dell inspiron 8200 problematics

pcxmac · Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2003 12:58 am Post subject: dell inspiron 8200 problematics

what happened : i was surfing the net the other day and my display turned off, i tried to get it to turn back on, but... i had to turn it off. when i turned it back on the dell inspiron splash screen was corrupted with vertical lines and the bios / computer authentication password (optional, but turned on by me to access the comp) will not go passed the checking good password, it works alright if its a bad pw. but if its a good one it locks up, never to boot anything. (the password protection screen is also corrupted with v-lines of zero characters, some of the text is also corrupted so DELL is now "D{e\")

what i think : i think the bios is fu**ed, i had problems and replaced the graphics card a few days prior but i dont think their would be problems booting, even if the graphics card was fu**ed, at least it would try to run windows or error or something not just say checking password and hang up. i also think i aquired some bios virus or something, i dunno, but i will be utilizing virus software from now on.

what it is : so i took the whole damn thing apart disconected the reserve battery for a while, trying to erase nvram and stuff but i suspect the eeprom is to be the problem. i dont have my old graphics card to see if it is infact the the card its self so im up crap creek. is there a way to get the bios back to factory settings.

I WILL GO THE DISTANCE ON THIS ONE BECAUSE IM NOT GETTING SACKED FOR A WHOLE BUNCH OF CHARGES WHICH WILL BE WAY TOO MUCH FOR ME NOT TO TRY A WHOLE LOT OF STUFF.

if anyone has any ideas or suggestions i will definitly concider, im no pro at hacking bioses (reprogramming) infact i have nillch experience, but i wont turn this puppy down. please help

signed a concered consumer not looking to go the ignorant way in getting his laptop fixed.

money is not a leaf from which i can find a tree. im a competant c++ programmer, i have touched assembler, as for bios i would need to learn how that works.

Ritchie · BIOS Guru Joined: 30 Oct 2002 Posts: 761

Is this a laptop you are talking about?

I didn't think you could really change a graphics card on a laptop.

Anyway, since the graphics card is the last thing you changed, I would look for a known good working graphics card and try this. Your symptoms sound like a graphics problem unless it is just what your monitor displays in standby mode. Ussually if new components fail they will do so within a few hours or days of use.