My Dell Studio 15 Can't Play ANY Games

I purchased a Dell Studio 15 last June, and since I have gotten it has yet to continually play any game. I have installed Call of duty 2, and call of duty 4. I can play call of duty 2 for about 30 minutes before I begin to have graphical issues. On the other hand, call of duty 4 experiences graphical difficulties immediately when i begin playing. The strange thing is though that I have played call of duty 4 without any difficulties. I have called dell and installed/reinstalled the drivers and it doesn't work. What else can I do?

I can't take a SS of the graphics problem for some reason, but here is a cell phone picture. You can see the black boxes. Lines in every color imaginable appear as well.

My specs are:

 

I think that should at least run call of duty 2..

Could you post a screenshot of your temperatures while playing call of duty?
You can use hwmonitor for that.

 

Are you running the laptop with the power cord connected? Are you overclocking?

Or for starters, has it happened every single time since you got it?

 

Ok here it is, before and during.

Before:


Playing Call of Duty 4:

It went up to about 53.

Would something other than the graphics card cause this? Like a chipset error?


Yes, I am running it with the power connected, no I am not overclocking, yes it has happened almost every time since I got it. Sometimes it doesn't happen, but I don't do anything differently when it doesn't happen. That is why I am so perplexed.

ETA: I don't know if this means anything, but I did the "Can you run it?" program from ubisoft, and i surpass the recommended level for Call of duty 4, so I'm sure I can run it.

 

We need to know what your GPU is getting to. You can only see processor and HDD and some other stuff in your screenshot. Besides, you have already posted this in the Dell forum.

 

This sounds like a pretty clear case of graphical artifacting caused either by an overheating or faulty GPU.

The cheapest possible solution is to take your laptop apart (not completely) and spray out any loose dust with a can of compressed air. You may have lint clogging up the exhaust vents. Then try boosting up the four corners of your laptop with bottlecaps or something equivalent to increase airflow underneath the system.

If this isn't really a heat issue, you most likely have a defective GPU, and Dell needs to replace the chip.

 

The hardware monitor does not pick up my graphics cards, what I have shown in the screen shots is all that it picks up. Why would it not pick up the graphics card?

 

Not sure, but you can always try RivaTuner (there's instructions on Guru3d, where you can download it too)

 

I downloaded RivaTuner, but I have no idea how to see the gpu temps, and have not found any directions on how to do so, can you help me out?

 

Most Likely you have a faulty GPU, A HD4570 should maxed out both COD4 and COD2 and it will run them fluenty if you still within the warranty send it to dell

 

Yea I would agree, it should be showing the temps for it on HW Monitor, sounds like you have a borked card, going to have to be replaced, which will be free via Dell.

 

I called dell today, and they are sending out a technician to replace the motherboard. From what they told me, the HD4570 is an integrated card hence the need to replace the entire motherboard. Is it true that the card is integrated on studio 15s?

I looked on youtube to find videos of the studio 15, and found a couple of people who have the exact setup as I do, except I have a better cpu, and they can play cod4 on max, and crysis on medium...so I shouldn't have an issue.

 

I think it is soldered on but its not an integrated card, its a discrete GPU, just soldered on hence the whole motherboard needs to be replaced.

 

Ok that sounds more accurate. I couldn't believe that it was integrated, because from my experience integrated cards are cheap and cannot run graphically intense programs.

 

The 4570 is a discrete video card that makes use of 256/512MB of dedicated VRAM as well as HyperMemory, which is ATI's technology that allows the GPU to dynamically allocate system RAM for use as VRAM. It is soldered to the motherboard, though you may also see that the chip is also secured to the board with some type of epoxy glue (the 3450 is secured this way).

As narsnail already mentioned, replacing the GPU requires a replacement of the entire mainboard.

 

**Update**

Well the guy from Dell came out and replaced the motherboard with no effect. The game still does not play. I did some looking around in the Dell Studio forum and see all these people with the same specs as me, or less, and can play any game they want. Is the next step to wipe out everything and reinstall XP?

 

Well you can give that a shot but it really seems hardware related

 

I have the Studio 1555 with the 256MB ATi 4570. Call of Duty 4 gives me no trouble, although I have to turn down some settings to keep things running smooth.

When you say "the game still does not play", what exactly happens? Are your framerates terrible, or does the program crash to desktop, or something else?

 

The screen gets all pixally, missing textures, and rainbow colors. I have my settings on LOW, everything, and AA turned off. When I try to take a screen shot an error message comes up, then goes away quickly so I can't see what it says.

 

this is a long shot but ive not seen it posted yet.
are you running on high performance.
the amount of people that have been on here that were having problems and it was totally down to the settings in power mode.

 

I am not sure, how do I see?

 

In your taskbar, there is usually an icon for power profiles. Make sure that your computer is on a high performance profile or, alternatively, ensure that the GPU is set to maximize performance either through the Advanced Settings for your power profile or through the PowerPlay menu in the CCC.

 

as bog said.

 

High performance is on in the CCC, but I don't know how to do it via the taskbar. I am running XP, not vista. Just tried to play it with the virus protection off and no go. I am beginning to think the OS didn't install properly, is my only option to swipe it clean and install it again?

 

if your on xp its in control panel


Think its control panel and power settings

 

Try a fresh install of Windows.

 

It was on high performance, turned it down and still didn't do anything. I'm probably going to do a fresh install this weekend. I'll update once I'm done with that.

 

Yeah, if they've already replaced your motherboard (including the graphics card), then I think we can rule out hardware failure.