Vostro 3450 static screen

Hello fellow Dell owners,

I apologize if something like this has been posted before but I don't even know what to call this issue, so I will include some pictures. My Vostro 3450 will occasionally let out a troubling beep, although, I don't know what to make of it. However, on a few occasions over the past number of months, I have found that after a sudden movement the beep will occur and the screen will turn into a multicolor static. When this happens the computer is entirely unresponsive and I can't use the keyboard, instant launch buttons (I have one set to turn off the screen), close the lid to hibernate, or short press the power button. What does work is long pressing the power button to shut down the laptop. Afterwords, I can restart the computer as if nothing has happened.

Has anyone else here experienced something like this? Does anyone else know what this might be? I am still under warranty but Dell tech support could only guess what the issue was (and having me manually shake the notebook didn't recreate the problem...), so I worry that I will needlessly end up with replaced refurbished parts. If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Does your HDD or motherboard include the shock sensor? If so it might be a faulty sensor, or may even be a bad driver for the sensor, (assuming you have windows installed as the os). Check the device manager tree if there and exclamation points for any devices and if so update the drivers and try. Mine does it on a sudden shock but comes back immediately (no static screen) and the fan runs fast for a while. What exactly did dell techs say to you?

Also disable the quick launch button set to blank the screen and try. That too can be interfering with the shock sensor.

 

Hey os10, thanks for the advice. I am not sure how to check the hardware for a shock sensor (I couldn't find any evidence of one in my original invoice and don't know if this is a feature of the Dell 0YW3P2 or Seagate ST9500420AS). However, it did come with a (Windows) preinstalled "AccelerometerP11" which I can only assume has is related to this sort of function. Your explanation would make sense in that the problem seems to only occur in reaction to sudden movements and not to more general shakes which I performed for Dell tech. No sign of any exclamation marks in the device manager, though. I could try changing the Instant Launch function, although, the problem only seems to occur when the screen is already on.

Tech support had me boot into their diagnostic screen which showed no problems. After having me reinstall the Intel HD Graphics driver, which we couldn't test, she said they would send a new HDD and motherboard - which she believed to likely be at fault. While replacing most parts is not big deal, swapping the hard drive will be a much bigger pain. I kind of wish the on-site tech could be doing the diagnostics and not someone over the phone.