Fixing bad video on LCD screen. Here Im going to post some laptop screen photos showing bad video output. Ill explain what was wrong with the screen and how I fixed it. I plan to ad more examples as soon as I get new pictures. If you have your own example and know how to fix it please let me know and Ill post it too. Example 1. Heres a picture of Satellite M5. LCD screen I made this morning. I got this video output as soon as I started the laptop. There were a lot of vertical lines, and they were changing color without any pattern. Drivers Dell Inspiron E1705 Laptop Price' title='Drivers Dell Inspiron E1705 Laptop Price' />To me it looked like Northern Lights never seen in real life. The external monitor worked fine. As soon as I applied some tension to the screen it changed the pattern. Some horizontal lines appeared in the middle of the LCD. Heres the difference. When I torque the screen, the image appears but its distorted with some horizontal lines running across the screen. Reseating the video cable didnt make any change and the problem was fixed after I replaced the LCD screen. Example 2. I took this picture from Toshiba Satellite M6. I think that this example is very typical. One day you wake up, turn on the laptop and see one or a few hair like vertical lines in different colors. When you move the LCD screen some lines might disappear or more lines appear on the screen. Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get. Get support for your Dell product with free diagnostic tests, drivers, downloads, howto articles, videos, FAQs and community forums. Or speak with a Dell technical. Here Im going to post some laptop screen photos showing bad video output. Ill explain what was wrong with the. Back in April last year, Lionel blogged about a vertical line issue that could potentially affect customers who own 17 Inspiron 9200, 9300, and XPS G. A video output on an external screen would be perfect, without any lines. Unfortunately, these lines indicate a screen problem. Ive never seen this kind of video output caused by a bad video cable or bad FL inverter board. My laptop was fixed after I replaced the LCD screen. The Dell Inspiron 6400 also sold as the Inspiron e1505 via Dell Home is a laptop that meets you in the middle. Its pretty light and portable like the Inspiron. XPS 17 XPS 17 L701X The Dell XPS 17, released in October 2010, was a desktop replacement laptop in the XPS Laptop line. It was priced at 949 for the base. Drivers Dell Inspiron E1705 Laptop Price' title='Drivers Dell Inspiron E1705 Laptop Price' />Example 3. The photo below comes from Toshiba Satellite 5. The laptop displays identical vertical lines all over the LCD screen as soon as I turn it on. Sometimes these lines are red, sometimes they are blue, sometimes they become wider and change color to white. The same pattern appears on the external monitor. It displays same vertical lines. When the same video defect appears on both monitors internal LCD screen and external screen, then most likely it happens because of a bad video card. On some laptops the video card is integrated into the system board, on other models its a separate module. In this example, the vertical lines were caused by a failed video memory on the system board. Ive tested the video memory with Microscope utility and it failed the test. In Toshiba Satellite 5. To fix the problem, Ill have to replace the board. Okdo Tif To Word Rtf Converter For Mac. We do not have equipment to replace the memory module itself. Example 4. Heres another example of a bad LCD screen. My bad It wasnt the LCD screen problem. As soon as I turned on the laptop, I was getting these reddish marks on the LCD screen but not on the external monitor. Reseating and replacing the video cable didnt help. The problem disappeared when I installed my test LCD screen. Yes, for some reason I wasnt able to reproduce the problem on my test LCD screen. But the reddish video appeared again as soon as I replaced the screen. I guess it happened because the system board had some kind of intermittent problem with onboard video or video connector. Long story short, I had to replace the system board and it fixed the problem. Yep, I misdiagnosed this laptop. Example 5. Heres one more example of a faulty LCD screen. The left half of the screen works just fine but the right side is completely white. Example 6. Heres another laptop with a bad LCD screen. This time its a tablet PC. Example 7. This screen looks like the screen on the example 1. I hooked up an external monitor and the external video works perfectly fine. Heres the difference. When I torque the screen, the image appears but its distorted with some horizontal lines running across the screen. After a few seconds the image washes away. I had to replace the LCD screen. Example 8. This laptop displays inverted colors right from the startup. As you see, the Toshiba logo is light green instead of red. The background is light gray instead of black. The Intel logo should be blue on a white background but it is red on a black background. When your laptop displays inverted colors as on the picture above, this is an indication of a bad screen. Youll have to replace the screen. Example 9. Here are two more screens. In both cases this problem is related to the LCD screen, witch means the screen has to be replaced. On the image below you see a white band running from the top of the screen to the bottom. This band appears right from the laptop startup and runs through the logo too. On the following image only the left side of the screen is working properly. This problem is caused by faulty LCD screen. Other post related to troubleshooting laptop video problems How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems. Taking apart notebook LCD screen. Replacing LCD screen inverter. The newly installed screen is not working. LCD Lines Common Causes Direct. Dell. Back in April last year, Lionel blogged about a vertical line issue that could potentially affect customers who own 1. Inspiron 9. 20. 0, 9. XPS Gen 2 notebook LCDs. After engaging our engineering and product group teams, as well as the LCD manufacturer, to investigate and isolate the cause of this issue, we narrowed the problem down to a specific part within a certain date range. During that research, we found that the part may also affect the Inspiron 6. Latitude D8. 00, D8. Precision Mobile Workstation M6. M7. 0 LCDs. That led to Lionels second blog post on the topic. Weve taken steps to contact those who may be affected to offer a warranty replacement and also put in place measures to rectify any out of pocket expense incurred by out of warranty customers who replaced the affected screens in the past. Since then, comments have hit our forums and blog site about other potentially affected systems and possible causes and fixes for them. Weve gone back to our engineering and product group teams and verified that the part causing this issue has been purged from our production line, andhas not been used in any other system type. Both of these questions have been confirmed and no other system outside of the date range or listed system types are affected by this part. That said, there are other variables that can lead to vertical and horizontal lines on other system types regardless of size or model. Lines on an LCD can appear sporadically, at random places on the screen, and for what appears to be for no reason at all. These lines can be caused by normal LCD failures brought on by a multitude of variables, which Ill try to cover here. Vertical lines tend to be a more common issue in notebooks, primarily because they are subjected to more wear and tear on a daily basis than a desktop LCD. The most common cause of these lines is simply a loose connection. As notebook systems are carried around, no matter how careful we try to be, they have a tendency to be bumped, jarred, and even sometimes the heart stopping drop. Though  todays notebooks are designed to better absorb and dissipate small shocks, it can still have adverse affects on the notebooks internal components. A good bump or series of bumps and random movements can cause the LCD cable to become loose. The connection remains intact, but some breaks in the signal can lead to impurities in the reproduction of the image on the screen. Think of a loosely fastened garden hose water will still be directed and outputted through the end of the hose, but some water is lost at the connection. This is easily fixed by tightening the hose. Similarly, the LCD can usually be fixed by simply making sure the connection is secure. Service manuals for Dell systems can be found here on support. A golden rule of any seasoned technician when it comes to cable connections dont just check the connection, reseat it. This applies to more then just cable connections memory, wireless cards, hard drives, optical drives, etc There are a few reasons for this, the first being temperature. With so many components designed into such a small case, heat is inevitable. These temperature variations can lead to things like chip creep and oxidation. Removing the cable and firmly, but carefully reseating it should solve this problem by not only making sure that the connection is properly seated, but also that the pins are free from oxidation. The second reason is debris. If youve ever opened up your notebook to clean the keyboard or for maintenance, you might see any number of things such as food particles, hair, paper, dirt and dust. Some of these objects are small enough to get into the connections and cause problems. This is one of the reasons that regular cleaning of your notebook and desktop PCs should be done. The problems caused by debris can usually be quickly cleared up by a can of compressed air and a little time and effort. If these simple fixes dont seem to work, then we need to look at the actual failure possibilities. Vertical or horizontal lines that dont disappear after the basic troubleshooting are usually caused by circumstantial failures. The most common type of failure that leads to lines on the display is an open circuit connection between the driver IC flexible circuit board and LCD glass. This is usually caused by external stresses mechanical, thermal, etc, which causes the flex circuit to detach from the glass. The variables leading to the detachment are wide and are dependant on individual cases. With the amount of travel and various operating environments of a notebook, pinpointing the exact cause can be near impossible, unless of course the problem immediately follows a catastrophic event such as dropping the notebook or prolonged exposure to heat or cold, such as leaving the system in a car. Investigations into technical problems, including which systems, batches, and date ranges are affected, are rigorous, and we strive for accuracy. Unfortunately, not every technical problem can be traced down to the root cause. But in every case, we try to proceed appropriately and in all fairness to affected customers. If you are experiencing any problem with lines on your LCD and your system is not one of the potentially affected units, or in the date range outlined in Lionels earlier posts, please contact technical support to troubleshoot and identify possible fixes. See below for details on how to do that. For customers in the United States U. S. Inspiron Technical Support 1 8. Say Technical SupportEnter your Express Service Code or say, I dont have itIs your system for Personal or Business useSay NotebookIs your system an Inspiron, XPS, Latitude or Precision. For customers outside the United States Go to support. Choose your country or region from the drop down list. Choose Contact Us. Choose Technical Support. Choose Call Technical Support.