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.
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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.
January 3rd, 2007 at 5:18 pm
hello, i own a compaq evo n800c laptop and i recently replaced the bezel around the keyboard which required the screen be removed. upon rebooting after the install the colors are all distorted with a lot of neon colors (blue pink green) making any picture or video impossible to see. i tried reseatting the cables off of the lcd onto the laptop itself and the problem remained. any ideas?
January 3rd, 2007 at 11:12 am
Dear Laptop Repair Guy,
Thanks so much for the posts. I have a question about the 5205 model you posted with the video artifacts. I have the same identical problem with my laptop, 5205-S703, but it does not appear from the moment I turn my laptop on. Sometimes it does when I turn the laptop on after immediate prior use, but not the first time in the day. It happens on both the main LCD and any external monitors when it does happen, though. I think that this might be a problem with my system fan, because when I use high power apps, the glitches reappear and the computer freezes. The system can run for about 20 minutes if I dont use it intensively before the artifacts appear. Also, when I hold the laptop and apply pressure to the underside of the laptop near the fan and VGA area, the lines dissappear (but the system remains frozen if already frozen). Have I diagnosed my problem correctly as a fan malfunction, or do you think the video card is fried. The reason I suspect it is a fan problem is because my laptop once had intermittent fan grinding problems, and I think it may have finally died. One final thing, I thought the VGA board on 5205 laptops was discrete? Am I wrong? Thanks for your time and help.
With much appreciation,
Joseph Issa