Solved! Dell E1705 Display artifacts then total meltdown even in bios

mach1threat

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Dec 9, 2010
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Hello,

I am a long time reader of this website, first time poster. I have never had a problem I couldnt fix myself with PC's, but this laptop is a little different story.


I have a problem with my Dell E1705 laptop. I havnt had any problems with this laptop until last night. I was in the middle of playing a game (Mount&Blade Warband to be exact) and I noticed some horizontal lines showing in the game, and not even 2 minutes later the whole screen changes to a pattern of white snow type of image that is like 2" squares that are tiled across the screen.


I restarted the computer and the computer seemed to start windows fine, then the same exact thing happened sitting in windows xp when idle. The image starts out as the lines, then changes patterns over and over.

It takes about 3-5 minutes to start doing this, and does not return back to normal. Ive tried opening and closing the screen, tapping around the monitor to see if its something loose and the screen doesnt change. I let the computer sit in BIOS and the same exact thing happened in the BIOS options.

Lastly I have re-installed windows xp and the same thing happens. Also on the fresh boot of XP, it wont let me go past 4bit color quality, and acts up if I change the resolution from 640x480. Even if I let it sit in windows idle, it will repeat the same problem. My graphics drivers were not installed, but it still has same problem in bios which leads me to believe the monitor, or the video card is the problem.

If it is the video card, how hard would it be to replace this with a newer graphics card?


My specs are as follows:

Dell 1705 Laptop (First and last owner)
Windows XP PRO SP2/3
2 gigs ram
Geforce GO7800 graphics card
2.0 intel core duo


Thanks very much!

-Joe
 
Solution
Chances are that it is a bad inverter. You can take a look around for a replacement, as they are fairly cheap and easy to replace if you have a handle on dealing with laptops.