Laptops driving me crazy!

lintdrummer

Hi all.

I'm having big problems with two laptops. The first is a Dell Xps M1330 running vista 32bit home. It's never given me trouble but I switched it on last week and all was fine for 5 minutes until the screen went a strange colour and the computer powered off. When I switched it back on the screen was basically like tie dye. I forced it to shut down and switched it back on. All seemed well until again the screen froze and went a strange colour.
This time a message appeared full screen saying something about how windows was shutting the computer down due to a hardware error that may cause damage to the pc.

I have attached an image of the screen at the moment.

This has continued to be the case. I did a format of the hdd and re-installed vista to no avail. Ive tried to sort it out but I can't get the laptop to stay on long enough to figure anything out. It's out of warranty too! :mad:

So I thought I'd use my girlfriends laptop, a dell latitude d630 running xp pro. Immediately I noticed a problem. The laptop freezes up every minute or so for about 30 seconds. Most annoying thing ever. It has taken 40 minutes to type this message. I'm almost ready to release the rock star in myself and throw these both out the window!

Can anyone offer any help on either issue?

Thanks all.

With the 1330 I'm going to take a guess and ask if it has an Nvidia video card? If so then chances are it died. The 1330s are very prone to GPU failure.

lintdrummer

Yes, it has an Nvidia g840 or something like that. So a new video card is probably in order then. Any recommendations?

JonathanAnon

I did a format of the hdd and re-installed vista to no avail

Dell Xps M1330..
As you successfully formatted the drive and reinstalled the O/S, I'm assuming that you could see the screen properly during both processes??

Have you tried booting to safe mode and see if there are still video issues... by the look of that pic though, I would have thought video chipset failure (as said above) or else that someone had sat on / dropped the laptop and broke the screen.

Dell Latitude d630 running xp pro
Sounds like this is riddled with viruses and spyware.. That's the first place I would start anyway.. Again, boot to safe mode and see if there is any AV software installed and scan the drive .. Post any errors if you see any


You're a fair man for breaking the PCs arent ya.. ;-)

emmettogara

emmettogara wrote: »

Yes, it has an Nvidia g840 or something like that. So a new video card is probably in order then. Any recommendations?

Unfortunately it requires the motherboard to be replaced. Some people have managed to get Dell to replace it free of charge even if the laptop is out of warranty (as it's a known problem) but you might need to pressure them.

lintdrummer

Just to add aswell the latitude says it's installing updates every time I shut it down. They never seem to install. I just ran CCleaner on the Latitude. It hasn't improved at all.

JonathanAnon

emmettogara wrote: »

Just to add aswell the latitude says it's installing updates every time I shut it down. They never seem to install. I just ran CCleaner on the Latitude. It hasn't improved at all.

Never mind CC Cleaner... You should check for viruses and then spyware... Is there AV software on it... Dont worry about the Windows Updates for the moment either, it may not have been connected to the Internet in a while..

lintdrummer

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Dell Xps M1330..
As you successfully formatted the drive and reinstalled the O/S, I'm assuming that you could see the screen properly during both processes??

Have you tried booting to safe mode and see if there are still video issues... by the look of that pic though, I would have thought video chipset failure (as said above) or else that someone had sat on / dropped the laptop and broke the screen.

Dell Latitude d630 running xp pro
Sounds like this is riddled with viruses and spyware.. That's the first place I would start anyway.. Again, boot to safe mode and see if there is any AV software installed and scan the drive .. Post any errors if you see any


You're a fair man for breaking the PCs arent ya.. ;-)

Lol, I swear I haven't done anything! I literally went to Rome for a week and when I came back they were both banjaxed! Funny though, my friends maintain that I have a mild super power in that everything I touch breaks!

I've been trying to run McAfee but it's trying to update and keeps failing. Think I'll have to download more anti spyware/virus.

Currently I can't get the XPS to boot at all because the screen is messed up form power on. If I do get it to work I'll boot in safe mode and see if that helps.

Thanks

lintdrummer

Karsini wrote: »

Unfortunately it requires the motherboard to be replaced. Some people have managed to get Dell to replace it free of charge even if the laptop is out of warranty (as it's a known problem) but you might need to pressure them.

I'll put a hell of a lot of pressure on them so. Unfortunately I bought it second hand, that may be an issue. I've had it about 2 years now.

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Never mind CC Cleaner... You should check for viruses and then spyware... Is there AV software on it... Dont worry about the Windows Updates for the moment either, it may not have been connected to the Internet in a while..

Yes, it has McAfee but I can't get it to scan. Will download some software now and scan completely. It is connected to the net, I'm using it right now even though it's doing my head in!

One symptom that's quite common with the Nvidia GPU issues is that in the early stages, the video still works fine as long as the video driver isn't running (because a generic VESA driver doesn't utilise the full capabilities of the card). As a result, safe mode might still work correctly.

lintdrummer

Karsini wrote: »

One symptom that's quite common with the Nvidia GPU issues is that in the early stages, the video still works fine as long as the video driver isn't running (because a generic VESA driver doesn't utilise the full capabilities of the card). As a result, safe mode might still work correctly.

That's good to know, thanks karsini. I just can't boot in safe mode now because I can't see anything when I switch it on. Can anyone remember the sequence to get to safe mode? If I hit f12 after I switch it on I could use the arrow keys to get to safe mode if someone knows the sequence!

JonathanAnon

Dell Xps M1330..

How to boot into Safe Mode in Windows Vista

Restart the computer. Immediately after the screen goes blank for the first time, or after the BIOS post ends, start tapping the F8 key repeatedly. The Windows Advanced Options menu appears. If the menu does not appear, restart the computer and try again.

The Windows Advanced Options Menu shown next should appear. The Safe Mode option uses a minimal set of device drivers and services to start Windows. The default Microsoft VGA driver is used for display at 640 x 480 or 800 x 600 resolution and in 16 colors.

I asked you above if it was possible to see the screen properly during the reinstall / reformat.. We need to clarify if there is any part of the boot procedure when you can read the writing properly on the screen. This is to establish if:

a) the video is not working in Windows ONLY (indicating a driver issue)
or
b) the video does not work AT ALL. (indicating that the video chipset or possibly screen is fkd)


Dell Latitude d630 running xp pro
You given no idea as to whether the AV is capable of being updated or is out of subscription.. If it was my computer, I would remove any current AV software and install AVG from http://free.avg.com ... make sure and follow the "free" option when going through the download procedure (as they try to guide you toward buying the commercial package). When you install this, run a virus scan from safe mode and see what it comes up with.

lintdrummer

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Dell Xps M1330..


I asked you above if it was possible to see the screen properly during the reinstall / reformat.. We need to clarify if there is any part of the boot procedure when you can read the writing properly on the screen. This is to establish if:

a) the video is not working in Windows ONLY (indicating a driver issue)
or
b) the video does not work AT ALL. (indicating that the video chipset or possibly screen is fkd)

Well, during the whole reinstall I had no issues. Screen worked no problem. And up until last night when I powered it on I could see the screen for about 5 mins before it went. However it's gone as soon as I power on now.

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Dell Latitude d630 running xp pro
You given no idea as to whether the AV is capable of being updated or is out of subscription.. If it was my computer, I would remove any current AV software and install AVG from http://free.avg.com ... make sure and follow the "free" option when going through the download procedure (as they try to guide you toward buying the commercial package). When you install this, run a virus scan from safe mode and see what it comes up with.

It is licensed and is capable of being updated but the fact that the laptop is so bogged down prevents it from updating it's database and therefore it won't run a scan. I thought of AVG last night so downloaded and installed. I tried running a scan but again the computer got bogged down towards the end of it. It had scanned 170000 items with no infections detected. I had to ctrl alt del because it just stopped progressing.

Here's an interesting thing though. I've just booted in safe mode and it works fine, no freezing up of any description. I'm going to run AVG again while in safe mode but I'm now thinking it could be a startup program?

DevilsBreath

If it has the failing Nvidia chip it should have an extended warranty for that exact fault. Usually its 5 years on all systems that were sold with the faulty chip.

Phone dell tech and advise them of your problem. Test it on an external screen is at possible first though.
The correct wording to use when speaking to them is.

The screen is corrupt from start-up. Corrupted screen in the BIOS. Same on external Monitor "only if you have tested".

lintdrummer

DevilsBreath wrote: »

If it has the failing Nvidia chip it should have an extended warranty for that exact fault. Usually its 5 years on all systems that were sold with the faulty chip.

Phone dell tech and advise them of your problem. Test it on an external screen is at possible first though.
The correct wording to use when speaking to them is.

The screen is corrupt from start-up. Corrupted screen in the BIOS. Same on external Monitor "only if you have tested".

Thanks DevilsBreath. I have tried plugging in the hd connection to the tv and it's the same on that.

I have just succesfully booted in safe mode on the xps. So far so good. I'll just give it a bit more time but usually at this stage the screen would have died.

As for the latitude, I think the problem may have something to do with IE7. It isn't used, my gf uses firefox, as do I. The thing is, in safe mode the latitude ran perfectly. I started an avg scan and all was well until it gets to the IE7 folder. It's gotten really bogged down and is progressing very slowly through reg00### files. As I speak it's at reg00465. This is the same point that it got to last night when I had to intervene and shut it down. It took a good hour for it to get to reg00170 last night. Today it's taken an hour to get to reg00470 so I'm just going to leave it running. It only got bogged down when it started scanning through that IE folder though so I'm thinking that may be where the problem is.

lintdrummer

Ok, so I've contacted Dell support. The warranty extension was only for one year for this problem. Luckily, I'm still within that year so they are sending an engineer out to me with a replacement motherboard on monday. Happy days!

They did try everything to get me to buy an extended warranty, 3 years for €165, but I insisted that I just have this fault repaired free of charge and I would consider extending the warranty in the future.

They really tried to avoid telling me that this was a known fault that was covered by an extended warranty. I had used your exact wording DevilsBreath and he just tried to tell me I needed to buy a new warranty. I informed him that the fault was covered by an extended warranty and he then helped me out.

I can imagine there are a lot of people being misinformed and forking out extra cash unnecesarily for this exact problem.

Thanks again DevilsBreath, much obliged!

DevilsBreath

Just spotted your post.

Glad to hear you got it sorted.
Ye its a bit ****ty, all about saving money and that crap.