Inspiron 1501 video problems

could always do as i did and tell them will return every bill sent out til they decide to honor the warranty instead of providing the same stupid solution for everything....format and reinstall or update already updated drivers. I signed up for extended warranty yet they do everything in their power not to honor it.

i really do wonder if dell customer/technical support even know anything about the inner workings of a computer other than how to install and uninstall windows or point someone to a website. i found out the dell technician that came to my home to replace my mother board couldnt put it back together after he took it apart, even lost some of the screws in the process. then couldnt find control panel or device manager.

how does dell get award winning customer service when they seem to be or act extremely stupid.

Well guys, just read the entire thread and i have the same problem over here..

 

I installed windows XP sp2 about 1 week ago and the comp began to crash immediatly after.

 

symptoms :

- freeze, screen become blank gradually

- black screen

- blue screen

- random vertical lines

- freeze and then "refresh" (like i was changing my video settings..)

 

I observed that i crash more when i'm 32 bit with 1280x800 so i turned it to 16 bits.

 

When i watch youtube.com video, it's an automatic crash within the next 5 minutes... 

 

I installed the last bios thing and there no difference out there..

 

specs :

Inspiron 1501 amd sempron 3500+

2gig mram

ati radeo xpress 1150

120 gig hard drive sata

windows XP sp2

 

Another question for you guys..

Lately, my comp began to displays 789 mhz on my system information (in control panel) and it's supposed to be an 1.8 ghz.. Anybody know why? And does its affect my cpu performance?

 

thank you

 

(i prayed that my comp didnt crashed while typing this message..)

 

edit : nevermind for the 789 mhz thing, i figured out with the forum's help.. =)

 

HI everybody,

 

A while back I made the following post in this forum.

 

"I have exactly the same problem described here. It's happened pretty much since day 1. It's been several months but I do have an e-mail from Dell authorizing me to return the computer to Dell for repair when it becomes available. I travel a lot in my line of work and at the time I could not spare it for repair. It's pretty much now available to return but I may have stumbled on the fix. The Dell Tech support said they wanted to replace the motherboard but I have little confidence this would fix anything.

Over the past weekend I was riding in the car and had 3 1/2 hours to spend each way working on this issue on my own.

Specifically, my computer hangs up and the screen display changes to any of the following:

1. colored stripes
2. mostly blank screen with a 1.5 inch x 1.5 inch block somewhere.
3. On more rare occasions a blue screen with garbled grey letters.
4. dark screen.

It can happen at any time, hot or still very cool after boot up. It seems to happen more frequently just after placing a USB flash card in the machine but like I said. It can happen at any time.

When running the test for system overall score I got a 2.8 and the video is the weak link. When optimizing the system I selected better overall performance with regards to the graphics. The score only jumped to 2.9 but it has yet to hang up since.

I believe that if I were running Win XP instead of Vista Home Edition the computer would run fine as Vista puts more strain on the system video.

My system was bought in June 2007.
It is an Inspiron 1501
with a 120GB SATA HDD
and 1GB RAM.
It is running Vista Home Basic "

 

 

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Today I am happy to report that I no longer have the problems or any problems with my computer.

 

I am still running Vista Home basic.

I am running the BIOS version 2.6.3

I am running the ATI driver version 8.432.0.0 dated 11-1-2007.

 

I also ran Error Repair Professional ver 3.6 and it may be responsible for some part of my repair.  If so I don't know what but like many of the diagnostic softwares it found numerous problems and I let it do it's thing.

 

The only other thing was I was still having occurences of the system would auto-reboot and recover.  In Vista Windows woulod ask if I wanted to check for a solution.  I did and I was directed to a link with a Windows update and installation instructions which were very simple.

 

Like I said, I now have a perfectly performing computer.  I have zero complaints and what appears different to me is that I did not revert back to any previous drivers but rather all of the newest ones.

 

I am running the computer at it's fastest performing settings and I run some of the highest demanding softwares without incident or performance problems.  I'm talking things like GeoMagic 3D CAD/CAM packages.  I have no problem with you tube videos or any others for that matter and would be happy to try any tests you all would like for me to run to see if I can trigger any problem events.

 

I have to say, Dell really dropped the ball on this one as their support was at a loss and suggested I send them my computer so they could replace the motherboard.  I never did do that.  I was tempted to install Widows XP SP2 but after seeing the postings in this forum I decided to not do that.

 

If I can be of any help to any of you let me know.  I do hate to see so many people having to revert to old versions of software and drivers if you can find a better working solution with the lattest better performing drivers and settings.