WHOA DOGGIES!! WHAT WAS THAT?

[bassman284]

I just had something happen that I've never seen in ~30 years of PC use. My screen suddenly went to a scramble of colors in small dots, kind of like what we used to call snow on TVs back in the 50s except in color. It didn't respond to anything and I finally had to hold the power button for a hard shutdown. I waited a couple of minutes and fired it back up. It came up normally and, interestingly enough, made no mention of abnormal shutdown. I have occasionally had to shut down with the power button in the past but at reboot it always noted the abnormal shutdown and asked if I wanted to resume where I left off. Not this time. Any comments will be read with interest.

 

[jbcurt00]

Laptop or desktop?

 

[Scott Danforth]

if its a laptop, pretty sure the heat sink is plugged with dust and the video board is overheating

 

[keith2k455]

I had this happen at work once a few years ago. It was the video card on that Dell

 

[foodfisher]

EMP test?:facepalm:

 

[bassman284]

Dell desktop about a year and a half old running W10. I have an AOC monitor that is about 6 or 7 years old. guess I'll just keep watching it and see what happens.

 

[jbcurt00]

Have your ever opened the case?

I'd bet its the video/graohics card.

 

[Volphin]

Drugs are BAD, Mkay? LOL

Video board overheat, processor overheat, defective/loose video ribbon cabling, laptop cabling video connection corrosion. If the processor is overheating, clean it with an air duster, remove the heat sink, clean off the silver thermal compound (probably now like an eraser texture) and apply a dollop of NT-H1 thermal compound. Reinstall the heat sink and reassemble. Most folks don't know that the thermal compound needs replacement every 5 years or so.

 

[Volphin]

Just saw your post on the age of the unit. I'd concentrate on the video cable from the box to the monitor, looking for kinks or loose connection, then suspect that monitor.

 

[Scott Danforth]

im going to go with a big old dust ball plugging the heat sink and fan. open case, inspect. clean. if fan is pluged, buy a new fan (remember, Dell paid about $0.50 for the fan - our cost is about $6)

 

[thumpar]

I would first guess something with the video memory. Sometimes the BGA will have a bad solder connection. It is easy to change out or install a video card if it is not separate from the board.

 

[Boomyal]

Just saw your post on the age of the unit. I'd concentrate on the video cable from the box to the monitor, looking for kinks or loose connection, then suspect that monitor.

Ditto on that. Mrs B has a Dell that has had that cable replaced once under warranty and to this day you have to wiggle the lid to get it to quit doing that.

 

[Johnstar]

Garbled porn screen of death? Never seen that one either.