Dell 5150 Screen Blanks Out

I have had my Dell 5150 for about 6 months. Recently, the screen will just totally blank out to black as if the screen saver is kicking in during use. It lasts for about 2 seconds and then comes back.

I'm a minimalist and don't run a bunch of crap, just XP Pro, Outlook, Anti-Virus, and a browser. In addition, I have a Gig of RAM so I can't imagine I'm overtasking anything.

Any suggestions?


Sean Clouse

 

Try connecting it to an external monitor...if it does the same thing with an external then it might be a video card issue.

Another suggestions, in any of your power settings, do you have the monitor shutting down at all?

Otherwise you may have a bad LCD or the bad connector from the LCD to the video card.

 

It doesn't happen when I have an external monitor plugged in (which is how I work for 8hrs/day at the office).

As for power settings, I have them all set to Never when plugged in and this is happening when I'm plugged in as well as on battery. (I have it set to turn the monitor off after 30 Min of inactivity when on Battery but I never reach that point so it shouldn't be a factor)

I'll keep an eye out for other factors.

I have read the complaints about the heat generated by the 5150's. Obviously that could be a factor but how would you prove it? If this goes on much longer, should I look to Dell to have them do anything or is that like pissing in the wind?

Sean Clouse

 

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/
Download this. Set it to run all the time (observer mode, so you don't screw with the fan settings) and work like normal. When the monitor flickers, check the temperature log. If it is over 90 degrees at the time of the flicker, the heat may be what is causing it.

 

Thanks! Guys like you amaze me... [ ]

Sean Clouse

 

Did it work?

 

I have installed the Fan monitoring software. The heat is running in the low 40's and has only gotten above 50C once. The screen has worked fine but the temp hasn't gotten high enough to force the condition.

I will keep a good eye on it all day tomorrow. Thank you for keeping up on this with me.

Sean Clouse

 

Did you change any fan settings? If you did, put it in observer mode and see if it goes back up.

 

I had not set it to observer mode, sorry. I just set it now.

It's been running a consistent 40-42C today so far, but I'm running external monitor which I don't ever remember having a problem with.

I will shut down, remove the ext monitor, and bring the system up in battery mode for the morning and see what happens.

Thank you for keeping up on this! I think you're more concerned than I am [ ]

Sean Clouse

 

I am almost 1 hour into the battery usage and no external monitor use and have had no glitch yet. Temps are staying at 40C.

I'll keep you posted.

Sean Clouse

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by sclouse

 

At 2:40PM, after 5 hours of running and no temperature spikes over 52C, the screen went blank for 2 seconds and came right back. I was on the phone and wasn't touching the keyboard or mouse.

I had allowed the battery to run down to 3% and, at 12:30PM, had plugged power back in. It is possible that the battery reached 100% charge at 2:40PM, but I don't know that to be the case.

OK. Is this even more strange now?

Sean Clouse

 

Make sure that is the GPU heat, not the CPU. If it is, then heat is not the problem. Mine runs at about 75 degrees celcius.
I discharged about 2% from my 8600 and let it charge back up. Nothing unusual happenned. It may be the power management settings. Right-click on the plug icon in the lower-left, go to power properties and set everything to "never". see if that fixes anything.
If that doesn't work, update your drivers. The most up-to-date ones are the omega drivers at www.omegadrivers.com

 

I'm pretty sure the 5150's are cool (my desktop fx 5200 doesn't even have a fan) so that is probably not the issue. Try the other solutions. Is it really bugging you, or are you just afraid something bigger might be wrong?

 

Sorry, I didn't understand that you wanted GPU Temp... I've been monitoring CPU temp which was the standard install.

I tried to set it to read GPU but I got a warning that my BIOS did not support it. Looking at the online manual, I read:

><><><
Read CPU/GPU/DIMM/other temperature

Enables the temperature reading from the corresponding sensors. The program does not talk to the sensor chip on the motherboard directly, instead, it tries to read the temperatures through a diagnostics interface which is provided by the BIOS. That's why this depends on the BIOS version. Some BIOS versions support reading certain sensors, others don't. As mentioned above, this also depends heavily on your notebook model.

The program automatically disables the GPU/DIMM/other temperature reading if it detects a BIOS version change (that means, if you flashed to a newer or a previous BIOS version). In this case you have to reenable the reading options to see if they still work with the newer/older BIOS version.
><><><

So it looks like I'm going to need to get my Sys Admin involved because I'm not 'smart enough' to tackle that without screwing something up.

This conversation may need to park for a few days until I see him next.

Thanks again. I'll keep in touch.

Sean Clouse

 

I'm not really bothered too much. My big concern is that there is a bigger issue that will manifest itself later if I ignore the symptom. And that day will come 3 days after the warranty is out.

I spent way more on this laptop than I needed so I could dual boot it as an Oracle 10g Server/Web Server to run our ASP application at trade shows and training sessions, so I'm more concerned than I would be if it were just my PC.

This has all been great help and I now have direction for my Sys Admin to take the ball and run. I feel at this point that I should quit taking your time and do a little in-house work. Once we have put some time in on it, I can let you know the results and, if necessary, pick the topic back up in a few weeks.

Thank you so much for all of your help!!! [ ]

Sean Clouse

 

Good luck, I hope it works out for you.[ ]

Completed mods:
GPU cooling (100°C->75°C)
Mods in progress:
8600c to 8600 keyboard swap (to get the eraser head).
Tweaks: Radeon 9600 pro (337/242) at 400/300
~TWEEK

 

My Dell Inspiron 5150's screen recently stopped working entirely. I tried to boot up the computer one day and the screen didn't do anything. I have tried to hook up an external monitor and have failed. The computer sounds as if it is on and is booting up. Any solutions?