Problem with Vista laptop

[Kirei Blossom]

Hi,

My new laptop is running WIndows Vista. Today, I started up the computer,and while it was starting up, I plugged the battery into the wall socket. As soon as I did that, the computer screen went blank and then the computer shut down.

When I started it up again, it brought a message that the computer unexpectedly shut down, so would I like to go to safe mode? I chose to start up with safe mode, and shut down from there. Since then, I'm running things normally and everythings' fine. Though I had to readjust my "Windows and Appearance Settings" because the taskbar and pop up menus looked strangle and colourless.

But I checked Event Viewer, and there are tons of system error messages. I'm attaching minidumps here.. It's in a zip folder, otherwise it wasn't letting me attach it due to file size.

My laptop's only a couple months old. Please tell me it was only some wacky thing happening because of plugging in power all of a sudden, and it won't happen again. I'll try not to plug in while the computers running..

 

[Route44]

The minidump cited error 0x000000EA: THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
A device driver problem has caused the system to pause indefinitely (hang). Typically, this is caused by a display driver waiting for the video hardware to enter an idle state. This might indicate a hardware problem with the video adapter, or a faulty video driver.

The driver in question is atikmdag.sys which is an ATI driver and has to do with your video which would explain your "strange and colorless" issues.

You could either a) go to your laptop manufacturer's website and update your drivers or b) since this is still under warrenty have them correct the issues since there appears to be so many system error messages.

Let them know that your mindump was read along with the code and that the driver atikmdag.sys was unable to be loaded.

 

[Kirei Blossom]

Actually, this laptop was a gift from another country. But its a Dell 1440 Inspiron. I live in TX. How do I go about getting help on this?

 

[Route44]

It still should be under the manufacture's warrenty. Contact Dell (and good luck).