My laptop needs helpppppp!
So, about an hour ago I was trying to play the sims (don't laugh :x) and when the game began to load my screen went blue, and wouldn't do anything when i tried the mouse or pressing keys. so i powered it off then back on again, and now everything lights up (i have an alienware with the keyboard that glows and stuff), but the screen remains black. my suspision is that it's something to do with my graphics card since for a while now it would stop working for a few seconds then fix its self and a little notice would pop up saying that the display driver has stopped working and has recovered (which i always assumed had something to do with having to update the drivers, even though it would say it was up to date, and i've had someone i knew look at it and they said i didn't need to worry about it, though i still don't really trust that).
i'd try hooking it up to an external monitor but i don't think i have a cord that would fit into the port that i have on there, and other than actually taking it to bestbuy or something and spending like $100 to find out what's wrong with it i dunno what to do.
any ideas?
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okayyy, so i just plugged back into my power supply and it turned on...? i still think something is wrong.
Sounds like the video card
Gaming laptops are hard on their video cards. Because of the ammount of heat that video cards put out cooling is exceedingly important. If you ever game with your laptop actualy on your lap you can easily block the cooling vents on the bottom of your computer. Even slightly blocking those slots can raise the internal temperature too high and the video card can easily burn out. Dell laptops (and Alienware is a dell laptop with a fancy case) are somewhat notorious for the videocards dieing. At work we had 5 go out on us in 6 months (remember that Magechick?). Also you need to keep gaming laptops clean. Get some cans of compressed air and blow out all the vents and slots you can get to at least once a week. Dust builds up fast in there and dust is a very good insulator and air-flow blocker. Just a little bit can drastically raise temperatures inside a laptop (regular computers as well).
The symptoms you describe all point to this. The video drivers resetting (caused by the CPU locking up due to heat), the blue-screen (I have also seen green, purple, squggly lines of various colors, check-blocks of white icons across the screen, and more) is definatley a symptom of over-heated GPU. You can try letting the computer sit shut-down for a bit then clean it out. The thermal sensors may have saved it by shutting down before the heat truly fried it. But at this point that is doubtfull. The general single-color screen is usualy a death-knell for the GPU.
Is it still under warranty? Dell is usualy pretty good about repairing that under warranty. The only thing I have ever had Dell balk at repairing under warranty is liquid damage. Any hint that liquid got into your electronics and they tart asking for money to fix it (my sister spilled wine on a brand-new laptop once, dell wanted $400 to fix it).