Dell Laptop Screen flashing black every 5 sec

I reformated and resinstalled all my windows software. Now, the laptop is flashing a black screen every 5 seconds. There's also a high pitched sound that changes tone when the screen goes black. This is a Dell Inspiron 8200, with XP and all the windows updates including SP3 installed. Help!

I reformated and resinstalled all my windows software. Now, the laptop is flashing a black screen every 5 seconds.
There's also a high pitched sound that changes tone when the screen goes black.
This is a Dell Inspiron 8200, with XP and all the windows updates including SP3 installed.
Help!

Could you give us more information of what happen prior to this and causing you to format the machine, from the looks of this posting you formatted it again. Because as we see in this topic you formatted it in that one? 10/29/2010 @ 2:40 pm

http://forums.whatthetech.com/index.php?showtopic=115281

I recently re-formated and reloaded windows onto my Dell Inspiron 8200.
I loaded the drivers disks (2 of them) and everything is back in work except for a PCI Modem in Other Devices that I can't identify.
So I don't know which driver to load.
How do I identify this driver?

The Device Instance ID in the Details tab of the PCI Modem Properties window under device manager is:

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2486&SUBSYS_542114F1&REV_02\3&61AAA01&0&FE

Seams to be some confusion in the postings or something happen again to caused you to reformat again in this posting.

Jimbo1

Sorry for the confusion, Jimbo. I thought that since this was a separate topic, that I needed to open a new topic. I didn't mean to confuse everyone. I ran chkdsk /r in dos mode last night, just for grins…(does it "hurt" the computer to do this, or is it simply part of standard maintenance?) Magic…the screen seems to have stabilized, though the laptop rebooted itself before I could read any report about what the problem was that was corrected. I think this topic can be closed. Thank you for all your support. You have a fantastic team at Whatthetech!

Sorry for the confusion, Jimbo.
I thought that since this was a separate topic, that I needed to open a new topic. I didn't mean to confuse everyone.
I ran chkdsk /r in dos mode last night, just for grins…(does it "hurt" the computer to do this, or is it simply part of standard maintenance?)
Magic…the screen seems to have stabilized, though the laptop rebooted itself before I could read any report about what the problem was that was corrected.
I think this topic can be closed.
Thank you for all your support.
You have a fantastic team at Whatthetech!

Ok Np and May you have a Good Day

jimbo1

Well…maybe I spoke to soon. The flashing has started again. What should I do?

Well…maybe I spoke to soon. The flashing has started again.
What should I do?

TBH not sure of what to tell you it could be anything.

1. That you reformated and resinstalled all my windows software.

Q. Why did you format the machine in the first place did something caused you to do this?

2. Now, the laptop is flashing a black screen every 5 seconds, and
3. There's also a high pitched sound that changes tone when the screen goes black.

These 2 other problems after the format could be a failing hardware problem and it could be a number of things you can try and go to http://www.pcpitstop.com/ and run a test on the machine, mabey you can spot the problem from the report. But It may be best to take it to PC Repair shop to have them look at it. Like I said may be a failing pc or hardware.

Jimbo1