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Vostro 1500 artifacts


Michal

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Hello there!

Every morning when I’m turning on my notebook I need to do it twice, because for the first time, after windows boot up, the screen shows white and black vertical lines instead of showing the desktop. Then, I’m making restart and when the laptop is turning on for the second time, the artifacts are gone and there is no problem. I was trying many different drivers version from nVidia including those from www.dell.com, 163x.xx, 165.xx, 101.xx and in each version the problem is the same. As I said before, the artifacts appears only for the first time when the computer is turned on after 2-3 hours of time when it’s turned off. Then, I can play the newest games for many hours and everything is fine. So the question is, why it’s not ok when I’m turning it on for the first time? Some friend of mine told me, that this is some hardware issue and I strongly believe it, because I was talking to other dell vostro 1500 users and they are using the same drivers as me and don’t have any problems like I do. The second important thing is that when there are no drivers installed in the system everything is fine. But it doesn’t mean, that this is the software or drivers problem, because the drivers are responsible for such hardware support like acceleration and when the drivers are not installed some functions of GPU are not working and the screen is ok, but when I install any drivers those hardware components like acceleration or physic calculations are working and making some mistakes and in result it makes artifacts. I was reinstalling the operating system many times and I was trying with many drivers and the problem is not solved, so I’m 100% sure, that this is the graphic card problem.

Please check this with attention and remember, that when you install any drivers and restart the notebook everything will be fine. You need to wait for about 2-3 hours and you’ll see, that the problem is not gone.

What is going on?

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I have the same problem with you man, every time after 2-3hours turned off. the screen crashed when i log in to vista. If you turn off the vista aero, it runs ok. If u are using Win Xp, there's no problem too at start up but it crashes when u try to run some 3D program. The problem actually is u can't run any graphic hardware acceleration at the first time u start up after a few hours turned off. I'm using 163.69 forceware. I think this is an driver error and still waiting for another version to fix this bug. My laptop is dell vostro 1500 T7500 2.2Ghz, RAM 2GB, VGA 8600M GT, HDD 120, Vista Ultimate 32bit

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How do you know that it is drivers problem? I was talking to some people and they have the same drivers and no problems... I think it is hardware problem...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Maybe you are right, some people with the same forceware version don't have this error. But they have bios version A01, i'm having A00 now. As I read in some forum, they said that this may be a bios error with dell vostro 1500 which have a 8600M GT. I'm waiting for dell website to update now, they have A03 for vostro 1400 but still A00 for 1500, but some vostro 1500 have been delivered with version A01 nowadays. The fastest way to test whether this is an error caused by bios is to ask someone helping us to share a bios copy of version A01 for vostro 1500. But i don't know how to back up and to flash the new bios version with which program.

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I really hope that it is bios error, but it's very strange problem. Why the artifacts appears only for the first booting windows? Why for the second time everything is ok? Mayby it has something to do with worming up?

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I see you in all topic on dell vostro 1500 and 8600M GT lol ^_^. If dell told you it's the bios error, we can believe so. Maybe the bios can't not control or understand the VGA card well at the first time it starts. Nowadays my laptop doesn't crash the way it used to, just crashes in a total black screen at the first time starting up with no color, no lines like one month ago.

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In my case it's different, sometimes black screen (as in your vostro) and sometimes vertical multicolor lines. Dell didn't tell me that new bios will fix the problem, it's only what I hope, but my pretty huge experience with computeres is telling be that it is impossible that this is bios error and it's rather hardware issue. Still waiting...

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Dell haven't replied my email yet, which I asked them whether the new bios can solve the problem. Maybe i need to request again. Are you from the US, why don't you just make a phone call to them. The fastest way to test if the new bios works is to ask someone who have the bios A01 to use a bios back up program to copy their bios then upload to it to a website such as megaupload, then send us a link. We will use that program too to back up our bios for the worst situation if it happen and then we flash the bios A01 to our laptops.

.

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I'm not from US, I'm from Poland and I have the same problem as U with taxas etc...

I don't know if someone can backup his A01 bios, we can ask someone to do that, but do you know someone?

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I have send dell the third email to ask about whether I need to send it back to the US. If there's no reply in next few day I will ask my friend in the US to ask them about this. He's vietnamese too so sure he can understand me fully and explain to dell what happens with our laptops. The solution to update bios manually is extremely complicated. People who owns a A01 bios must download bios updated software (ours are pheonix bios, need to download awdflash.exe) then extract it to a bootable floppy with DOS (which can only be created in win 98,ME,NT only) or a bootable CD with DOS too. Change the first boot device to floppy or CD rom depending on which kind of disk u use. They must type this command after boot with the disk to copy their bios for us "awdflash a:backup.bin /sy /pn". Then we do the same copy the program to a bootable disk with dos and REMEMBER to copy the new bios they provide ( often *.bin or *.com) to the disk. Boot from that disk and type the command "Awdflash *.bin or *.com" (*.bin or *.com is the name of the bios A01 we have). The program will ask to back up our bios then upgrade then it restart the computer. U can see more detail as the follow link http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/41 this introduce generally about how to back up bios, link to down software to upgrade bios. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/33/6 this post contained 7 pages, but the page 6 is our situation because our bios do not have embedded upgrade software, this link also provides Dos image to create a bootable disk with Dos if we don't have win 98,ME,or NT. But as they said if the bios update fails the mainboard will die and surely we need to send them back to the US lol. They just talk about floppy or CD room, Is it work on USB flash drive?.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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