Inspiron 5150 Severe Screen Fragmentation and Interference

Question

Recently I bought a 5150 with Xp 1Gb RAM and Radeon9000. At first I have severe image fragmentation when running games. This I put down to a 3D redraw problem and reducing the hardware acceleration seemed to help. It now happens within any applications. At least some of the icons in the start menu are never draw properly. Below I have included some of my interaction with Tech Support. Please help, Leon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Another strange thing happened this morning - just in case it is of help. I started the laptop and it was set in 1024 x 768 not 1600 x 1200. The display settings only gave the highest res as 1024 x 768 so I couldn't change it. I restarted the computer and still I couldn't change the resolution. I restarted again and this time I could set the resolution to 1600 x 1200. Any more help with this problem is much appreciated. Leon. I have followed your instructions and have the following results: 1. With External Monitor. The external monitor output shows exactly what is on the lcd at any time. 2. In Safe Mode. I tried booting into Safe Mode and it still happensthere.I have seen the fragmentation present in the POST screens where it often appears as random ASCII characters. 3. As there is no Reset button I tried the following - removed power and battery for 5 minutes. This did temporarily clear the problem but it returns. The problem seems to be worse when the system has been running for a bit. 4. I reinstalled the Video Driver whilst on the phone the first time. This made no difference. 5. Dell Diagnostics. I ran the Dell diagnostics for Video and Memory. These ran without error. 6. Ensured ribbon was pushed home. I lifted the strip covering the LCD ribbon cable. This made no difference. Other things to note - Even when the display has not yet becomefragmented icons are not displayed properly. When the fragmentation develops it moves like interference patterns onthe screen often creating large blocks. I originally thought moving the LCD screen up and down affected the fragmentation / interference patterns. I since realise this was probably more coincidental. Other things I have tried - System Restore to before installing Direct X 9.0a. This was the first Restore point I made. This made no difference. I originally thought this could be a driver or other corrupt fileproblem as it only appeared to happen with games at first.Now it can happen in any application even with hardware acceleration turned off.More recently I believe this must be a hardware problem because of the following - i. it doesn't happen instantly if the system has been at rest and when the problem appears the only way of curing it is to remove the battery and power for as long as possible.ii. the problem has been present in the POST and Safe Modes, iii. the fragmentation / interference pattern changes / moves. Could it be part of the video memory or intel control chipset is damaged or functioning incorrectly?I may be wrong. If there are any more ideas to try to diagnose this problem please feel free to suggest them.

hoggbottom59 · Answer

The problem is definitely of a hardware nature, happens in Safe Mode and therefore has nothing to do with drivers.

Since I've now run the entire diagnostic program I have discover there is a problem with the video memory, not the graphics memory. I previously only tested the graphics card.

It gave me an error number of 5300:0119 - Video Mem Error. It happens in the tests at every res.

The laptop is being returned to have the motherboard replaced.

Thanks for the help,

Leon.

hoggbottom59 · Answer

Oh yeah another bizarre thing is that the email technical support and phone technical support in the UK seems to be 2 different departments. I expected to be able to talk to Tech Support with the backing of the email I'd send.

Unbelievable really.

L.

hoggbottom59 · Answer

Sorry I owe the story an ending...

I ran the Dell diagnostics. Ran the full test and it kept failing on the video memory not graphics.

The laptop was returned, the motherboard replaced as the video memory is on the motherboard.

The graphics shunts the data to the video memory to be displayed. Thus you can see images via the video memory without using an 'graphics' hw.

All is fine now.

Leon.

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