Problem with laptop display

Hi Guys,

I have a Dell XPS 1210 which is fairly high spec and for the last year and a bit until a couple of weeks ago, it has been running perfectly.

Now, i am having problems with my display. I very occasionally get a blue screen of death mentioning something about nv4_disp.dll which i figure is an issue with my display driver. My video card is a nVida GeForce 7400 and im using Windows Media Centre Edition (my PC was licensed for Vista, but i opted for XP Media Centre edition.

The blue screen is not what bothers me - i get it once ever 1-2 months.... i.e its so few that its not my m ain concern. My main concern is that now, my display is (i dont how im going to describe this, but it's like it's) twitching or jittering .... Imagine you're watching television on a crappy antena and the screen is sort of fuzzy... thats kinda like what is happening to my display now. Also, if im on a web page and i scroll down semi-fast, the fonts will go all bold and unreadable for about 20 or 30secs after i stop scrolling until it goes back to normal (but the fuzzy display is constant always).

Sometimes it goes away and the display is normal for a few days and then the problem comes back... it's on and off like that. Before a few weeks, i had never seen this problem before.. never dropped my laptop or anything like that.

I've used the dell diagnostics cd and done an extensive test of my whole system - everything reports that it is working fine. I've checked the dell website for an updated version of my driver but mine is the most updated one. Also, when i boot up my pc - the fonts before it gets into windows such as my bios version text etc looks different to how it normally would - thats how i know that when my pc boots up, the display will be fuzzy. For some reason, i seem to think it's an issue with the LCD itself, but i dont have an external monitor which i can connect to my laptop to test my theory.

Do you guys have any idea of what i can do to try and fix this problem?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks
K

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Comments

dynamik

That sounds like a hardware problem since you're experiencing problems outside of Windows. If you want to test if it's the OS, you could do something like download the Ubuntu Live CD and boot off of that to see how it works in Linux.

Is this still under warranty? If so, your best bet would be to ship it off to them and let them take a look at it. Otherwise, you may want to crack it open and make sure the connections are securely fastened. That'll probably void your warranty if you still have it.

That's weird behavior for an LCD, so you might want to consider that your video card is the culprit as well. When I've seen LCDs go, it's usually something like the back light, and the screen simply goes black. What you're describing seems to be a problem with the signal the LCD is receiving (this is just speculation).

scheistermeister

I agree with the hardware problem. I recently had twitching like you are describing (only when I cut and pasted a video file BTW) and it turned out I had a blown cap on the video card.

tiersten

Video chipset/card is on its way out IMO. Send it back to Dell to be repaired.

mrjawbones

I agree also, sounds hardware related to me. If it is still under warranty, call Dell and open up a case on it. If you're not sure if it is still under warranty, have your service tag handy and go here to check status:

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/details?c=us&l=en&s=gen

Khattab

Hi,

No longer under warranty i'm afraid... i'm also overseas at the moment and we dont have any Dell service centre's anywhere close by.

If its the video card/chipset - how difficult is it to fix and is it something i can do myself? (most of my experience has been with PC's but i've pulled apart a couple of laptops also).

Is it hard to find a replacement part?

Thanks,
K

tiersten

Khattab wrote:

If its the video card/chipset - how difficult is it to fix and is it something i can do myself? (most of my experience has been with PC's but i've pulled apart a couple of laptops also).

Depends on the model of the laptop. Some have the video chipset actually built into the motherboard and others have it as a proprietary card. If it is the motherboard then you're stuck.

eBay or seeing if Dell Spares stock the part and is willing to sell to you direct is your best bet.

undomiel

If memory serves if it is nVidia on a 1210 then it would be an add-on card in which case you can purchase one from Dell's spare parts. It's not too difficult to replace, just lots of screws.