Inspiron N5110 freezes with distorted display

Hi,

Welcome to the Community. If you have run diagnostics on your hard drive and they passed, I would suggest you back up your data, and do a PC restore, to see if that helps. Below is the link on how to Restore your computer back to factory settings.

support.dell.com/.../document

Thank you

Royan

Thanks. I will give that a try.

Hi,

I have the same problem. Inspiron N5110 with i7. And I have had the laptop freeze with the display going all funny. I can still see what's behind the distorted display, and the mouse does not respond to the touchpad and I have to shutdown the same way as the original poster. I have had the laptop a couple of weeks and it had happened twice in that time. I had help over the phone with hardware diagnostics and it all passed ok. It was suggested to update the display driver (but the laptop is brand new, it will have the latest drivers).

It has happened three more times this morning. It is not a virus because it happened before I had loaded anything on it and before I had internet access.

I too think it is a hardware issue.

Not sure what to do now.

Hi,

I've got the same problem and have been going crazy trying to fix this. I've been battling this since mid Feb when I got this laptop (N5110). I've done hardware diagnostics (F12 route), PC doctor route. I've done a full restore to factory defaults thinking it was software. This is of course followed by reinstallation of all software + updates. 4 hours later...

I've switched the adaptor to wireless G mode (suggestion in other forum). I've changed audio drivers. I've changed power mode to max performance. I've disabled power saving for wireless cards/Lan card. I've tried all sorts of ideas that I've read on other dell forums. No luck yet.

I've also had the misfortune of dealing with Dell technical support by phone - all they want to harass you about is trying to get you to spend $139 on a support call or $230 on a "software" warranty! Joke. Then they wanted to do is walk me through the reformat process! Then my favorite from them was asking me to reformat my hard drive using my non existant disks (they don't seem to know about disk images). When that failed they suggested I engage in piracy by using a windows 7 disk that I have for another computer ( a beautiful old Dell D520 happily running Windows 7). How I wish i had stayed with that. Little did I know it would become the backup computer. Dell seriously needs to review their tech support arm via phone. Its very embarrassing to them. Dell would almost be better off without them.

Now that's off my chest: Before i did the factory restore, I would get the distorted screen error as per this forum subject. After the factory restore, no more distorted screen. It would just simply freeze with what I was doing. It would happen randomly. It didnt matter if I started from a clean boot or a hibernate. Sometimes it happens straightaway, sometimes I have maybe up to two hours before it freezes. I've used speedfan to check for thermals. No luck. I've used "whocrashed" to check for windows crash files - nothing. I've reviewed the event log to try and look for clues. I've got one from a while back saved, so if anyone from Dell wants to take a look at it, please let me know.

All the hardware checks out fine. I'm at a loss and look forward to some suggestions from Dell. I better save this before the thing crashes again. This is the most frustrating part about this whole problem. You don't know when the thing is going to crash so you don't want to start anything.

Thanks

Hi,

I was wondering if you solved this problem yet for your machine? I don't know if its the same for you. My freezing with distorted display tends to occur only at startup (fresh boot) or return from hibernate. It seems to occur without fail when the laptop is physically cold (its stored at about 18 degrees C or 65 degrees F). When its warmed up (after a few minutes of running) it works fine. Warm up takes place in the time that it first boots up, you login, open a folder, then a crash, cycle power and reboot, login and then everything works fine. I'm tending to think it might be a hardware problem like you mention. I've tried whocrashed to analyze crash dump files. I've run prime95 to stress the processor and everything runs fine. I've done all the suggestions on this and other forums (max power, mess with wireless centrino card, etc) all to no affect. I've also removed and reinstalled the memory chips to make sure they are well seated. Passes the tests with flying colors. I've even tried to run the diagnostics from F12 when cold and it comes up clean. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Hello,

I ended up doing a factory reset. I thought my problem may have been heat related so i purchased a cooling tray. The computer is my wife's work machine so it sits on a desk most of the time. Other than that I adjusted some of the power settings to have it shut down when not in use because she tends to leave it running constantly. I have not had a freeze up since. I hope it is fixed but only time will tell.  

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I think I may be on track of something. It would be interesting to see if you can duplicate this. If I allow the computer to boot to the login screen and leave it at the login screen for a couple of minutes and then logon, it works great. If I login when the prompt pops up (i.e. straight away), it freezes consistently within about 30 seconds to 1 minute of this login. It doesnt matter whether its a restart from scratch or from hibernate, if I wait about 3 minutes between when the login prompt is shown and when I actually login, no problem whatsoever. I have it in high performance mode. I'm wondering if this is possibly a heat related manufacturing defect. Normally the laptop is stored at around 66 degrees F (18C) approx. I'm wondering if the time that it sits at the login prompt allows it enough time to "warm up" :-) prior to use. Maybe there is a dry joint and the expansion generated by heat fixes the problem temporarily! I also notice that Dell just released an update to the bluetooth driver. I'm going to try and install that and then re run the cold start in case somehow that would cause the problem - that is when the dell provided link starts to work - give it a few more days - do they test anything? If you read the discussion its about how mcaffee inadvertently deletes some or other file! Definitely a case of the anti virus cure being worse than the disease at this point! What temperature do you store your laptop at when not in use?

No, I was not onto something. The random freezing is still carrying on. It was quite repeatable for a while. One angle I am now looking at is the driver for the wireless centrino 1030 card. Interestingly (not really), I notice that my driver version is 14.2.1.1 by Intel. I cannot find this driver under the service tag for my laptop. The closest is 14.2.0.10. I'm wondering if something hasnt been fouled up somewhere and I have an experimental driver. If it works, I'll update this.

I had that happening ever since I bought my n5110 i-5 back in November 2011. I honestly believe its a hardware problem (if not the whole computer). I've gone through Dell support flashing my BIOS, running the diagnostic tests etc, and even reformatting my HD and reinstalling the OS. I've had about enough of them tampering with my computer hoping that it'll resolve my issue but honestly it won't. This distorting frozen screen is awfully persistent regardless if my computer is fully updated or not. I've had it happen when I had pending updates and with no updates so it can't be something fixed according to their protocol. I'm totally venting right now because I really do love this computer as it fits me and how I wanted my first personal laptop to be. 

To Heffro, if you don't want the hassle of this I think you're better off getting a different computer, that's my opinion though it might be too late to do that. I can deal with the freezes if I'm not drawing on my laptop but its pretty annoying in several ways.

- Haku

I couldnt agree with you more. As you no doubt read, I had a bit of venting to do myself. If I was a bit more agressive, I would have simply returned this laptop to Dell and paid the shipping costs before the 30 days were up. Next time, I'm going to buy a computer at staples or best buy. If it doesnt work, it goes straight back to them and I will get my money back. The computer vendor can then have fun fighting with their distributor. I'm currently working on a rolled back driver (see above). So far it has not frozen yet. I'll know in a few days time if it freezes or not. If it doesnt, then it may indeed be software. I read about this problem on another forum (I think titled: Dell n5110 random freeze" or something to that effect) and there was a guy by the name of Zlatin (he deserves the credit), who discovered that dear old Dell had shipped him a different wireless adaptor than what was on his bill of materials. So that got me thinking further on the problem, so I did some deep checking on the driver and I found out that my driver was newer than what Dell was listed as supported for my service tag. If you use your device manager and look at the Intel Centrino adaptor (under network), it will be interesting to see if you have version 14.2.1.1 which according to Dell does not exist for this laptop. That's of course assuming you have the intel centrino wireless adaptor. Its very frustrating. I have the following other computers all Win 7: Dell for work, old Dell D520 with Win 7 installed (came with XP) and two HP desktops - all working fine. I buy this brand new computer to replace the slow old Dell 520 and find I have to still use that because the new one works terribly. And Dell, please tell your software support guys to stop blaming Windows. It works just fine on lots of other computers.

Dear Dell Management: If your finances dont look so hot, maybe you should stop annoying your clients and addressing their issues with your product. When you buy a computer with a warranty, a customer expects the computer hardware and software to work just fine after a factory reset and both should be covered by the warranty. And yes, at some finance seminar (no doubt lounging at some expensive resort) you were all patting yourself on the back looking at the savings you were getting from that cheap technical support from who knows where. Unfortunately its the most expensive move you ever made, as the damage they are doing to your reputation can not be measured on an Excel spreadsheet. Perhaps you should fire some of those accountants and hire decent technical people. When Windows 8 comes out, it wont be on a Dell computer at my house.

As mentioned in the previous post I got rid of the driver 14.2.1.1 for the Dell Centrino wireless adaptor which came with the factory image. Installed the current Dell service tag listed driver for the Dell Centrino 1030 adapter. It is now version 14.2.0.10. I havent had a freeze in two days now. Before that it could be within minutes to maybe an hour. It would freeze completely requiring a power reset. To actually install this you have to uninstall the Intel ProSet/Wireless WiFI software first under control panel add/remove software. This also gets rid of the wireless. Make sure you have the replacement downloaded before you do this as this move gets rid of the wireless connection. I then ran R311898.exe which gets you 14.2.0.10 version of the driver and then the laptop works just fine. Hopefully this works for you. I just spent since early february trying to get rid of this problem.

Here is the defective driver with the correct driver listed on the left on the Dell website for the N5110

Hi Hakushira,

I would be interested to see if the fix I did below works for you?

Shane1965

Hmm, I did as you asked however the version of my Intel Centrino Wireless is 14.0.1.2 dated 12/21/2010. Honestly, I haven't had a freeze since the 23rd of April then another on the 26th. I have consistently used my computer ever since I got it back from the manufacturer and have been crossing my fingers in hopes that it won't freeze on me a third time.

Thank you for the suggestion though. If it doesn't help me then surely it'll help others.

- Haku

Sorry Shane, I don't think this is it. I've had the Centrino 1030 adapter set to 14.2.0.10 since I bought the laptop last year. My monitor freezes up just like yours.

For anyone at Dell, you can see a video of the problem at:

Hi,

Yes thats similar to what I would get. After I did a factory reinstall, it would not do the distorted screen that often, but would tend to simply freeze completely. Sometimes you would see the blue screen and then that would distort - unfortunately you could not see which driver was upsetting Windows due to the distortion. Only way to recover was to hit the power button for four seconds. Incidentally I currently have high performance mode active (power options) and the wireless n mode is disabled - I have g router only. I had read that the n part was troublesome in one of the other forums so I disabled it. So far no crashes for 3 days, so this is a bit of a record for this laptop. I use hibernate most of the time as I'm not a big fan of shutdown as I leave everything running between sessions. As you can imagine I'm pretty happy right now - and I'm not going to be messing with anything unless I get another freeze!

One thing I noticed when doing a system restore using the dell datasafe online, it spent a lot of time updating the system image - hello 1am! I was wondering what mods were done to the system image. Mind you I'm not about to go through a factory re install again in a hurry if I can avoid that. It took most of an evening - and I still had to restore non image files and programs.

I'm sure you've been scanning these forums, there was one interesting comment by a person named Zlatin who noticed that the hardware supplied did not match what was on his box. Check under "Dell N5110 Issue" for his comments on that. That's what got me laboriously going through all the drivers listed for the N5110 laptop to make sure they matched Dells support website version numbers as well as my delivery note.

I assume you've run the F12 diagnostics. Some of the tools I used to stress this laptop:

(I'm not sure how technical you are, I've been fiddling with computers for years)

Seatools - if you have a seagate hard drive does some testing

Prime95 - stresses the processors so that they run at 100% to see if you can upset the processor. Apparently a good test for processor stability and the memory

Whocrashed - a program that looks at the windows crash dump files to give you an english translation of what got Windows in a twist. Unfortunately, this buggy driver killed windows so badly, that it did not get a chance to write a crash dump file. Normally this is a pretty good sign that you are having hardware trouble (disk, memory), though obviously not in my case. Whocrashed also has some interesting tips.

Another thing to check is to disable your wireless adapter completely and just try the lan port. If you need wireless, it might be worthwhile to get one from staples/best buy and try that via the usb port to try and isolate the 1030 adaptor which is what most clients seem to be complaining about (disable 1030 under device manager)

Interestingly I notice Intel released a revised driver for the 1030 (it may not be applicable to the Dell laptop), so it may be worthwhile to check Dells website from time to time.

I hope you come right. This freezing screen is incredibly frustrating. I wonder if Dell personel actually read our posts.