Here I’m going to post some laptop screen photos showing bad video output. I’ll 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 I’ll post it too.
Here’s some help for finding a correct part for your laptop.
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
Example 1.
Here’s a picture of Satellite M55 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. 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.
Here’s the difference. When I torque the screen, the image appears but it’s distorted with some horizontal lines running across the screen.
Reseating the video cable didn’t make any change and the problem was fixed after I replaced the LCD screen.
Example 2.
I took this picture from Toshiba Satellite M65. 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. A video output on an external screen would be perfect, without any lines. Unfortunately, these lines indicate a screen problem. I’ve 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.
Example 3.
The photo below comes from Toshiba Satellite 5205. 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 it’s a separate module.
In this example, the vertical lines were caused by a failed video memory on the system board. I’ve tested the video memory with Microscope utility and it failed the test. In Toshiba Satellite 5205 the video memory is integrated into the system board. To fix the problem, I’ll have to replace the board. (We do not have equipment to replace the memory module itself).
Example 4.
Here’s another example of a bad LCD screen. My bad! It wasn’t 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 didn’t help. The problem disappeared when I installed my test LCD screen. Yes, for some reason I wasn’t 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.
Here’s 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.
Here’s another laptop with a bad LCD screen. This time it’s 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.
Here’s the difference. When I torque the screen, the image appears but it’s 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. You’ll 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.
Are you looking for a new LCD screen for your laptop? Try here.
If you find this article useful, please consider making a donation to the author. Thank you!
January 16th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
Hmmm I have a similar problem. See I have a ThinkPad laptop (600E.) See when I first started my laptop up, it would turn on, but it would remain a black screen. Someone told me it sounded like it was stuck on stand-by. I tried what they told me and the computer loaded up with windows and everything. So not even 5 mins and windows is loading up and the screen turns different colors. (vertical lines) just like in the fist picture. I’d move the laptop screen up and down and it would go to normal and then it would freeze and then go back to the lin colors. I don’t know what’s wrong with my laptop. I brought it to one of my step dad’s computer guys and they told me it was the mother board. Then they tried selling me a use Mac for over a 1000 dollars. I turned it down. I doubt that they were telling me the truth. I’m not totally stupid when it comes to computers. Because if it was the mother board, why would it even turn on. Any ways I think it may be the hard drive from what I’m seeing online. Could anyone please help me. Thank you very much.
January 14th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
V.S.,
Boot the laptop in safe mode. Do you still have lines on the screen? How about video on an external monitor, also has lines?
The lines appear as soon as you start the laptop, even before Windows is loaded or you can see it only in Windows?
January 14th, 2007 at 10:43 am
Matt G,
Look inside the video connector on the motherboard, make sure you have no bent pins inside the connector. It’s possible that you accidentally damaged the video cable while unplugging it from the motherboard. Did you unplug the connector by edges or pulled the harness? May be the video harness is damaged? Turn on the laptop and wiggle the video cable, see if it makes any difference.
January 13th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Joseph Issa,
To the best of my knowledge, the VGA board on Satellite 5205-S703 is not discrete. This unit has a dedicated 64MB video memory, but the video card itself (NVIDIA GeForce4 460Go) is integrated into the system board.
From this description I would assume that something is wrong with the motherboard/video card. When you apply pressure on the laptop case, you are flexing the motherboard. Probably there is a bad contact somewhere on the motherboard.
But this one looks like a heat related issue.
I would check if thermal grease on the CPU is still good and reapply it if needed. Not sure if it’s going to help, but anyway it’s worth trying.
January 12th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
i took my labtop outside i had it in a lab top bag and itw as really cold outside when i got home i turned it on not knowing that you are supposed to let it warm up to room temperature and the lcd screen has purple dots all over it. how do i fix it? my lab top is a acer.
January 12th, 2007 at 2:05 am
I have an acer travelmate 290 which has a problem of not displaying an output to either the laptop screen or an external screen. When switched on it appears to start ok and the lights come on to show switched on/ battery/ hard disk activity but not display. Have you seen this before and if so what should I be looking at ?
January 8th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
[...] Your lines look like in the example 2 here? Test the laptop with an external monitor. If the lines appear only on the internal LCD, most likely you have a bad LCD screen. By the way, you can find some disassembly instructions for Toshiba laptops here. There are no instructions for taking apart display assembly for a Satellite P35 notebook, but there are a lot of guides for other models, they all similar. [...]
January 8th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
hey C J
I have lines on my laptop screen. i tried to test direct x 3d, using C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\dxdiag.exe, display, test direct 3d, and then the revolving box stopped and the laptop hanged! on restart there was an error relating to the display driver.. i want to know if this is the result of the lines on the screen…
January 3rd, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Albert,
If the external monitor works fine then the problem is somewhere inside the display assembly. It’s either a bad LCD screen or bad video harness. It’s impossible to say witch part is failing until you install a test LCD or replace the harness.
January 3rd, 2007 at 5:19 pm
i forgot to add that the picture on an external screen is perfectly fine.