I posted this message on dell community forums.... "I was playing WoW last night on my Vista laptop and randomly the screen froze for about 15 seconds. It eventually fixed and told me that "Display driver has stopped working but problem has been resolved". Then the same thing happened again. When it happened the second time, it fixed itself, but the screen went dim and purple lines were all over the screen and it was distorted and frozen. Then the computer cut off. Now when I start it, I just get a blank screen. The screen lights up like its going to start normally, but nothing. I have tried to start in safe mode(f8) and I have tried to hold the FN key while starting to run a diagnostic. Nothing happens when I run in safe mode, I just hear 3 beeps. If I try to run a diagnostic it beeps like it should and then the screen does the different colors, but nothing happens afterwards, it just continues to beep. I have contacted Dell whom I purchased the computer from, but my warranty expried 3 days ago....how convenient. I have contaced Microsoft and Nvidia(my graphics card) and they have both told me to go to Dell. The only option I have with Dell is to pay 59$ and get "warranty expired support". I was hoping this problem could be resolved without having to do that. I have heard that people had problems while they were updating their graphics driver, but I updated mine over a week ago. I am completely stumped and am hoping that my computer is not toast. The only other thing I can think to do would be completely take the computer apart, but I am not technical enough to pull that off unless someone could walk me through it. I know this has been a problem with other Vista users, but things that have worked for them are not working for me. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you" *Hoping one of you guys might be able to help...I have a raid on Monday! lol
yep nvidia drivers are fail. Did you download them off of Nvidia's site? I rarely get those errors anymore.
Any chance you have an old video card around, or that your computer has an onboard card? If you're able to remove the current card and either boot with the onboard card or an old card to remove the nvidia drivers you could then reinstall the newer card and try the driver install again.
Seeing as its a laptop, theres no way to remove the current videocard or try another. how far does it boot up? if you don't see any output on the screen the moment you turn on the computer then the videocard is fried and your laptop is a brick. if you can see a windows logo then you can recover it.
Shit...the words I didnt want to hear even though I knew it was prob true. Thats exactly how it is, I cannot see windows logo, I cant see anything. Just a brightened black screen. So where does that leave me? Can I just get a new card? How hard is one to install?
I missed the laptop bit, :-( Because it's a laptop you can't just replace the vid card, it's soldered onto the board, Pay the $59 and have Dell RMA the laptop IMO
Even if I send it in and pay the 59$ all they will do is run a diagnostic right? If they could fix it and the problem is the graphics card what am I looking at paying? Would it be smarter just to build a new computer?
If you missed the warranty by only 3 days, they sometimes give you a little leeway. Call back for another CR.
Yea, I'm doing that now, its just been a pain in the ass to get someone live on the phone that actually speaks english. Dell has been more than difficult with this, IMO don't buy a dell.
Yes the CS at dell sucks. I tried them again to plead my case and I got the same run around from some new person that again, I could not understand. So until further notice...WoW sargeras division will be down 1 officer and 1 incredible shadow priest . I'm still not giving up though, so any more advice would be incredible.
Ordered parts for a new desktop yesterday. One question though...what can I salvage out of my laptop...anything? What would yall suggest I do with it?
Hard drive, battery, maybe memory (if you had another laptop to use it in), some cases even optical drives. Everything else is soldered onto the board. Most modern laptop drives are SATA and thus are compatible with desktops using SATA. heres a hint... you really want to salvage that harddrive so you can copy over the wow installation to your new computer. Blizzard's idea of attended patching is not something to be enjoyed.
Only if it's SATA. Even then, it probably won't mount to your drive cage, but it will connect through standard cables.
if you have a older laptop thats not running on a IDE drive(very few newer laptops have these but a few do) you will have to get an external enclosure if it is a sata drive you may be able to single side mount it in your system and run it as a normal drive.(well it will work mounted or not just mounted is more stable) the battery is a good idea to salvage and if you dont know what type it is find out then look for a laptop that uses one of those if you plan on buying a laptop memory if you have over 1gig is worth it to save out of it for if you can use it in another laptop there is always the chance you may be able to sell it to someone who can or even an online shop and above for the HDD
You can actually get mounting kits for laptop ide hard drives that include adapaters to go from laptop ide to desktop ide, and also adapters to go from ide to sata and back. I imagine the harddrive in that laptop is somewhat large (150+), and he might want to use it in his desktop. http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=3004&sku=17705 You'll probably have to cut off the key pin from the desktop end.
Thx guys, as upset as I am about the whole laptop thing, it more or less put me in a position to build a desktop, something I have been putting off for some time. A few days without a gaming computer kinda sux, but my parts for the new one come in tomorrow and it will be nice to go from a 14.1 inch screen to a 19 inch, plus all the other upgrades.
