GPU issue?

I booted up my M11x R2 today, and i was greeted with an "snowy" green loading screen. Booted to the dekstop, and it's the same. Black shows up as green, white shows up as pink... It looks inverted, and everything's snowy like the white noise you get on a blank TV channel.

I clicked the start menu, and everything went back to normal. It was then fine for the next hour until it suddenly went back to being inverted and snowy again.

I rebooted and did a diagnostic test, everything's fine. I booted back into Windows, and everything's fine. It wasn't overheating cos i checked temp and the Mobo was @ 62, CPU @ 50.

Is this just something that happens, or am i looking at the first signs of a dying GPU?

//Edit: After typing this i closed my laptop lid for 20 seconds, opened it again and now everything's inverted. Time for ANOTHER reboot >_>

 

Sounds like a display (or display connector cable) issue to me.

All of the screens that you mentioned (POST, Windows loading, desktop, etc) happens with the Intel Integrated GPU, which is located on the CPU package. It is not a separate chip. And it is highly unlikely that the Intel GPU itself is defective. It is far more likely that one of the connections between that GPU and your display is defective.

In any case, call Dell. Whatever the problem is, it will only be solved by some kind of hardware replacement / repair.

 

I sure hope not, because it's only less than a month old now.

Well i did call up Dell support and they had no idea, but because it happens straight from POST it is more probably the Integrated chip like you mentioned. I haven't been able to re-create the issue since then, but i did a uninstall, sweep, and fresh install of the new drivers. So far so good, fingers crossed that this fixed it.

 

i think i have seen option for inverted colors in intel graphics menu thing. They have quick-keys for strangest stuff, at least on my lil asus. Maybe you hit some 2 keys without noticing. i think it was ctrl+shift+some key or something.

 

Nope, definitely not.

Only some colors were inverted, the screen was snowy like the white noise on your television, and it happened straight from POST; before the drivers or shortcut software have even been loaded.

 

It's happening again right now, here's a picture of my screen:



and here is a screenshot of my desktop:

 

again, since you reloaded the software and it works fine its probably just drivers or windows, if it was like that with bios screen at startup - it is definitely hardware.

run a graphics/CPU stress test for a few hours straight, if nothing happens you should be water proof

MSI kombustor easiest and best for graphics i suppose,
i use AIDA64(been Everest before) for CPU/RAM test.

also you might want to open and check if the RAM is well in there.

Also, after reading your edit, it might be drivers or settings, as my R3 does behave strangely when on using Nvidia chip like in game and closing the screen, it does flicker after opening.

Again, try a factory reset, update intel and nvidia drivers and run a stress test for CPU and GPU alike for a few hours.

It is hard to help as there isn't much to go on with.

To rule out the cables connection, when it happens it should go back to normal if you would adjust angle of the screen, move it around a bit etc. as even if the signal doesn't reach the monitor video card still sends it.

EDIT: it does not look like a hardware issue, as everything would be messed up. Do a clean windows install as drivers are most likely messed up or something like that. This what i would do at least.

 

Well i completely wiped the old drivers and put on the new ones from the Dell site, but no change. I haven't dropped it or anything, i haven't uninstalled or installed anything recently either - the only thing i did was install UT3 2 days ago, which also included Ageia PhysX & OpenAL. but this issue only started this morning.

It will sometimes change colors for like 5-10 seconds and then switch back again. Moving or flexing the screen does nothing.

My issue is that although it looks like a cable/screen problem, it doesn't affect EVERYTHING; The Task bar & program icons & certain other things seem unaffected.

I really do not want to do a factory restore because i just got this running the way i want it, I'm going to leave that as a last resort if nothing else fixes it, if that doesn't fix it either then i guess it's time for a Dell repair.

//Edit: It happened again so i decided to load up UT3. Once the game starts up, the screen goes back to normal. As soon as i close the game and the integrated GPU takes over, it goes back to being all messed up.

 

get em from intel and nvidia sites. It would be a weird graphics card issue though.

 

It happens straight from POST, that alone rules out a driver issue because the drivers haven't been loaded yet. The 335M isn't being used yet either, so it's almost definitely an issue with my integrated GPU.

//Edit: this is my POST screen, even before the drivers have loaded:

 

yeah call up dell to get a replacement. i thought it only happened when OS was loaded up. definitely the intel graphics card then. mighty weird issue though, affecting only some colors.