Mike, Johnny, BIOS is version A29, which is the latest one on the dell website. > Does this laptop have the Nvidia Quadro graphics option? If so try > booting with NOMODESET. Also, if available in the BIOS turn OFF > switchable graphics. no, it just has intel onboard graphics, there's also no option for switchable graphics in the BIOS. NOMODESET didn't change anything, but it inspired me to remove the "quiet" kernel parameter. now the following message can be seen: duplicate ACPI video bus devices for the same VGA controller, please try module parameter "video.allowduplicates=1" if the current driver doesn't work. I just don't know where to put this video.allow... parameter. did not work as grub kernel parameter. -- Best regards, Rainer mailto:rfu at oudeis.org