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Strange characters during my diagnostic tests
My Inspirion XPS M1530 keeps freezing and restarting when I use it. The screen is backlight and windows comes on - but nothing else besides the glow of the light appears on the screen. I ran the diagnostic tests today and in the middle of the video portion of the test the screen became full of weird characters and was illegible. The tests continued and I know the system failed some of them as there was red writing on the screen. Are the results of the diagnostic saved somewhere? Is it possible to figure out what is wrong?
Thanks for the help!!
ejn63
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May 23rd, 2011 18:00
Sounds like the video chip is faulty - try running a test with an external monitor attached. If it shows the same fault, and the system is less than a year out of warranty see:
en.community.dell.com/.../nvidia-gpu-update-dell-to-offer-warranty-enhancement-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx
If it's older than that, the $300 or more the replacement mainboard will cost is better spent on a new system.