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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March 10th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Yasmin,
I know that a bad wireless card can cause all kind of problems. In some cases laptop even will not boot because of a faulty wireless card.
Wireless antennas are located inside the display panel, under the LCD screen. You can see wireless antennas on the step 9 in this disassembly guide (two squares on the top of the screen cover).
March 7th, 2007 at 3:48 am
I have a sony laptop, the screen went dark so I got a new Inveter and now the screen lights up too bright and the image is washed away. its weird I put back the old inverter and that now does the same as the new one. I’ve put a screen shot here http://www.nick-christou.org.uk/screen.jpg and the inverters i got here http://www.nick-christou.org.uk/inverter.jpg
March 6th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Hello cj2600:
Thanks for your answer.
I used compressed air and I solved the problem about temperature. It has diminished 10ºC aprox. But the problem about screen continues.
Accidentally I turned of WiFi of my laptop and surprise!!, the display was normal. I don’t know if this is a chance, but it’s real. I turn on WiFi and the problem returns again. Have you had any problem between screen and WiFi?.
¿Where is the antenna located in A105-S2716?.
Thanks for your help again.
March 4th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Yasmin,
I’ve seen many Satellite A105 laptops and noticed that some of them fail the same way:
Does it sound like your problem? If yes, then I believe it’s a problem with the motherboard, probably a faulty video chip.
First time when I got a Satellite A105 with a problem like this I thought it’s either a bad screen or something is wrong with the video cable. I replaced both but it didn’t fix the problem. The problem disappeared only after I replaced the motherboard. After that I repaired over 15 Satellite A105s with exactly same problem (gray screen with white horizontal lines) by replacing the motherboard.
Your description is a little bit different and I’m not sure what is wrong in your case. It’s necessary to test the laptop with a known good LCD screen in order to narrow down the problem.
If you believe the problem is heat related, try cleaning up the heatsink. Blow off the heatsink with compressed air.
March 3rd, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Hello cj2600:
First, sorry for my english that it’s not very well. I speak spanish
My problem is similar to Max (Message #71, page
and Joseph Issa (Message #109, page 11) about the heat (Well, I think so). I have a toshiba Satellite A105-S2716.
When I turn it on for the first time, I don’t have a problem. My problem starts after 10 – 20 minutes when appears great many gray horizontal lines randomly (and sometimes black screen). This fault doesn’t appear on an external display. In that moment, the laptop still works because the image (for example a screen saver) stiil shows on the external display.
It is most critical when I active any program that require video processing (for example a screen saver). When the problem is more intense, I turn it down and try to eliminate the heat contained underside of the laptop (for example with a fan wheel). Then, this problem dissapears until after few minutes.
Please, help me!!!. ¿What can I do?. I can’t be all the time refreshing my laptop with a fan wheel.
Thanks for your help and congratulation for this web page…
March 3rd, 2007 at 9:43 am
[...] Read my other posts related to laptop video issues: How to troubleshoot and fix laptop video problems Laptop has bad video on the LCD screen. What is wrong? [...]
February 28th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Well, we have an Averatec 4265…yeah, I don’t know the brand well, it’s a hand me down from my Grandma. But anyway, today my fiance was on the laptop, and was turning it on. He got an error message, something about something being corrupt and needing to use the boot CD or something to that effect. Then came the lines. Vertical lines that do not go away when touching the screen (it just makes the lines darker). They start as a single green line in the center that gets brighter, then they multiply, eventually consuming the whole screen, and kind of fade in and out but are constantly there. Tried rebooting it, attaching an external monitor…on the external monitor, the lines do not appear, but it goes into standby mode like when I turn off the desktop after the windows loading screen, which also appears on the laptop before the lines appear.
Any solutions would be much appreciated! Thanks in advance
February 27th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Hello,
I need to replace the DC Jack on my Gateway 400sd4. I have the new DC Jack part. Can you give me any help in how to get the old part to remove and replace it?
Thanks for your help,
TWheat
February 25th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
How can I tell? Take it apart? I am very afluent at working on desktop pcs, but never taken a laptop apart. Are we talking about an inverter? LCD? How much $$$ am I looking at here? I know I can fix it, if I knew what needed to be fixed.
February 25th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Barry,
Enter the BIOS setup menu. Do you still see the same stripe on the screen in BIOS setup and it covers part of the image? If yes then most likely you have a bad screen.