Does this happen if hooked up to an external monitor and on its screen? If not, I would try changing out the LCD cable

To me it sounds like your video card is having a problem - needs to warm up to work properly.  What happens if you boot to the BIOS and let it sit there for 15/20 minutes - does it clear up?  Have you tried hooking an external monitor up, hitting Fn+F8 to enable it, and booting up to see if it also displays weird on that monitor?  If it did it would immediately point to the video card.

I would not reflash the BIOS until you have this sorted out.  It could be the BIOS chip is having problems (failing), the data it is supposed to hold has changed and thus shows up as giberish, but I do not think so because it would not only affect the displayed video but also the area tat holds the wakeup program also so you wouldn't be able to boot.

I would look at the video card, the video cable (but it would only clear if you moved the display more open or closed, not with time as it is), or maybe even the lcd, but that only shows what it is being told to show so that is a slim chance.

If it is the same connector as the earlier PA-6 power adapters, then it is the Hirose RP34 connector.
http://dkc3.digikey.com/PDF/EU042/0096.pdf    HR170ND connector and 3 of contact part HR175ND

This sounds like good info- keep in mind that all of the bios menus are corrupted and unreadable as well- it's like looking at something in russian. Some letters are the right letter in the right spot and words are the same length, others are "switched". I've never heard of NVRAM, is this flashable?

Or is it a chip that is dead i.e. MB replacement?

This sounds like a corruption in the NVRAM area where the splash screen is stored. I'm not sure if your system is compatable with the splash utility, but if it is I would maybe attempt to reinstall the splash screen. from a DOS prompt " splash XXXXX.bmp " where the x's are the filename you are using as a splash. Also the BMP file has to be a certain size and color depth. 640 X 480 and 16 bit color depth. about 151K. Or you could just turn it off with the " splash 0ff " command.

mandrake99

 

savagemyth,

I'm making an educated guess here about the causes of your screen problem as that is all any of us can do, some more educated than others but you will have to weed them for yourself. The NVRAM is a memory chip that also holds the BIOS screens. NV = Non volatile RAM or it doesn't erase when the power is removed. It sounds like this area for the BIOS screens and the splash screen has either been damaged or corrupted. A complete BIOS flash may solve this problem, but of course it could also amplify it or make it a nice paper weight. I think this is a classic sign of corruption. I have seen this problem on production PLC's etc... If you still have warranty call it in to DELL, if not; as long as I could use the laptop I would and as a last resort I would try a flash from a floppy disk. Everything else is too risky.

** These are just my opinions, as a video card, lcd or cable problem would also effect everything else too ie Windows and every other screen, which you stated are fine after the machine boots up. As I understand you; it is only during POST and BIOS that the screen is scrambled.

*****************************************************************

Edit Here:
After re-reading the post it could be a problem with the frame buffer as this is also involved with displaying the initial windows screen which is not stored in NVRAM ( The one that has the black lines running through it ). If I get some time I will research this problem some more and post back here. Right now I would lean more towards a frame buffer issue.

mandrake99

Message Edited by Mandrake99 on 01-19-2005 08:26 AM

Thanks you guys are the bomb- Roger on the leave it alone unless you have to mess with it: been there, done that one before! My main fear is booting to a floppy and end up with something I can't fix because it'd be unreadable. If I hear you right this is a soldered chip on the board, so a MB replacement might be the cleanest. I'll hang by to see what you find out, thanks everyone for your input, good ideas out there and thanks to Dell for putting this board here, most companies don't have the cojones to keep them going after the first time they get flamed.

Message Edited by savagemyth on 01-19-200508:31 AM

Message Edited by savagemyth on 01-19-2005 08:31 AM