This is a 3 yr old Inspiron laptop. Upon receiving it from Dell, it crashed frequently and they could not diagnose the problem. I uninstalled Norton and it hasn't crashed since. Until the other day. I had installed CA antivirus almost 6 months ago as a trial (license expires in June) and when it crashed a few days ago, Microsoft screen came back and said it was a device driver, then said it was the CA software and a link to get a fix. The link did not work. About the same time, a CA screen comes up and tells me that it is almost time to renew. The computer crashed on more time... said something like NV4.DISP on the last crash. I turned the computer back on- no problems for a couple of days. Then today, the screen started flashing off and on. When it was in the on cycle, there were thin black lines across the page. I turned the power off because there was no way to shut it down right. I tried to turn it back on and the screen remained black. The hard drive was flashing for a bit, but nothing came on the screen. I left it for about 10 minutes and there was the windows logo that appears when you start up but don't sign in. It was there, stationary in the corner, with thin black lines through it. I tried to ctr-alt-delete and the computer crashed again. The blue screen was not clear- missing thin lines but I could see the NV4.DISP again in the words.
I again turned off the power, left it for a bit, and tried to turn it back on. Same thing- black screen, hard drive light flashing periodically, but nothing on the screen.
Does this sound like a hard drive fried or a video card? I had run the antivirus the day before with no results. Is it a coincidence that the crash of the "device driver" and Microsoft's CA error came up? The computer just restarted to the log in page with the black lines across the screen and SLOWLY logged in when the login was selected. We are trying to hook it up to an external monitor to see if it works...don't know, the computer is REALLY SLOW. Any suggestions?

try here.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...

Had to turn the computer off- external monitor would not work, wanted to retry from a fresh start. Now it is back to a black screen with the hard drive light flashing periodically several times in a row. I have also noticed that the fan comes on at a low level now. I have noticed that lately it has been running a bit hot- I have kept it on a Chill Pad and it seems to help. It was on the Chill pad on a Granite counter when it had this major crash today...it had only been on for about 15 min and the fan was not on high.

I highly suspect your RAM/RAM sockets as being faulty in this case. If you have 2 RAM sticks installed, remove one of the sticks. If the problems still persist, move the one installed stick to Slot B. If it still happens, take that stick out, and put the other stick in Slot A. If it still happens, move that stick to Slot B. If you have just one stick, move it to Slot B. If you still have problems, your RAM is probably faulty.

A site listed on per's page seems to suggest the video card.

Overheating may also be an issue as well.

Make sure Jesus is your Saviour!

I left the computer off for several hours and turned it back on. It seemed to start OK - but during the loading of the programs the screen with the thin squiggly lines came back and it did not finish loading all of the programs before the screen would internittently turn off and on. The fan did not go on at all during this time. What does it look like when a graphics card goes bad? I don't know much about laptop innards. Does the graphics card have its own fan in a laptop? Are there more than one fan in a laptop? I am knowledgeable with towers not laptops. I am trying to diagnose the problem and the possibilites.
Thanks in advance.

According to Dell, your laptop has integrated graphics, which probably wouldn't have a fan. I can't guarantee that, since I haven't worked on many laptops either. If your laptop has the optional 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon x1400, it's possible it may have a fan as well as the usual fan that comes on when the PC gets warm.

I also can't guarantee whether or not the video card is replaceable in a laptop. I hope someone who has worked on the innards of laptops more than I have will come and evaluate that for sure.

Personally I would download Memtest to start testing the RAM. RAM goes bad way more often than video cards do, unless the PC got too hot and overheated and killed the video card. RAM problems can also cause lines through the screen as you describe, as well as blue screens detailing 'errors' about DLL and system files that really isn't the problem at all but the memory area that the DLL or system file is written to instead.

Make sure Jesus is your Saviour!

I would do the following.

Delete all hardware from the system, starting with a clean removal of the ATI drivers and a reinstall.

If your CA drivers are conflicting then it's likely you've got another piece of software causing the issue.

You'll need to try and address this with CA.

If not, then after a hardware check showing all is well I'd format and reinstall from scratch.

J.
j e r u v y a t y a h o o d o t c o m

Unfortunately, the computer will not power on. The hard drive spins at first but it stops and the screen is black.
I talked to a company that fixes computers and he said he thinks that it is the motherboard that is not getting enough power to even spin the hard drive now. He said he charges $85 and hr to look at it and said a new motherboard (if that is all of the problem) would be $500-$1000 and not worth it - so basically it is a disposable $2500 2 year old laptop! He said that they might be able to salvage the data at $85/hr too. Is there at least anyway I can do this myself? I was trying to start it to see if I could just copy over to an external HD, but it won't even start now. Should I take his word for it and not have it looked at and save myself the $85+? That is a pretty steep charge considering ther is no telling how long it will take but on the otherhand it is an expensive disposable laptop. Any suggestions?