PCA Forums

My son gave me his old laptop, a Dell Inspiron, which is only 2 years old. The problem is the video - when booted, you get junk on the screen, vertical box of lines. Its not a Windows driver problem, as the initial boot screen had the same effect.

1. Is this something that can be fixed easily by myself (opening her up)? I never worked on a laptop before.

2. From my vague description of the problem, do you think the internal video card is fried and needs to be replaced?

I would like to keep the laptop since we spent almost $2k for it, since it has the top of the line video card for gaming. In fact, it was setup as a gaming laptop.

Can you hook an external monitor up to it and make it work? Also, are the hinges real loose?

First, google the topic to see if your model has any known issues. Then call Dells tech support and see what they say.

Key Keeper wrote:Can you hook an external monitor up to it and make it work? Also, are the hinges real loose?

Forgot to mention that I did try that and it has the same effect so its not the LCD.

Sounds like the video card in the laptop has fried. I don't think it's something you'll be able to easily fix/replace, what model is it?

eGo

It's the video chip and it's not replaceable. You would have to replace the whole motherboard.

If it's only 2 years old I would first find out if it's under warranty. Go here and enter the service tag number and it'll tell you if there's any warranty remaining: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/ ... l=en&s=gen

Even if there isn't, I have heard that most laptop mobos in that age range cost around $100 for a replacement direct from Dell so it might be worth calling and asking the price. Replacing the mobo in a laptop is not for the faint of heart, but Dell does have detailed service manuals available online showing you how to do it.

However, unless this is a high end laptop, it's probably not worth it when you consider you can buy a new budget lappy for $500 or even less sometimes.

Thanks for the link, and just my luck as it expired 11/8/2008 LOL. I'll give them a call tomorrow. Its a Inspiron 9400/E1705. Has a NVIDIA Geforce Go 7908 GS card with 256 ram.

Called this morning for them to pick it up and determine the problem. If its a video card, then the cost will be $199, plus they inspect and test very piece of hardware on the laptop. If its the mobo, then I'm looking at $499. Since I consider this a high end laptop, I decided to get it fixed.

One thing that I forgot to mention is the laptop belonged to my son, who went to Iraq with it. Curious to see if they open it up and find sand inside.

seems a little steep but hell, its a laptop, I could always another laptop.

Greg

I'm not sure I understand those prices. The video chip is integrated into the mobo. If it's the video chip they have to replace the mobo anyway.

Also I think $500 is too much. You could buy a new Dell budget laptop for that price.

FlyingPenguin wrote:I'm not sure I understand those prices. The video chip is integrated into the mobo. If it's the video chip they have to replace the mobo anyway.

Also I think $500 is too much. You could buy a new Dell budget laptop for that price.

If it was a budget laptop, then yes, but this laptop when assembled in late 2006 had a lot of upgrades to make it a gaming laptop. My son and I spent ~$1800 for it, so its not a POS budget one.

On the wife's HP Her vid card is seperate from the MB all though it does snap snugly onto a socket on her MB. May be the same with the Dell.

I guess it depends on IF you really plan to use it for modern day ('06ish) video games.
I too bought a high end "gaming laptop" 3-4 yrs ago. At that time, it was rated very high for the price by Tom's, etc. It can easily play the games of its day like Doom3, Quake4 with high res too but to be honest, I rarely use it to play video games anymore, it basically resides in our kitchen and it primarily used for e-mail, playing Pandora (music) and surfing. The two newer low end Dell Vostro 1000's (no longer made) I bought in the last 6 months are probably faster for most things, both have decent video cards that'll allow some games but probably not the newer demanding ones. One of those was new from Dell, came with 2gbs ram and Vista, cost less than $500 (shipped). The other I bought from an Ebay retailer, has 1gb ram, XP for $400 (shipped).
When I play games, I usually use my desktop as it plays anything, the chair is far more confortable and has a large widescreen monitor too with a good sound system.
So, unless you need a true gaming laptop, older at that, I wouldn't spend $500 to fix it. Hopefully it won't be that costly.

If that laptop has a high end GeForce 7 series, it is NOT integrated onto the board. There is no way. It's more than likely a dedicated card which can be taken off on it's own, making it much cheaper to fix than replace the whole motherboard.

GuardianAsher wrote:If that laptop has a high end GeForce 7 series, it is NOT integrated onto the board. There is no way. It's more than likely a dedicated card which can be taken off on it's own, making it much cheaper to fix than replace the whole motherboard.

Which is what I'm thinking since we upgraded the video card when we ordered it. We got the top of the line vid card at the time.