Dell Inspiron 1420 display issues.

I'm working with an inspiron 1420 which won't display anything on the screen. I connected it to a monitor and am able to see the dell media home loading screen, shortly after I get a BSOD for nv4_disp getting stuck in an infinite loop.

I attempted to get into safe mode, and while displaying the safe mode options, the entire screen is covered in ||||||'s. Selecting safe mode results in another BSOD with just a STOP error.

I suspect the main board, but I wanted to get a second opinion before ordering the part. It's out of warranty, and the guy wants to get it back up and running as a spare.

 

Hit F2 as it's booting to enter the bios,navigate the bios and check for artifacts such as the lines,check all the fans are running,clean out all the fans.

Nothing is displayed on the screen at all,it stays black at all times?

Try unhooking the screen first it may have died which could be causing the BSOD then try to boot,this can be a pretty big job,so can changing a motherboard on a laptop,if you haven't done it before your in for a treat:-D

 

Ok, I removed the display, was able to load into windows a time or two, but noticed it would lock up if the screensaver came up. So I loaded up an app to check temperatures and the CPU was sitting around 80-90c on load, and the GPU is sitting around 77c, according to Speedfan. I removed the thermal cooler and got all the dust out, turned it back on, and the CPU is sitting at a much more comfortable ~50c on load.

System still crashed, before I was able to see the GPU temperature again. I'm starting to believe it is the GPU gone bad, as a little looking around about the exact chipset shows me that this is a bug with the 8400m gs gpu.

I'll have to call the owner back and find out exactly when he bought it to figure out if I can get the board replaced under their extended warranty plan for this issue. ( http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/...ment-to-all-affected-customers-worldwide.aspx )

Thanks for the help.

 

This is Vista. I'm pretty sure it's not a drivers issue as signs of a problem are apparent @ the Dell post screen. I spent some time on the phone with Dell after determining his laptop would still be under warranty if extended due to the issue I posted a link about. They agreed, and I have a box coming this way to send it in for board replacement, I'm hoping the replacement board has Intel on-board graphics rather than Nvidia, and it was noted on the work order.

Thanks for the helpful replies.. laptops have always intimidating me for some reason, I guess because they aren't as easy to tear down as a desktop.

If anyone else has one of these laptop models:

Dell Precision M2300
Latitude D630
Vostro Notebook 1400
Dell Precision M4300
Latitude D630c
Vostro Notebook 1510
Dell Precision M65
Latitude D820
Vostro Notebook 1710
Inspiron 1420
Latitude D830
XPS M1330
Latitude D620
Vostro Notebook 1310
XPS M1530

And is experiencing any of these problems:

* Multiple images
* Random characters on the screen
* Lines on the screen
* No video

I would definitely get in contact with Dell to see if you are still covered by the 12-month warranty extension.

Here's the last update on the issue from Dell that I could find, where all the information is available, I hope it helps someone else out as it did me.