Hey everyone! I've got a Dell computer that's around two years old, and it's been acting really weird lately. The other day, I was playing Roblox when my PC just shut off out of nowhere. When I turned it back on, I was greeted with a blue screen, and after that, it stopped charging altogether. I've tried swapping chargers and restarting, but nothing worked. Eventually, my dad opened it up, cleaned it out, and that seemed to help—until it happened again. He managed to do a battery reset, and it worked for a bit, but then the black screens and blue screens returned, especially when I played games. I made sure to check for viruses and updates, and I still have 119GB free on my storage. I'm at a loss here. Any ideas on what might be going on or how I could fix this?
3 Answers
It sounds like there might be a problem with either your integrated graphics card or your hard drive. You should check if anything's overheating when you run your PC. Running a disk analysis with an app can help determine if there's an issue with your hard drive too. If you're not too savvy with computers, don’t worry! Just take it slow and double-check everything; some malfunctions can be pretty complicated to troubleshoot.
I think there's a strong chance the issue could be battery-related, especially since you mentioned it happened shortly after resetting the battery. If possible, get a replacement battery from a store with a good return policy. It's worth testing that before getting into the more complicated parts of your hardware, like the GPU.
If it was just the battery, it should run fine while plugged in, right? That's a good point to consider!
Have you thought about checking your dump files? Those can offer great insight into what’s causing the blue screens. If you can boot into normal mode or safe mode, look in the C:WindowsMinidump folder for any crash logs. You can share those online for a better analysis—tools like catbox.moe can help with that.
I didn't realize those logs could be so helpful! I'll definitely check for those next time.
I've had something similar happen. If you suspect a GPU problem, consider trying safe mode to see if the issue persists. That can help isolate if it's a hardware failure or a driver issue.