Blank Screen on startup

Hi, I have a Dell Inspiron 9400, I think thats the same as an Inspiron E17-- in america (for some reason dell likes to confuse its customers).

Anyway, My screen goes competely blank after the dell logo and windows logo show up on startup. Everything works because I can still log into windows and shut it down using shortcuts and all the normal sounds are played, there is just nothing on the screen.

This actualy started yesterday when I was browsing the internet (using IE) and the screen just started turning on and off about once per second. I powered down the computer and started it up again then the problem started happening.

Also when the dell logo shows right after I turn it on some of the pixels are the wrong colour (Dark Blue I think) instead of black. I'd say about one tenth of the pixels are this colour and they are spaced out in a regular pattern accross the screen. The windows logo displays normally.

Tried several different solutions. When I try to login in safe mode I can but there are also problems. After pressing F8 on startup the comp takes me to the screen where i can select safe mode but the screen is filled with strange writing. Odd symbols like A's with accent marks and stuff like that. The different options for logging into windows are still legible though so i select safe mode. Safe mode works fine except for the differently coloured pixels which are still present on the black desktop.

I tried using system restore but it did nothing.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the graphics driver but it did nothing.

After searching the net for a couple of hours I even tried running the dell diagnostics test and it ran without errors.

Any help would be appreciated. I searched forums for hours, dell support sucks, dell wont let me log into their forum, so any help here would be great. I would prefer not to have to reformat since I have a lot of data that I would lose. Cant back it up anyway cuz I cant log into windows and there is something like 20-30GB that i need so I cant even burn it to DVDs without being there all day burning.


----SPECS----

Inspiron 9400
Windows XP
2GB ram (came with 1GB, bought an extra 1GB)
Core 2 duo processor (1.83GHz i think)
Nvidia GeForce 7900 GS Go 256MB

Cant think of any other specs, if you need them ask

 

What happens if you connect it to an external monitor? It sounds sort of like your graphics card is having problems, but it could be something more on the monitor end of things.

Oh, and It'd probably be a good idea to have your stuff backed up at some point, or at least have the ability to access it from, say, and external enclosure, in the event your OS tanks.

Cheers...

 

I dont have an external monitor to try to connect to because I have 3 laptops at home so i donno what happens.

Im just gonna borrow an external hard drive from someone to copy everything I need but still Id rather not spend two days reformating and reinstalling everything so if anyone can think of anything i havent tried yet it would be appreciated.

 

On second thought I cant reinstall the graphics driver. Halfway through the install the screen goes blank and I cant do anything but power down

Also I dont have an external monitor since I have three laptops at home

 

It could be an actual hardware failure...