2
Recently I re-installed Windows 7 home premium on my Dell Inspiron N5010 Laptop. After booting in, I installed the AMD ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 driver. When I rebooted my computer I got BSOD with code 0x0116 and a reference to atikmpag.sys. So, then I logged in Safe mode and rolled back the driver to Standard VGA Graphics Adapter and then I was able to log back in normal mode.
The above phenomenon is not a one time thing as I have tried installing the driver 3 more times and each time, it gives me the same result.
I read somewhere that this problem may happen if the Video card has gone bad. So, I ran Dell diagnostics from the boot up menu. Though technically, the tests got passed but during the video test, color bars were displayed which had dots on them(like the picture below):-
Also, if I try to log into Ubuntu(which is also on my laptop), the whole display gets messed up(like the picture below):-
Note- The pictures were picked from the internet but what I see in my laptop is exactly the same.
So, I think that my video card is going bad. My questions are:-
If my card is bad, how was I able to log back into Windows after rolling back my driver to Standard VGA and got no error. As far as I know(and I can be wrong in this) the video card is supposed to render whatever we see on the screen. When, I logged in after rolling back the driver, my icons and screens are of disproportionate size (like they are when you have no video driver) and lack the sharpness you get after the driver is installed. Is CPU taking care of the display?
My Video card is integrated with the motherboard. I read somewhere that I can install another graphics card in PCIe slot and in BIOS do some setting to ignore the onboard card. Is this possible for my laptop?
Any other options that I can explore?
Thanks in advance.
Avinash Kumar
Posted 2014-07-26T06:54:42.500
Reputation: 227
mobility sounds like you use a laptop and here you often can't change the card: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_PCI_Express_Module
– magicandre1981 – 2014-07-27T05:53:38.963I just saw those dots trying to help a friend troubleshoot his graphics card. A few questions: Are the dots visible on the screen immediately during the POST? At what point in the booting process do you get the BSOD? Seeing the dots during the start of the boot process before the computer has located the OS (and drivers) points to a hardware problem. – m.i – 2014-10-10T04:26:37.083
Where did you get the ATI driver? If you downloaded it from the AMD web site, that might be the problem. Those drivers often don't work with OEM hardware. The first step would be to go to the Dell web site and download the OEM driver from there. The driver from the ATI download site will have to be completely eliminated, which can take special procedures. See http://superuser.com/questions/822363/how-do-i-know-if-my-ati-raedon-display-adapter-has-gone-bad/822374#822374.
– fixer1234 – 2014-10-10T18:50:42.390@m.i: If you are talking about the first picture, then those dots appeared when I abandoned the normal boot-up process and went instead to the Diagnostics by repreatedly pressing the F8 button. In that when Display was being checked, the dots appeared....BSOD occured after the Windows logo appeared with 'Starting Windows' caption.... – Avinash Kumar – 2014-10-11T16:28:51.553
1@m.i: The dots were quite suggestive that my video card was bad so I went ahead and got the card changed...The problem is now no more there. – Avinash Kumar – 2014-10-11T17:01:58.320
since you reinstalled the windows, you should only download the drivers from DELL website, and you have to install them in the order that they suggested. see this link, this will help to avoid any driver related issue, including the issue that you currently have, as I see, you have a driver issue, and your GPU has not gone bad yet. I suggest you download the drivers from DELL website and re-install the Windows, then install drivers as they suggested in the link I gave you.
– iSR5 – 2014-10-16T04:10:31.223