I have an XPS M1210 with the Nvidia 256MB Motherboard. For a little while I have been having display problems where if I'm watching a video the screen might get messed up. Sometimes, there is a boxed area around the curser with lines, or certain parts of the screen will have lines, etc. However, hitting ctrl+alt+del fixes it (I have vista). Recently I had an issue like this and then the blue screen of death came up... It ended up getting messed up with lines too. Ever since then the monitor doesn't even power on when I turn the computer on. It is just black with no back light.  I managed to get Dell Media Direct to power up once. I also got Windows to make it past the log in and then get messed up graphics and crash again, but other than that it is just black. Occassionally it flickers on for a second. I saw a light blue screen a couple of times with my curser, but it is messed up in areas and then it flickers away. The computer seems to restart after a couple of minutes, but it is hard to tell since the screen is completely black. I tried plugging in an external monitor into the monitor port and hitting the fn crt/lcd buttons. The monitor detects when the computer turns on, but just says no signal and then goes back into standby. I also tried plugging the computer into my TV using the s-video and using the fn crt/lcd buttons. The TV will flicker like I think it used to when I would transfer the signal to the TV, but nothing ever shows up. I tried taking the hard drive from the M1210 and  putting it in another laptop, and the other laptops' screen powers up fine with the hard drive in. It won't start windows (but I figure that probably has to do with drivers or something. I didn't try repairing using the Windows disk).

 

I took apart more of the computer and reconnected the video cable going to the monitor to make sure it was secure, but still nothing works. I found a lot of dust clumped on the back side of the heat sink near the fan. The fan had been working fine though. However, the computer had been overheating when I play games for the last few months and would run a little choppy once it was hot... so that was probably caused by the dust.  When the computer broke, I was playing a game and had it minimized to try to watch a flash video on the internet. Maybe it got too hot and broke?

 

To sum it up I figure I need a new motherboard, but I wanted to make sure before I go and buy one. If someone more knowledable could give me their view it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks,

 

Nate