Screen crash when changing resolution.....please help!

Question

Hi everyone, I am usually very happy with my Inspiron 8500 and have had it for the last two years. Unfortunately, quite recently, when I change resolution, or load an application that requires a change of resolution, the laptop crashes. The entire screen goes whitish/red with multiple lines running vertically on the right.   I had suspected that this was the graphics card, so I completely removed and reinstalled the ones from Dell's website.   My specs are: Dell Insprion 8500 15.4' 256MB RAM nVidia GeForce4 4200 Go, A06 Pent 4, 2Ghz   Please help. Am rather quite stuck.

Rollie_R · Answer

BravoGolf,   Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.   Let's eliminate the possibility of a hardware error.  Please run the video test from the Dell Diagnostics.  This should tell us if there is a hardware problem.

BravoGolf · Answer

Thanks very much. I shall run the tests and let you know the result.

BravoGolf · Answer

Hey Rollie.
Thanks very much for your quick reply today, I appreciate that. Forgive my computer ineptitude, but I downloaded the relevant 32 bit diagnostics utility from here and created from that 4 floppy boot up disks (each one formatted prior [FAT]).

I reset the BIOS and also set Floppy A as boot up device. When I boot up (with floppy 1 inserted), it would not boot up at all, would stay at a flickering cursor on the screen and nothing would happen.

So instead, I extracted all the files from the diagnostic utlitiy to a burnt CD and set that as the default boot up device. This thought would not work at all!

Is there something I am doing wrong...please help me !?

beststarsign · Answer

Hi BravoGolf   Try this. As soon as you powerup your computer start tapping the F12 key multiple times.You will get a different menu.Choose Diagnostics from the menu and hit enter.That will initialize diagnostics.   If the card passes all tests, try updating your video driver

BravoGolf · Answer

Thanks, Bestarsign. That worked alright. I ran tests on everything and they all passed (phew!). I wasn't aware that there was such a facility.

I've recently formatted the system drive and have currently got the most recent nVidia drivers from the dell website, link here.

The issue seems to be more sporadic now though.

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