video card/driver problems

[chrismacf]

So basically, I was playing gta san andreas on my laptop when it froze suddenly.

I restarted the computer and now it has red lines running across the screen.

http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=130120081804gb9.jpg

After it reaches the boot screen some yellow lines appear on the screen.

http://img99.imageshack.us/my.php?image=130120081806mz8.jpg

Then the screen switches off completely but windows still loads up ok while the screen is off.

I can't get anywhere past the boot screen so I tried reinstalling windows which worked but I was left with the same red lines across the screen I had before and there were now small blue lines on the wallpaper once windows loaded up.

When I tried to install the video driver after i'd installed windows again (I tried it with the dell driver from their website and modded driver 84.25 from laptopvideo2go) it would install ok but the next time I reboot I see those yellow lines again for a second and the screen switches off completely.

At the moment I've got windows installed on two separate partitions, one which works fine without any video driver installed but I can't play games, just use the net & play music etc. The other I made to try different drivers & figuree out the problem but those yellow lines come up each time & I end up reinstalling windows again but now I have no idea what to do next, can someone help??

My laptop is a Dell xps m170

2.13GHz pentium 4

Geforce 6800 Go Ultra graphics card

And I'm running xp home edition.

Hope that makes some sence, thanks

[Bill]

I'm pretty sure your graphics card is hosed. (overheated probably, VRAM probably fried)

But before you get a new one, try cleaning it out, running the dell diagnostic testing partition (do the extended test, so you can see what all might be broken, press F12 on boot up), and try an external monitor just to see what happens.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/syst...o.htm#wp1006368

After cleaning everything out and re-seating the card you will know how hard it is to replace it. It is a simple replacement process requiring only 1 phillups screwdriver, and maybe a flathead to pry the "center control cover" off.

Once you get the card out you can clean the heat sinks on it, and the fans.

Might get better diagnostic results after you clean everything out.

Depending on what Dell will charge you for the new card (or its ebay price) you might want to sell the laptop piece by piece and get something with a better cooling system.

[chrismacf]

hi, I ran diagnostics everything passed fine, when I plugged an external monitor into the laptop I could still see the lines across the screen. I took the video card & heatsinks out and they were pretty clogged up with dust so I suppose that must be how the video card ended fried like you said. Nothing really changed after I cleaned fans & heatsinks anyway, the drivers still aren't working. I don't have enough money to buy a new laptop at the moment so I've been looking for a replacement card although I can't find any places selling the same card as mine online.

Would this be ok?

http://cgi.ebay.com/NVIDIA-GeForce-Go-7800...1QQcmdZViewItem

thanks for the help

[Bill]

That will work, but the failure rate for that might be higher. (is much faster though)

That is why you might want to consider selling all those parts off separately and buying a new laptop.