Help! I think my laptop is slowly dying!

[maggot202]

Hello
I'd like to ask a question to the hardware gurus here on doomworld (i'm sure there are plenty).
Last night, i was happily playing Torchlight again, and suddenly my screen crashed, showing all kinds of artifacts. Today i was playing another game and the same thing happened, and then it happened while the pc was at the windows desktop.
I tried to recreate the crash by playing torchlight again, and not five minutes had passed when i saw the crash happen all over again.
Pic 1
Pic 2
Since the crashes happened while some sort of openGL/DirectX app was running, i think is a gpu glitch, but is ther any program that i could use to know for sure?
My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1420, Pentium dual T2390 and the graphics card is a geforce 8400GS.

Thanks in advance!

[Whoo]

Looks like the on-board graphics chip-set is dying (Or overheating), not the actual laptop, especially if it is only happening when running games. I'd recommend cleaning out the vents on your laptop and buying a cooling pad if you haven't already done so.

[Edward850]

Looks like video memory corruption. Either your GPU is overheating, or your VRAM is faulty.
Edit: Opps, didn't see Whoo respond.

[maggot202]

Well, thanks for your answers, guys. I'll see about cleaning the laptop then (something i have never done).
One more thing. I tried running Torchlight in Ubuntu (via wine), and everything went fine for over an hour. Could it be luck, or could be that windows is somehow corrupting my gpu?

[Edward850]

The most notable difference between the two enviroments would be the graphics drivers. So it could still be heating issues (because who knows how long you had it shut off for), or you just need to re-install your graphics drivers in windows. I doubt windows itself could be the issue here.

[Craigs]

This could probably have something to do with it too. Most likely it's what Edward said though. If your computer's running hot for long periods of time, it has a pretty nasty effect on the GPU and can cause that kind of mess.

[Aliotroph?]

If you want to test your hardware all Dell computers come with hardware tests built in. Hold down the Fn key while you turn it on and it will do a load of diagnostics. Then it will probably give you an option to do even more. I don't know if any of them are useful for detecting the kind of artifacting you get from heat issues in a GPU though.

[Maes]

Ouch...I have a Dell laptop too and I haven't been gentle on its GPU (8600M BTW) which I keep using for OpenGL and DirectX gaming, but it never overheated to any abnormal degree, with max reported GPU temp around 60 C, and 45 C for the CPU (T8300 BTW) after a full load. Idling is 5-6 degrees lower than that. That's pretty reasonable even for a high-performance laptop (that ain't your average "Vista Ready" weakling with Intel graphics), and I've seen smaller laptops overhead like crazy doing nothing (I'm using Windows XP BTW, which no matter what they say is still superior in what regards CPU usage).

However, I once got a temporary glitching in the video memory (512 MB dedicated) that got away after a reboot, and that's it. Then again I have a 1720 model (17" screen) so the larger size allows for a better cooling system.

I'm not sure if your model has dedicated VRAM or not. If not, you should memtest the thing and see if you have faults in the upper portions, or, generally, anywhere in your main RAM. For the rest, I concur with the cleanup recommendations.

[maggot202]

Today I opened my laptop, and it was reasonably clean, something that surprised me, since i bought this thing about two years ago or so.
Anyway, the problem got worse, i couldn't even start Windows without the screen crashing, so i tried "Restore system" to a date where the laptop ran fine, and it apparently worked. Now i'm gonna do a gpu stress test and see how it works. Wish me luck.

[Maes]

Not to sound like something you probably heard a 1000 times before, but did you update the chipset and graphics drivers to the latest versions? Also, do you have Dell's latest BIOS (I think it's A09 for both the 14x0 and 17x0 lines)?

You can get the former from Dell, or separately from Intel/nVidia.

[maggot202]

I haven't installed the latest video drivers, but did upgraded the bios some time ago (A09). In the end, i formatted the damned thing, see how it works. Might as well try upgrading the video drivers.

[sirjuddington]

Mine recently did a similar thing, followed by the screen flickering randomly after a restart, followed by it not starting at all. Fun. At least the hard drive should be ok and I can get stuff off it eventually.