The Dell Tech Supervisor was suppossed to call me over an hour ago so I thought I would add my experience with this. Just spent the last 6-7 hours researching this problem and communicating back and forth on Dell Tech Chat Support which has been less than helpful...seemed at times I knew more than they did perhaps from Popey's post.
How it all started:
Using my Dell Inspiron E1705 to view a photo slideshow. Screen flashed for a second and then went black but was still illuminated if you looked closely at it.
Tried the usual reboot a few times and nothing. The system start up appeared to go ok but you could see green/yellowish lines running down the screen. After the system was rebooted with drivers the screen went black as described above. Don't waste your time doing a system restore because this will not work to resolve this issue.
Got on to another laptop and researched this problem.
Utilzed Dell Chat Tech support for several hours back and forth and what was most frustrating was that the chat sessions would end abruptly with out my case being resolved.
Dell will tell you that if you update your BIOS and complete a unistall/reinstall of the NVIDIA GE FORCE GO 7900GT that this will solve the problem. Based on hours of researching this online in numerous forums this NEVER resolves the issue.
The only way I could go online with the laptop was to turn off computer and to start it in SAFE MODE by pressing F8 repeatedly as you powered on the laptop. In SAFE MODE I was able to disable the video card which allowed me to go online with the laptop and I had all functions with the exception of the horrible screen resolution caused by disabling the video card.
I did an uninstall/reinstall of the 7900GT and as soon as the reinstall completed and the video card driver was installed the screen went black yet again. Dell Tech Support kept wanting to "flash" and update my BIOS which I kept teling them that I had the latest update on the BIOS which was A09 (06/27/07)
After MANY hours of Dell Tech Support via chat and all of the sudden abrupt chat disconnects where I had to start all over again explaining this, NOTHING WAS RESOLVED STIL.
So the Dell Tech Rep told me to run a special hardware/harddrive diagnostic test. To run this you hold down the Fn key while you power up your piece of crap Dell Laptop. I was told that this would take 15-20 mins and that the Dell tech Rep's supervisor would call me on my phone to discuss this problem further...STILL waiting for the call. After the roughly 15-20 mins of running this test the test stated that everything seemed ok and that I had the option of running a more extensive test which would require another 20-30 mins to run. Since the Dell tech Supervisor had not followed through on what was promised I elected to run this more extensive test..still nothing wrong according to the test.
I told Dell from the start to send an engineer to my house to fix it and to bring a new video card and motherboard since it is integrated. So here I am still waiting for the phone call when I need my laptop urgently for work. They promised a call in 15-20 mins by the supervisor and they failed to deliver.
I am so glad that I found this post because the way popey described it in detail made me realize that this was a much bigger issue than a simple BOIS update or uninstall/reinstall of the video driver.
Based on all of these comments to this post it is VERY CLEAR that DELL has serious issues with this happening to not only XPS systems but also to INSPIRON laptop as well.
Can you say class action lawsuit against Dell?
Here I am still waiting for Dell to call as promised!!
Thank Goodness I Found This Post - Dell Inspiron E1705
The Dell Tech Supervisor was suppossed to call me over an hour ago so I thought I would add my experience with this. Just spent the last 6-7 hours researching this problem and communicating back and forth on Dell Tech Chat Support which has been less than helpful...seemed at times I knew more than they did perhaps from Popey's post.
How it all started:
Using my Dell Inspiron E1705 to view a photo slideshow. Screen flashed for a second and then went black but was still illuminated if you looked closely at it.
Tried the usual reboot a few times and nothing. The system start up appeared to go ok but you could see green/yellowish lines running down the screen. After the system was rebooted with drivers the screen went black as described above. Don't waste your time doing a system restore because this will not work to resolve this issue.
Got on to another laptop and researched this problem.
Utilzed Dell Chat Tech support for several hours back and forth and what was most frustrating was that the chat sessions would end abruptly with out my case being resolved.
Dell will tell you that if you update your BIOS and complete a unistall/reinstall of the NVIDIA GE FORCE GO 7900GT that this will solve the problem. Based on hours of researching this online in numerous forums this NEVER resolves the issue.
The only way I could go online with the laptop was to turn off computer and to start it in SAFE MODE by pressing F8 repeatedly as you powered on the laptop. In SAFE MODE I was able to disable the video card which allowed me to go online with the laptop and I had all functions with the exception of the horrible screen resolution caused by disabling the video card.
I did an uninstall/reinstall of the 7900GT and as soon as the reinstall completed and the video card driver was installed the screen went black yet again. Dell Tech Support kept wanting to "flash" and update my BIOS which I kept teling them that I had the latest update on the BIOS which was A09 (06/27/07)
After MANY hours of Dell Tech Support via chat and all of the sudden abrupt chat disconnects where I had to start all over again explaining this, NOTHING WAS RESOLVED STIL.
So the Dell Tech Rep told me to run a special hardware/harddrive diagnostic test. To run this you hold down the Fn key while you power up your piece of crap Dell Laptop. I was told that this would take 15-20 mins and that the Dell tech Rep's supervisor would call me on my phone to discuss this problem further...STILL waiting for the call. After the roughly 15-20 mins of running this test the test stated that everything seemed ok and that I had the option of running a more extensive test which would require another 20-30 mins to run. Since the Dell tech Supervisor had not followed through on what was promised I elected to run this more extensive test..still nothing wrong according to the test.
I told Dell from the start to send an engineer to my house to fix it and to bring a new video card and motherboard since it is integrated. So here I am still waiting for the phone call when I need my laptop urgently for work. They promised a call in 15-20 mins by the supervisor and they failed to deliver.
I am so glad that I found this post because the way popey described it in detail made me realize that this was a much bigger issue than a simple BOIS update or uninstall/reinstall of the video driver.
Based on all of these comments to this post it is VERY CLEAR that DELL has serious issues with this happening to not only XPS systems but also to INSPIRON laptop as well.
Can you say class action lawsuit against Dell?
Here I am still waiting for Dell to call as promised!!
Thank you again for such a detailed post.