Computer is broken, how do I fix it?

[Justin speir]

It breaks on startup most of the time, but not always, but even if it doesn't break on startup, it still breaks within the next half hour or so. It originally broke while I was on a steam game or something, I restarted computer, it was fine. 45 min-1 hour later, it broke again and on restart it looked like it does In the video, and crashed. A few days later was fine on startup, broke ~1 hour later, and continued. A few days later again, broke on startup, so I opened it up, and looked for a dead circuit or something, everything was fine. Turn it on shortly after it was good. The need day I get on broke again after an hour or so. A few days later I try to go to safemode, opens up ok but looks like the video, and I reset to an earlier working update, works fine for an hour and breaks again. I turn it on a week later and get the video. It is a dell inspiron n5010 running windows professional 64 bit. Opening it up and working makes me think physical problem, but reseting it to earlier version makes me think virus. Please help, I don't want to loose computer or stuff on computer, and honestly if it breaks permanently I won't have a new one, or even used for a while, so I would like to save it. Thanks for any help anyone might be able to give me, and sorry it's so long.

 

[bazz2004]

That looks to be a failure of the graphics chip. You'd need to replace the motherboard which would be expensive. Try connecting it to a monitor and if the situation is the same that pretty well confirms it.

 

[Justin speir]

Could that be caused by over heating, the first crash happened the first use after not having a plug in cooling fan, or at least extended use passed 15 minutes or so. also would the hard drive still function if plugged into a different computer

 

[bazz2004]

My thinking is that yes overheating was the cause of the problem and has damaged the graphics chip. The fact that you've been getting by with the aid of an external fan confirms this. You should have had the issue tackled long ago which would not have been expensive. Possibly, it's not too late to have that remedied with a service but be ready for bad news. Best of luck.

As far as sticking the hard drive into another computer is concerned that would make available all your saved files although you wouldn't be able to boot into Windows with it. One option is to use it for storage by putting it in an external USB caddy. Using it as a boot drive to run Windows and carrying on from where you are now is only likely to work with the same make and model of laptop.

Have you confirmed that the problem is still there with an external monitor?