Driver preventing Windows 7 start-up?

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slugger_2003

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
365
Hi all,

I've got a Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop with an nVidia 7900gs graphics card.
I was watching a TV show the other night, changed episodes then one minute later changed episode again till I found the episode I was looking for. Then all of a sudden the screen goes black and nothing is happening...then a minute or two later there was sound but no video so I powered off my laptop by holding down the power button as I couldn't see the screen to shutdown the computer normally.
The next day I tried to turn the laptop on but the computer got stuck just before the windows 7 log-in screen - just had a blank screen shortly followed by a BSOD. I noticed on the Dell opening screen there were some vertical blue lines down the screen then on the next screen there were some white lines which weren't there before...
Now I've discovered via disabling the video driver through safe mode and restarting the laptop I can use the laptop almost like normal again. The blue and white lines are still there at the start and after logging in I can see some light orange pixels in the background. This is no major issue however I suspect this suggests my graphics card is pooped and I now have to rely on the onboard graphics and default resolution for the life of the rest of the components?
I tried uninstalling the driver then restarting the computer - as expected this was fine (except the blue, white and orange artefacts were still on the screen)
I tried allowing windows to search for a driver online and install it - upon restarting the computer I was faced with the same blank screen that eventually leads to a BSOD.
So what's up? I would replace the graphics card but I believe the graphics card on this laptop is soldered to the motherboard, correct? I now live in China so I'm pretty sure I could get someone to do this for me for cheap...in which case....what would a suitable upgrade from an nVidia GeForce 7900GS be that'd run on a Dell Inspiron 9400?

Thanks in advance :)
 
You, sir, have a root kit. It's a form of a virus that hides itself as a driver which enables it to go undetected by most virus detection systems. Download some root kit revealers, etc. See if you can unhook the root kit and then scan for viruses and you should find them.

I'd suggest a full deletion of your MBR and full format though. Those are nasty.
 
What makes you think it's a rootkit? It sounds like the GPU is dying to me.

You might be able to find someone to fix it, but it's probably cheaper (at least in the US) to just buy a new laptop.
 
The symptoms are literally one for one with the symptoms of a serious malware enabled root kit if you don't count the lines on the screen and if you add in a bunch of pop ups, etc.

Maybe it is hardware failure. Now that I read over it, it would probably be hardware failure with the lines.
 
Sounds to me like your onboard video (nvidia) has failed. Actually it's more like a vram failure. Dots, lines, and colored boxes in a checkerboard type pattern and ascii characters are all signs of vram failure on a gaphics card/chip. You can purchase a old laptop off ebay or something similar or take it to a shop there locally in china where they can slip in a new gpu that is pin compatible and will work with your system. Honestly since your in china you may just want to look into buying a new laptop. Are they very expensive down there?
 
try fully updating windows first before you install the drivers, i had a weird issue like this with a nvidia gpu in my desktop
 
It'd make sense that the onboard graphics has failed due to the lines still appearing upon start-up even though I've disabled the 7900gs driver. Unless the 7900gs will still run with disabled drivers upon start-up? Even still...after windows has fully loaded there are still very light orange pixels appearing if I look at my screen closely.
The price of laptops over here is around the same as the UK but the average income is a lot lower so the relative cost is higher.
The other day my DVD drive was struggling to play a DVD and has been several times before...I just thought it was lousy DVD's but then a video on my hard drive messed up too...unless it was also a bad video file...just seems to be too many coincidences. Seems like this laptop is read to get the boot...but with it having a graphics issue, perhaps also having a DVD drive issue is there much chance of me actually being able to sell this thing? I might take it to the electronics markets here and see if anyone'll give me a part-exchange.....pitty....I've always loved to 1920*1280 screen on this beauty....
 
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