Display crashing.

Question

Hello I have a dell inspiron n5010. It has been running fine since I bought it. However, today out of nowhere, my screen went blank and in few seconds slowing came back parts by parts with notification that read something like 'a display driver crash has been recovered'. I didn't give it much attention, but it happened in another five minute. In about another five minutes, the screen went blank and didn't recover. I had to force shutdown my laptop after it started to heat up. When I tried to restart again, it showed up nothing but just gave 8 beeps. I learnt it stood for display/video card not found. So I connected to external display of my desktop moniter and it started up fine, but it went to some blue screen with sad emoticon saying my PC ran into problem n it was gathering some error info. How many times I tried, I couldn't boot to windows. Then I formatted my drive and installed windows 7 from scratch. While booting into windows 7, my screen suddenly came back after a restart. After all that I installed windows 8.1 preview. While I thought my problem was over, the display crashed again with some scratchy parts in screen then running into screen saying my pc ran into problem n then screen goes blank and laptop starts to heat up and I have to manually restart which in turn gave me the 8 beeps. I found a quick workaround to make display come back was to jerk the laptop a particular way. However, since I first tried this, my pc has been running into problems faster and faster. Now, its almost not workable at all. Also, I want to mention that I updated my bios into A15 version just over a week ago because I read that it helped with heating problem. Could that be the cause. My exams are coming up and I need my laptop. Thanks in advance.

Robin3 · Answer

8 beeps would indicate LCD failure. If laptop is still under warranty then contact Dell for replacement.

Robin3 · Answer

Connect external monitor and check video output...if problem still exists then likely faulty graphics chip which would mean replacing mainboard. It could also be faulty LCD cable. Check this video for guidance in locating the cable

rknx · Answer

Now it takes me to 'your pc has run into problems page right after booting' and then even without completing gathering report, it reboots into automatic repair page.

rknx · Answer

Thanks.

But my warranty is already over.

Plus I do not understand, if it was LCD failure, how come it worked intermittently? I mean I was able to install windows 7 and 8.1 in it. I don't know much about this.

rknx · Answer

The chip is probably fine because video playback worked when I played video while my screen was working.

I fear loose connection/faulty LCD cable myself.

I'll report as soon as I do the checking. However I'll have to sleep for the night now.

rknx · Answer

The issue is gone since this morning, so I'll probably be fine. But now I have to cringe a little before I start my laptop everytime!

Dell - Harish M · Answer

Hi rknx,

Please try reseating the LCD cable to the motherboard in case the issue reoccurs. Please refer to the below link for instructions.

ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_inspiron_laptop/inspiron-15-intel-n5010_service%20manual_en-us.pdf

Locked Topics – Laptops General

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