Need some serious help

[ImprezaAddict]

I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop that recently started annoying me to no ends with a screen problem. The screen goes black for a few seconds and then recovers and shows a little box.

 

[Centura]

I'm not entirely sure what it says, but I think your graphic drivers crashed?

If I am correct, your GPU is overheating and/or faulty drivers.

 

[G.T.Ace]

Looks more like your monitor driver stopped working and got recovered by the system.
What monitor do you own?

EDIT: Forget it, it's a laptop. Hm, might contact Dell about it, maybe you have to reinstall a certain driver.

EDIT²: http://www.fixya.com/support/t917147-display_driver_r300

 

[nick09]

If you had it for several years and have done no maintenance work at all(physical not digital, such as cleaning the vents). I found a guide for your laptop here, if you are not inclined to work on it then a geeky friend can do it for you or have a pro do it for $20. Will involve opening your laptop. Good luck.

 

[wfooshee]

If it happens playing videos (since you're on a Youtube page) then the graphics chip is probably overheating. It gets busy doing video, and doesn't do much just sitting on a page.

As stated before, if fans are not working or vents are clogged, it's time for a good cleaning. Another thread today had a similar issue with a CPU fan.

 

[G.T.Ace]

I kinda doubt it's a heat issue, it would be good to know what kind of graphics card you have in the Notebook. There are several entries on Google regarding this issues for different machines and tons of solutions which might work. It seems to be a problem especially for Vista users. "R300" is the "display driver" by the way, the only fix I found so far is the one I linked to above.

 

[ImprezaAddict]

I'm not entirely sure what it says, but I think your graphic drivers crashed?

If I am correct, your GPU is overheating and/or faulty drivers.

Yeah, sorry. In rough translation, it says the R300 screen controller crashed and recovered. It might be overheating but it happens even when the laptop has been on for 5 minutes.

Looks more like your monitor driver stopped working and got recovered by the system.
What monitor do you own?

EDIT: Forget it, it's a laptop. Hm, might contact Dell about it, maybe you have to reinstall a certain driver.

EDIT²: http://www.fixya.com/support/t917147-display_driver_r300

I tried installing the drivers again, but it failed when it downloaded something like "cversion". Not sure, but I'll try that link. I had tried another.

If you had it for several years and have done no maintenance work at all(physical not digital, such as cleaning the vents). I found a guide for your laptop here, if you are not inclined to work on it then a geeky friend can do it for you or have a pro do it for $20. Will involve opening your laptop. Good luck.

Yeah, it hasn't had any maintenance... It was used when I got it from my sister and already was pretty bad. I'll try doing that myself or sending it out to someone.

If it happens playing videos (since you're on a Youtube page) then the graphics chip is probably overheating. It gets busy doing video, and doesn't do much just sitting on a page.

As stated before, if fans are not working or vents are clogged, it's time for a good cleaning. Another thread today had a similar issue with a CPU fan.

Yeah, only when watching YouTube videos. Then you're right, time for some love...

I kinda doubt it's a heat issue, it would be good to know what kind of graphics card you have in the Notebook. There are several entries on Google regarding this issues for different machines and tons of solutions which might work. It seems to be a problem especially for Vista users. "R300" is the "display driver" by the way, the only fix I found so far is the one I linked to above.

The graphics card is a Radeon Xpress 1150.

Thanks for your time and the replies guys, I'll try and see if this laptop can be video-watchable again. 👍

 

[G.T.Ace]

Try to switch off the hardware acceleration.

 

[ImprezaAddict]

Edit: Control panel finally opened, now I'm at the device manager window but I have no idea which option will uninstall the R300 driver. Is it the screen adaptor where the graphics card shows up?

 

[Centura]

You turn off hardware acceleration by right clicking a video that is using flash.

For example: http://vimeo.com/20130592
Right click the video -> Settings...
Click on the first tab (Computer icon with a triangle on it, i.e. play icon)
Uncheck "hardware acceleration"

I'm not sure if it's global or only on that website.

You can also enable HTML5 on YouTube, instead of using Flash: http://www.youtube.com/html5

 

[ImprezaAddict]

You turn off hardware acceleration by right clicking a video that is using flash.

For example: http://vimeo.com/20130592
Right click the video -> Settings...
Click on the first tab (Computer icon with a triangle on it, i.e. play icon)
Uncheck "hardware acceleration"

I'm not sure if it's global or only on that website.

You can also enable HTML5 on YouTube, instead of using Flash: http://www.youtube.com/html5

This hardware acceleration thing seemed to solve the issue. It doesn't crash anymore. Should I still uninstall the R300 driver and restart the computer?

 

[Centura]

This hardware acceleration thing seemed to solve the issue. It doesn't crash anymore. Should I still uninstall the R300 driver and restart the computer?

I would recommend you to download newest driver available for your graphics card, then:

1. Uninstall current driver
2. Reboot
3. Install the driver you downloaded
4. Reboot

Hopefully the new driver won't crash anymore.