Video Blank on bootup or standby resume - Inspiron 9100 Laptop

Question

Hi all, Fairly regularly my LCD & VGA/DVI output will provide no output signal at all - either on resume from standby or fresh boot. Everything else appears normal judging by the hard drive light activity for booting up.   When cycling power, I could try for as many as 10 or 20 times in a row, then all of a sudden it will boot up with screen, and then the PC will run forever without any problem once its booted. It's only always after some form of power down - and as mentioned all 3 Video Outputs provide no signal. Have a Radeon 9700 w/ 128MB memory. I have tried tapping & pressing & unscrewing covers etc but no effect at all so dont think its a connection issue.   Oh and naturally when It does finally come on and I run the boot diagnositcs - everything passes perfectly !! So I am gonna have no luck ringing the Indian support call centre on this one..   Anyone has any clues much appreciated.   Adrian

shad-99 · Answer

hi, Yes i have the same problems that u have.. blank bootup screen etc.
I solved that by removing my video drivers.... I can't find drivers for my ati mobility radeon 9700 card that works? This s*cks!
But i haven't had any problems since.. accept for loosing the ability to play games.
So if you find any graphic drivers that may work.. Plz let me know about it!

/shad-99

Speckled10 · Answer

I dont think my problem is driver related as it occures the moment you power the laptop on. There is always a brief grey flash over the entire display then goes blank.   I have just struck a thought this morning that its temperature related - ie. when the laptop has been off for a long time in a cool place it tends to happen - then repeatedly trying to power on nothing happens until maybe 20 or 30 power ons - where it has begun to warm itself up.   If its running for a while and I power down or standby - usually it it will come back on ok if it's not too long after I've left it alone. But leave it overnight and it usually does not come back on normally.

shad-99 · Answer

Well.. i think it is that problem you know... I had exactly the same problems tho, but then i dissconnected the computer to bring it with me. And when i got there, i pluged it in and started it up normaly as you normaly do... Then it wouldn't let me in in normal mod? I could only boot up in safe mod. Then i went back home and pluged it in again. Same problems occour? couldn't boot up normaly. I formatted the drive and reinstalled the os for it. After that i couldn't install any graphics drivers at all? So i did unistall the ati drivers and then reboot the machine... and guess what? Every thing worked out just fine? But i can't play any games now cos i haven't got any opengl driver that commes with the graphic adapter any more? I still use 1024X768 resulotion without any problems and sh*it like that. but i can't play games that requires opengl support etc? I wonder if the graphic card is broken in a way?
I wrote a letter to dell and telling them about the problems today, and i am wating for an answer from them any day now.

My suggestion is for you to unistall the graphic drivers and see if you ends up with the same issue.. that everything works.. accept that u can't play any games that requires OpenGl drivers for it. -Try it and plz let me know if you computer works after that

/shad-99

Toadbadger · Answer

Similar problems by multiple folks. No solution yet. See this thread: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_video&message.id=146761&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

Locked Topics – Laptops General

Was this post helpful?