Maybe you overheated. You should check your GPU temperatures. Try using SpeedFan.
If they go over 90C on load and continually climb, your GPu is probably overheating. Also check to make sure all your fans are spinning. If one isn't, you may again have a cooling problem.

 

[lndm]

nt 10 char

 

[GenMarshall]

Maybe you overheated. You should check your GPU temperatures. Try using SpeedFan.
If they go over 90C on load and continually climb, your GPu is probably overheating. Also check to make sure all your fans are spinning. If one isn't, you may again have a cooling problem.

The flickering screen is problematic for me to do such a thing since it flickers on and off constantly . (And nothing is wrong with the monitor since on safe mode, it's working)

This is one example of the Artifacts I have been experianceing

Spoiler expand, large image :

When I boot up, I see something simmilar to this, however, I still have all the colors but do get thoes annoying lines, however they are grey and horizontal.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

again, i would check to make sure your GPu isnt overheating. Its also very possible that it already overheated and is now a bit..broken.

 

[GenMarshall]

again, i would check to make sure your GPu isnt overheating. Its also very possible that it already overheated and is now a bit..broken.

I checked it as best I could, however it's detecting that the GPU is on the hot side and all fans are at full blast whenever I play a 3D game.

Great, I have a feeling that it might have been overheated . I am also not sure if the warranty is still good on the laptop .

If all else fails, I may have to get a whole new one. I just know I'm gonna get an earfull from my folks. (Though it should not be a big deal now since I have a job right now)

 

[lndm]

Look at the heatsink to see whether it is full of dust. If so, the fan might sound like it is trying too hard when it runs fast.

Try it in the evening after it's rested for at least an hour.

If desperate you might try reinstalling the drivers.

Otherwise I'd start shopping.

 

[GenMarshall]

Now, I'm starting to experiancing seeing the BSOD when windows loads to the desktop (on normal mode). Somehow I experianced this simmilar situation some time ago.

I've managed to write it down and here's what it tells me:
Stop: 0x0000008e (0x0000005, 0x805272d4, 0xf781a55c, 0x0000000)

 

[Shylock]

I'm pretty sure your card is overheating and probably damaged. I had that on my 6600GT whilst playing Bioshock. It's done. Try reinstalling drivers but otherwise I'd take advantage of the Christmas sales.

 

[GenMarshall]

I'm pretty sure your card is overheating and probably damaged. I had that on my 6600GT whilst playing Bioshock. It's done. Try reinstalling drivers but otherwise I'd take advantage of the Christmas sales.

Overheating and damaged?! "...Not again" - Kyle Katarn.

At least it was not the infinate loop error that I had a year ago. However, I hope the warranty is still good on it. Otherwise I might have to dip into my savings account to buy a newer laptop with *shutter* Vista.

 

[GenMarshall]

Update: Tommorow I am going to send my laptop to a computer repair shop that repairs Dells. Hopefully they would not only install a new video card but also check to see if the fans are actually working properly.

 

[GenMarshall]

Got my laptop back today, however the issue resurfaced again once I tried to play a 3D game. All the techs did was cleaned the insides for spamware and other crap and never bothered to poke at the hardware itself. I've managed to capture the images with my digital camera to better explain my situation.

On BIOS Load:

On OS Load:

Seconds before the desktop is loaded:

Normaly, thoes line-breaks are not there.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Do you have an external monitor you can hook up to the laptop? If it shows the same problems, then its the video card, if it doesnt, then maybe its your laptop screen.

 

[GenMarshall]

Do you have an external monitor you can hook up to the laptop? If it shows the same problems, then its the video card, if it doesnt, then maybe its your laptop screen.

I don't have an extra external monitor lying around, unfortunately . Though how would a laptop screen induce a BSOD? .

Also to add, When I tried playing a 3D game to see if they fixed the problem (Garry's mod, Half Life 2, etc), in just a few seconds, the screen flickers on and off then returns back with a frozen screen and the game itself loaded with artifacts.

 

[lndm]

This looks like a video RAM bank issue.

 

[GenMarshall]

This looks like a video RAM bank issue.

That is my next plan of action is to send it back to the technitians and have them replace the video card (as well as replace the button battery while they are at it since getting the "The internal clock has been reset" is getting annoying each time I leave the laptop off the power grid)

 

[Onionsoilder]

Overheating and damaged?! "...Not again" - Kyle Katarn.

At least it was not the infinate loop error that I had a year ago. However, I hope the warranty is still good on it. Otherwise I might have to dip into my savings account to buy a newer laptop with *shutter* Vista.

Vista is actually a respectable OS now. Yeah, it was crap when it first came out, but with the updated service packs and new drivers it's very stable and is actually more efficient at memory management now(though just barely).

As for as your actual laptop, you can try taking it into a mom-and-pop store and see if they can do anything about it. You don't have to put up with the hassle of Dell Tech Support, and they may be able to fix your problem.

 

[GenMarshall]

Ok here's the update. I just gotten word from the technicians that were looking at my laptop and they state that the reasons for the artifacts that I posted here is because eather the HDD is low and/or the RAM is low or gotten bad.

Somehow I doubt that it is the reason.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Bad RAM would just BSoD you. A bad HDD is also fairly obvious. Get your laptop back, call up those techs and tell them to shove it where it belongs. Then find another, decent tech.

 

[lndm]

Low HDD would not be relevant for the initial screen. The fact that they would suggest it belies their incompetence.