<p>Relying on my CC Computer geek friends to educate me again!!!</p>
<p>At a conference where I brought my laptop. Last night, it decided to go wonky on me. I turned it off and upon trying to start it back up, all I get is a screen with lots of vertical colored lines - nothing else. Bad video card???</p>
<p>Is this something that MIGHT be able to be repaired/replaced ? Its actually my work laptop, and we have an IT dept., but I am impatient and wondering what the future of my laptop might be…it’s a Dell, about 4 years old…but the work budget won’t easily support a brand new purchase.</p>
<p>Tell me if I’m dreaming (to think it might be repairable) or if I need to wake up and smell the coffee.</p>
<p>I’m thinking more along the lines of broken LCD.
Connect it to an external monitor to test it out.
If your laptop screen is wonky but the external monitor is fine, then we found your problem: laptop screen, however, if both give out wonky lines its probably tour video card.</p>
<p>Not my area, but our Dell desktop video card died about a year and a half ago, symptoms similar to what you detail. D’s techie type ex boyfriend flipped it out in a few minutes. I can’t recall the cost but I’m thinking $100 for a new card.</p>
<p>It could be the video card,the display itself, or even a loose cable.</p>
<p>Since optional video cards are available for many laptops it’s possible yours could be repaired if it’s something pluggable. Alternatively, the motherboard could be replaced if it’s on that. The display can also be replaced and of course, a loose cable can be seated.</p>
<p>One thing to try is to connect it to an external monitor and see if it’ll work with that. If it does then it’s likely not the video card.</p>
<p>Since it’s 4 years old and is a work laptop, this might be your opportunity to just replace it with a new one since business laptops are usually replaced every 3-4 years anyway to keep up with the latest OS/apps (if you’re lucky enough to have an IT department that’s not years behind the times like many of them are).</p>
<p>nVidia sold a huge number of defective video cards to OEMs that put them in their laptops. The nVidia 8400 and 8600 models were well-known for failures. In general, the OEMs fixed the laptops that reported problems with some manufacturers extending the warranty to two or three years. Furthermore, there was a class action lawsuit filed against nVidia and a settlement was worked out. You can see a list of the affected Dell laptops at [NVIDIA</a> Settlement- Defective GPUs](<a href=“TechnologyGuide - TechTarget”>TechnologyGuide - TechTarget)</p>
<p>Two of our MacBook Pros failed with this problem (we had a total of three failures, one notebook failed twice). Apple covered the costs of the repairs.</p>
<p>The problem laptops were generally sold in 2007 and 2008. If this isn’t your problem, then you’d have to look around. Most video issues require a motherboard replacement as modern laptops have the discrete chip soldered into the motherboard making it hard to remove the old one and put in a new one unless you’re really good with a soldering iron and a pair of clippers.</p>
<p>edit: If you do have one of the affected video solutions, it might be worth contacting Dell to see if they will fix it for you for free (and send the bill to nVidia).</p>