Unsolved

This post is more than 5 years old

40 Posts

10349

July 20th, 2004 06:00

Distorted display on everything

Hi guys, I have just experienced a very rare and also very annoying problem with my Dell.  The display is jumbled and glitchy. the DELL opening screen is like a messed up puzzle, it flashes and colors are distorted too.  I'll post pictures when i can.

These are the specs:

dim 8200, 512MB RDRAM, 2.0 GHz P4, 40 GB HD, xp home, ati 9800 pro 128mb video, etc.

I'll tell it like it happened.  I used one of those aerosol dusters from Fry's and i was cleaning the inside.  I blew the mobo and the video and anywhere else with dust.  I bring it back inside and power up.  This is when it starts.  The display is distorted, the boot screen is laggy/shaky and its painful to look at. I've no idea HOW this happened and WHY its happening. ive concluded its not the monitors fault as I've tested both DVI and VGA outputs as well as testing it on a TV with S-video out - all the same results.  ALSO, this was during a reformat.  I just began to boot from CD after dusting it and performed a clean install of XP.  colors and everything were ugly.  After it finished i tried to install drivers immediately, now the display wont even show. its worse than before and after 30 seconds, the monitor just plain shuts off.

Im panicking and i dont noe wut to do.  Please help, i'm almost positive its hardware and not software issues.  The duster is Carbon dioxide that blows bursts of air.  If shaken, the duster spits out frost which is white, icy cold, but dissolves.  i dont believe it did that since i was careful to not shake the can, but could that be a reason for the defect?

 

Much thanks to everyone reading this long post.

7 Posts

July 20th, 2004 07:00

is this a desktop or notebook ... well first of all change winxp home for win xp professional :P ..j/k .. it seem to be a connection problem unplug and plug it again ...check for all the pins in the conector

1.3K Posts

July 20th, 2004 14:00

Remove and carefully reinstall the videocard, verify the fan works and is dust free. Try it again you might have just unseated the videocard. If still a bad image you have a bad videocard. I had my old Geforce 256 fail, and the Dell logo broke up into strips the first time it failed, then I would get wallpaper vertical stripes and red lines, etc.

40 Posts

July 20th, 2004 16:00

:-/ yeah i think it might be the cards fault.  I just bought it 2-3 weeks ago.  I'm gonna try to use it on my friends desktop to conclude where the problem lies.  Thanks for the response.  Ill try contacting the manufacturer for warranty information.

This is what my startup looks like.  its horrible :-/

Message Edited by MettleH3d on 07-20-2004 01:42 PM

1.3K Posts

July 20th, 2004 21:00

I saw the windows XP screen like that once. Hopefully the replacement video card is good and lasts years!

40 Posts

July 20th, 2004 23:00

hehe thanks. i hope theres a repair or replacement service that goes smoothly. i bought it at www.gameve.com so its all legit

40 Posts

July 20th, 2004 23:00

hehe thanks. i hope theres a repair or replacement service that goes smoothly. i bought it at www.gameve.com so its all legit

Top