Monitor Issues with Dell XPS 8100

Just purchased a dell xs 8100 Dell computer with windows 7 system.
Guild wars History - have installed software on 2 other home computers
(1 gateway and 1 built by owner)

1st Dell xps 8100 issues- you would be playing game and the monitor would go black, I would have to restart computer.
Note:- I contacted Dell support and they re-installed the video Drivers. This did not fix the problem, I contacted Dell a second time and they had me return that XPS 8100 for a new unit.

2nd Dell XPS 8100 – Installed guild wars
Issue- White boxes appear on the guild war screen and the screen looks like it is vibrating (like sand on images and bouncing around).

Has the guild war team seen this issue with Dell XPS 8100 (size ram is 8)?

If you have any suggestions, I am all ears.

Looks like I may be taking this one back also.

Thanks in advance.

need to know FULL system specs to be able to comment further (at least to be able to comment to your advantage)

Sounds to me like this Dell XPS 8100 has a graphics card not fit for gaming, or Guild Wars for that matter.

Need full system specs though.

i highly doubt it is the graphics card, dell xps's come with low end graphics cards at the very least. I have an extremely old xps (400) that came with a 7300le and it runs it fine on mid-low with 85fps

Try turning your graphics down and check your graphics settings in nvidia (i think dell sticks with nvidia for most desktops) control panel, or w/e the ati equivilent is. Turn down refresh rate and maybe other. I'm guessing your new to pc gaming, posting the name of the pc you got really doesn't help, i'm basing everything off of personal experiance,

Click start
then click run
type dxdiag
If it asks to connect to internet, do so.
Then reply to us with the following information, you will have to type it, you cannot copy and paste.
under system, tell us processor
tell us memory
click on display 1 and tell us NAme

I have a Dell XPS9000 which is the full tower version of the mini tower 8100. There's either an nVidia GT220, GTX260, or an ATI Radion 4850 in that 8100. Those are the cards that Dell offers with the 8xxx and 9xxx computers. Also Dell underclocks the GTX260 so that it will run with the piddly 350W PSU they have in the 8xxxs. I put an nVidia 9800GTX+ in my 9000 which has a 475W PSU and can handle this card OK. Also, Dell offers processors ranging from the core i5 all the way up to the core i7 975 Extreme at 3.33 Ghz (which is the processor I've got)

I'm running GW at full high graphics settings and I get a solid 60 FPS at those settings. I'm betting that the OP has a bad graphics card, or one not capable of running GW at max graphics. If it's the 220 it's definitely not capable of running GW at high graphics settings with any decent frame rate.

Just a quicky - the "white boxes" problem is almost invariably a problem with gw.dat rather than anything hardware related. I've had it myself and wondered why I had a random spawn of refrigerators...

As Snoggie said - try doing an -image before screwing around with the video card. From what I can see, that Dell has at least a GeForce G310, which, although a relatively crappy card, should have no problems running GW.

Agreed that a -image can't hurt here and will at least eliminate the .dat file as the culprit. I've also had the symptoms the OP is describing with a Toshiba Qosmio laptop. The sandy, snowy, vibrating image....this happened for a few days before the integrated video, an nVidia 6600FX, if memory serves, failed completely. So if the -image doesn't fix it, I'd look at the h/w next.