Laptop Crash
 

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Above video is what a see on the screen for about thirty seconds.... then the system shuts down. I can reboot and all is fine.

Did it for the first time a few months ago, then a week or so ago, last time it was only a few days. 4 times total so far....

Spent an hour on the phone with Dell Tech last night, they updated video drivers and bios, but my gut feeling it's a hardware problem?

Are you using Carbonite or something for backup?

Have to agree with Hugh above and make sure its backed up.

Anyhow it looks like the video board is on its way out. If the laptop runs at a high temp, thats a good telltale sign. I nursed an HP with a similar situation. Removed the optical drive, wrapped the laptop lightly with a bath towel and set in a freezer for about 15 minutes. Don't want condensation but I was able to get it to work with enough time to back-up anything I might have missed earlier. Soon after, toasted again. Mine was under warranty but once you send it out, consider your hard drive to be re-formated when they replace the board if video is integrated. Good luck.

have u opened it up and sprayed it out with compressed air? laptops are filthy inside.

Boot with a Linux live disk (I like Mint), backup your files, and run Linux from the disk for a while. If the problem persists, then it is hardware. If it doesn't, then something's gone wonky in windows - format and reinstall clean, then restore your backup that you made in step 2.

Seen that before, IIRC your onboard video is headed south. System board replacement. Been awhile but I'm pretty certain.

That's what I figured. New (September) with a 1 yr warrantee, so I'll press the issue.

Something I can do to stress the video card and make it fail sooner? Run some repeating test 24 hour?

First result from a Google search.

FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net

There are a ton more.

Had a similar problem when we replaced the monitor on a dell laptop. The main connecting harness seemed to be a "one and done" connection and didn't like getting reconnected resulting in a garbled video display. Not saying this is your problem but it is similar. Does moving the screen slighty while its on change anything? If so, could be something in the harness.

+1 video memory/chip fail

seen it before

data is probably fine, pull drive use adapter to get data off and onto new notebook

System board failure. Video chip ( GPU )
sometimes you can reflow the solder on them and fix them but it's a real PITA to do.
I have reflowed a few of them.
Basically they get too hot and the solder joints open up on the GPU