Dell Inspiron 15R, ATI GPU, vertical bars and heat...

icornish_02

Honorable
Jan 6, 2013
2
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10,510
Hi,

Have had my Inspiron 15R for a couple of years now, so well out of warranty. I was playing some games a coupe of months ago, and it noted the laptop was getting warm, and then it shut down on me. Its always been on a cooler, and the fans have been cleaned monthly.

Since then, it refused to boot properly if the AMD Radeon 5650 drivers (any flavour or version - Dell or Catalyst) were on the machine, resulting in the AMDKMPAG.sys Blue screen.
In Safe Mode or with vanilla VGA driver, its fine! The GPU is detected, but I don't allow it to install the correct driver.
Also, I noted that when rebooting, the display shows vertical bars across the screen, about 5mm apart, all white. It's a momentary display whilst it seems to be switching modes.

I'm due to be dismantling the machine in the next few days to clean it out inside, and also re-do the heat sinks and thermal grease, but wanted to know if any one has any ideas what else could be done.

 

jnkweaver

Distinguished
Nov 11, 2011
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18,610
 

icornish_02

Honorable
Jan 6, 2013
2
0
10,510
Thanks for the info... As feared...
I have done a complete reinstall of the OS, and the original drivers from Dell, with limited success - at least it is stable, albeit with 1024x768 resolution and no 3D/DirectX capability.