Looking For Some Help - Dell Inspiron 9200

Hey,

I bought a Dell Inspiron 9200 second hand from eBay. I got a pretty cheap deal on it, more than likely because of the problem I'm about to explain to you. Unfortunately Dell wants to charge me for any service work done to the laptop, so I was hoping someone here might have the answer before I end up paying for something that's an easy fix.

The problem I'm having is with the video card. This computer comes with the ATI Radeon 9700 card. It worked fine for the first couple of days, then intermittently the monitor would go black (computer still on, nothing displayed on the LCD). I found it weird, would open and close the lid a couple of times, tap around the keyboard, and it would come back on again. Anyway, one day it went off, and ever since then I hadn't been able to get it back on again (actually more accurately I just gave up). So I went into safe mode, disabled the video card driver, and Windows would assign it a default monitor driver and it would work. The resolution wouldn't get very high though, and when I watched a DVD on it (or tried to), it would be very choppy. Anyway, I lived with it like that for a while, but now I've been thinking about maybe fixing it up, and re-selling it for whatever I get for it. Does anyone know if this is a software problem, hardware problem, or some sort of setting I'm not trying? Here is a list of things I've tried to make it work;

1) formatted/re-installed windows with recovery disks
2) downloaded latest bios, video bios, and video card drivers from Dell's website, installed them all
3) downloaded the latest drivers from the ATI site, installed

None of the above helped it to work. Also it may be important to note in the most recent tryings for me to get this thing to work, I attached an external monitor through the VGA out while the ATI drivers were enabled (LCD was still blank) and the external monitor would work, and I was able to change the resolutions like there was nothing wrong with the card. Then as I was playing around that, and when I pulled the external monitor back out (maybe the 5th or 6th time of having it in/out), the LCD came on! Resolutions were changing, I could watch videos, it was perfect. Then I closed the cover, came back 5 mins later, and it was black again...

I have no idea what the problem is, or what else I should try.

If anyone else has an idea here, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Vik

 

Oh and a quick addition, I've tried the Fn + F8 key to switch between CRT/LCD, doesn't work.

Also it would be nice to know if someone knows how I can get to the video card in case I need to replace it.

 

I don't know if they have it for laptops, but Dell support online has tech instruction sheets for replacing components with detailed instructions and diagrams which are great even for novice users. Laptops are more difficult to take apart, but it might be worth a look.

 

It sounds like a hardware problem. You can call Dell and order a gpu that would fit in your i9200. You might be able to upgrade the video card to a ATI 9800. You would then have to install the new gpu.