Dell Inspiron 8500 Video Trouble

J15BIG · 10-09-2009, 12:53 PM

I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 that was brought to me by a friend. The system wouldn't turn on. I took out the battery and replaced the ram. The computer started up but it had some weird video artifacts during the POST screen. However once you get into windows, everything is fine. I took out the new ram, and put back in the old ram. Now it starts up fine, but I still get that weird video artifact during POST. I ran PC Doctor on all the components, and everything passed. I also ran a separate mem test on the original ram and it checked out. It seems when the computer is warm, that I don't get the artifacts at the start.

So, what could be wrong? Could the cable from the lcd to the motherboard be loose? Could the video card be dying? Or maybe the LCD screen is dying? How can I tell if the video card is built onto the motherboard if it can be replaced?

Thanks a million!

J15BIG · 10-09-2009, 01:24 PM

Update:
I took the "central control cover" (as dell likes to call it lol) off and checked the lcd connection, it was seated firmly in there so thats not the issue.

Update#2:
Ok so now I'm confused. The computer stopped booting up, the power light would go on when I pressed the power button but I got a blank screen and nothing on the external display I had hooked up. So I replaced the ram again and got it to turn on and boot up until the win xp splash screen, but thats as far as it went. After that point, the screen went dead.
So now I'm thinking the ram IS bad even though the mem test found no errors. But there is most definitely something else wrong with the computer. At one point it blue screened on me.
Could the ram be bad even though it passed the mem test?
I think that the video card and/or display is also going bad.
Ugh this is confusing.

10-09-2009, 12:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
J15BIG Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 16 OS: WinXP	Dell Inspiron 8500 Video Trouble I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 that was brought to me by a friend. The system wouldn't turn on. I took out the battery and replaced the ram. The computer started up but it had some weird video artifacts during the POST screen. However once you get into windows, everything is fine. I took out the new ram, and put back in the old ram. Now it starts up fine, but I still get that weird video artifact during POST. I ran PC Doctor on all the components, and everything passed. I also ran a separate mem test on the original ram and it checked out. It seems when the computer is warm, that I don't get the artifacts at the start. So, what could be wrong? Could the cable from the lcd to the motherboard be loose? Could the video card be dying? Or maybe the LCD screen is dying? How can I tell if the video card is built onto the motherboard if it can be replaced? Thanks a million!

10-09-2009, 01:24 PM	#2 (permalink)
J15BIG Registered User Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 16 OS: WinXP	Re: Dell Inspiron 8500 Video Trouble Update: I took the "central control cover" (as dell likes to call it lol) off and checked the lcd connection, it was seated firmly in there so thats not the issue. Update#2: Ok so now I'm confused. The computer stopped booting up, the power light would go on when I pressed the power button but I got a blank screen and nothing on the external display I had hooked up. So I replaced the ram again and got it to turn on and boot up until the win xp splash screen, but thats as far as it went. After that point, the screen went dead. So now I'm thinking the ram IS bad even though the mem test found no errors. But there is most definitely something else wrong with the computer. At one point it blue screened on me. Could the ram be bad even though it passed the mem test? I think that the video card and/or display is also going bad. Ugh this is confusing. Last edited by J15BIG; 10-09-2009 at 01:51 PM.