Laptops Display corrupted for bios & windows but fine for linux Mint

[greenhorn]

My inspiron failed to start up, giving the 8 beeps error. no display
Connecting via VGA shows a corrupted display for bios & into windows (weird colours, artefacts etc)
Thought the VGA adapter had failed

but then linux mint, running on software acceleration, booted and ran with a display looking perfectly fine.

A bit confused now - I have an inspiron n5010 with a core i3 and a radeon 5470.

Is my GPU dead, or is my BIOS corrupted ?

 

[6pack]

I think you meant software rendering mode. Linux defaults to software rendering mode when there's a problem with drivers. I think there's no way to install the graphics drivers in Linux Mint unless you install it to a hdd or around 4GB usb stick. Running it from live cd or live usb will always default to software rendering mode.

 

[VtecComp]

My inspiron failed to start up, giving the 8 beeps error. no display
Connecting via VGA shows a corrupted display for bios & into windows (weird colours, artefacts etc)
Thought the VGA adapter had failed

but then linux mint, running on software acceleration, booted and ran with a display looking perfectly fine.

A bit confused now - I have an inspiron n5010 with a core i3 and a radeon 5470.

Is my GPU dead, or is my BIOS corrupted ?

Is it power on no display or power on you get display and then display fails after, you can get N5010 motherboard with ATI graphics converted to Intel Graphics only if you are having problem with ATI graphic chip