M5550i-R3 Video Problems

I was browsing the internet and listening to music when my screen flickered for a fraction of a second and went black, The music was still playing fine so I am assuming is either the graphics card or the LCD panel that went out. I have restarted it multiple times and I get nothing but a blank screen on the laptop, I plugged it into a regular monitor via HDMI and I see the startup info and I can go into the BIOS settings, or if I let it start up the windows loading bar comes up like normal but after a couple seconds, the screen turns black and the monitor acts like it lost the signal and just goes to standby mode.

My laptop has had problems with overheating in the past and it just completely shuts down like if someone pulled the plug on a desktop, I bought a targus fan pad and it happens much less often, but it still occurs.

The specs
15.4 WXGA Silver Display
Core 2 Duo 2.00 T7200 4MB 667MHZ Processor
2x Samsung 512MB DDR2 PC5300 SODIMM Memory
5500 R2 NVIDIA GO 7600 with 256MB MXM2 Hybrid video/graphics card

I bought this computer new almost 3 years ago and the only other problem I had was an issue with the sound card where it would randomly produce very loud "white noise", I ended up getting a external sound card for the expansion port and it corrected that.

my computer hardware experience has only been with building my own desktops and I haven't done that in about 6 years.

so my questions are

what do you think the problem is/how can I fix it?

any other upgrades I should consider while I've got it taken apart? I would like to get another 2+ years out of this if I can, I don't play PC games much anymore, just playing movies or music and having lots of programs running at the same time is generally how it is used. I'm thinking upgrade memory?

any recommendations for a better cooling pad? the targus one was like 20 bucks and seems kinda weak.

Thanks to anyone who replies, I appreciate all the help I can get

 

If the screen flickered and went off like that without crashing then I'm almost certain it's a problem with the screen. If the graphics card had broken then it would have crashed at the same time which it didn't if the music continued.

As for a better cooling pad...If the fan vents on the base are near the front of the notebook then try a Zalman NC2000 notebook cooler (I think that's what it's called) and if they're near the back then try the Cryo LX. The Cryo is quite pricey but is the best notebook cooler for anything with fan vents near the back.

Contact Alienware about the screen if you're still within warranty. If not see if you can find a screen that'll fit elsewhere. There are often plenty on eBay.

While you're at it I'd HIGHLY recommend getting some more RAM for it. 1GB is very slim especially for something that's meant to be gaming well. Even if you don't game much, extra RAM will speed up your system quite a bit.

 

let me clarify what i said when it went out, there was some distortion of the picture for literally a fraction of a second before it went black, but hardly long enough to notice it even happened till afterward when I thought about it. If just the screen is bad, shouldn't it still display fine on a normal monitor? It does right until the windows loading bar shows up, then the monitor acts like its not getting a signal at all.

thanks

 

You might have a faulty card then, but if the music continued after your display went black the first time...it does seem VERY odd.

 

When my HP GPU went out I was still able to boot the laptop, but I would get a series of colored lines instead of a picture on the screen. I could hear the startup sounds and everything. The GPU failed in mine, not the screen and it still booted.

 

ok just started it in safe mode and i can see everything clearly on the external monitor, but when i restart normally i get the same problem as before, it works fine until the windows loading bar then it dies. the laptop display looks like its just turned off no matter what i do, im thinking its more the display that is broken now. is there some settings i can mess with to get the computer to start up normally and have it work with the external monitor until i get a new lcd display for the laptop?

thanks

 

nevermind, now im getting blue screen of death with or without safemode as soon as i try to start it up

 

Okay if you're getting a BSOD whenever you try and start it at all, then there's a definete problem, most likely hardware it would appear.

 

Hello all (back from the dead... got bored over the summer...)

I had the M5550 and I had multiple issues with the GPU. Both the M5500 and the M5550 had serious issues with cooling which didn't help at all. Back when I had my M5550 the temps during gaming would get up to 100C before the GPU seriously downclocked.

I'm going to say that it's related to the GPU from my experiences.

 

this only applies to using it hooked up to a monitor, the laptop screen still shows no activity

 

UPDATE:

It is definitely something with the display, its like "burned out" I can hold a flashlight up to this and see everything on the screen its just very dark. Can I get a replacement part for this? at what point should I just give up on this laptop and buy a $500 laptop from bestbuy, I don't play games anymore so I don't really care about performance, I just need a working laptop