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Multicolored pixels onscreen then crash and failed reboot with HD4670

1K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  Tyree 
#1 ·
Recently I've been having some problems with my family's 2008 Dell Studio XPS 435mt. Multicolored pixels and lines will sometimes occupy the screen at random times during normal use and will always occur when I try to launch a game, followed by a system crash.

When it attempts to reboot, it gets to the bios screen and the problem appears again as soon as the Dell logo flashes on the screen. The screen then goes black and the computer sometimes attempts to boot again, but most of the time just idles and the screen goes into power save mode.

This problem disappeared for a few days and then reappeared. I'm not sure of the exact system specs, but it's running Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit SP2 with:
ATI Radeon HD4670
Quad core Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
6 GB Ram

I learned that the graphics card was replaced under warranty less than two years after we bought the computer when the same problem occurred.

So what's my first course of action? Do I need to replace my graphics card? Thanks in advance.
 
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#2 ·
Welcome to TSF!

That reads like a graphics RAM failure, possibly from weak solder contacts which might be down to overheating. It's quite possible that it's a common fault with a certain batch from the manufacturer.

A possible short term fix would be to 'reflow' it, effectively heating the stripped down card to the correct temperature for a few minutes to allow the solder to soften and flow back across any bad joints. If successful, this should give you a working graphics card for several months but results can be variable.

Better modern graphics cards to replace this would be the HD7750 ($90+) or GTX 750 (from ~$120), both should draw slightly less power than the 4670 and are faster.
 
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