I have a Dell Studio XPS 1645 laptop. (Basic configuration: Intel (first generation) Core i7-QM quad core processor @1.6 GHZ, turbo upto 2.8 GHZ, 4 GB RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon 4670 w/ 1GB DDR3) One fine day, doing nothing particular, my screen went all crazy, with all sorts of lines on it, gave me a BSOD that was barely visible, and crashed. And crashed again and again for the next two dozen times on boot. Even the splash screen had those lines. I got some pictures to illustrate, have a look. I later viewed the contents of the BSOD, didn't convey anything in particular. ================================================== Dump File : 031513-50372-01.dmp Crash Time : 15-03-2013 16:49:12 Bug Check String : Bug Check Code : 0x00000116 Parameter 1 : fffffa80`077a7010 Parameter 2 : fffff880`04a9df68 Parameter 3 : 00000000`00000000 Parameter 4 : 00000000`00000002 Caused By Driver : dxgkrnl.sys Caused By Address : dxgkrnl.sys+5d000 File Description : Product Name : Company : File Version : Processor : x64 Crash Address : ntoskrnl.exe+75c40 Stack Address 1 : Stack Address 2 : Stack Address 3 : Computer Name : Full Path : C:\Windows\Minidump\031513-50372-01.dmp Processors Count : 8 Major Version : 15 Minor Version : 7601 Dump File Size : 556,720 ================================================== Subsequent attempts to boot all result in a BSOD, as shown above. I did, however manage to boot in safe mode. Although, it looked like this. Also, when I disabled (and also uninstalled) my ATI graphics card drivers, I could boot normally, but with the crazy lines, so basically, the graphics card is what was causing the BSOD, although the issue still persisted, indicating the cause was something different, possibly the on board graphics processor. Also, I really don't think it's a software issue, since even at the splash screen, the problem persisted. The second image above, the appears when the screen ought to have been blank. And another peculiar fact. After running the diagnostics tool, with the weird lines, on the next boot up, at least from sometime the problem seems to have disappeared. Although, the diagnostics screen looks like this: This problem appeared the first time about a week ago. I did some massive graphics drivers (that time only the ATI one) uninstalling/reinstalling etc. By the time I did this, and ran some integrity check, my computer just powered off during the reboot, but that was because it was really really hot. I let it cool down, and on the next boot it booted just fine, I reinstalled all the drivers, and it ran fine for about a week. And then today it happened again. As I said, after the diagnostics, it runs fine for a while, as it is now, when I'm typing this in. Could anybody tell what the problem might be, and what could be done? Any help would be greatly appreciated. P.S. The on-board graphics cannot be disabled, at least not from the BIOS. No such options exist.
Thanks, Ghostman1, for taking your time out to reply. Yeah, I know that. On top of that, I'm pretty certain it isn't the LCD screen, since it came clean in all the diagnostics it has been through, so far. Also, I doubt that it is the video driver either, since, as you can see, even in the splash screen (I don't think any of the drivers are loaded then), it's glitchy. And disabling the ATI Video card doesn't solve the problem either, so I don't think it's *that* video card at issue, by process of elimination I think it's the onboard video card at fault. The problem is, this is just my guess, there is no certain way of confirming this. Are there any drivers for onboard video cards? Also, do there exist any diagnostic tools (not benchmarking tools) to analyse the root cause of the issue such that the issue would show up? The problem here, this is an on-off thing, sometimes it's there, sometimes it isn't; this intermittent behaviour is all the more annoying. Any way to first put a finger on the root cause, then the solution?
Have you hooked up an external monitor yet ? Does it do this in the Bio's ? Has this laptop ever been dropped ? Onboard video take just the right driver as a card does. If you have the wrong video driver , rather it is onboard or a card, it will not work right.. I would hook up an external monitor to see what that does. It can also be the Motherboard..
