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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June 20th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I have an IBM thinkpad T40 and I have my computer hooked up to a pc monitor. Anyhow, I think my problem is similiar to examples 2 and 8. While my laptop is plugged up to my pc monitor I still experience the same problems from time to time. Do you think it is the LCD screen or the inverter or a bad video card?
June 18th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Courtney,
I think you are confusing M35 with M35X. Satellite M35X has a known issue with the power jack.
It depends. If there is a short inside the power jack, it may fry the adapter.
This problem happens only in Windows or the initial screen with Toshiba logo (when you just start the laptop) is blown up too? Did you try changing the screen resolution in Windows?
Did you test your laptop with an external monitor? The external video is fine?
June 17th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I’m so impressed that you’ve helped so many people – Kudos to you!
Ok so my problem is with my Toshiba Satellite M35-S456. I had issues with the jack (didn’t everyone). And I got it repeaired at a shady place. when they returned my laptop to me it worked until after 2 weeks when the jack finally stopped charging the battery and powering the machine. Oh, and this was after they broke my original AC adapter – they said sometimes with a faulty jack – damage can be done to the adapter… maybe?
Anyways my problem is now, after a year of ignoring my laptop I finally tried it again and it powered up!! Unfortunately the screen only displays one quarter of what is now a giant image. It’s as if the welcome screen has been blown up to fit on a 32″ screen, but I’m viewing only 15.4″ of it. I can move my mouse around to view diff parts – but I can’t quite get to the bottom edge – so the tool bar is out. Also on the right hand side there is a half inch of black running down the side, and a half inch of multicolored vertical lines next to the black. Please help me!!
June 16th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
My monitor on my Asus G2 is having issues much like example #2, It seems to just be one color vertical lines if on a black background (Red), if its on a white background the lines are gone but there is blue haze to the monitor (Think Fuzzy TV Screen)
Its getting worse as of late the monitor has to be tilted at just the right angle and not moved or it stays on, Seems like a short to me but would like to know where to start looking.
June 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Just a followup – I replaced the video cable and everything is working great now. Thanks for the help.
June 14th, 2008 at 1:46 am
I had this laptop only for a year and half never done any physical damage, it is was in excellent condition until the screen went crazy. Its a bit difficult to describe but mainly all the colors got mixed up.
Connected to an external monitor and the screen is perfectly fine, so the video card is fine. Then i bought a brand new inverter and replaced it with the old one but still messed up screen
My only guess is now it may be one of the cables from the bottom part of the laptop to the screen or the screen it self. the screen itself is a 17″ high definition very expensive stuff.
So im completely stuck with loads of deadlines lined up. Any suggestions or advice would be much appreciated.
Cheers.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Yes, I have color bars from the toshiba logo, and it seems the video card is damaged acording to a guy who took a look at it. I found my driver disk and gonna try to reinstall the video driver. I tested another screen and still get the color bars. It seems internal, but i do hope its not the whole motherboard since it will be expensive to fix.
June 12th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I’m dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows XP and for about a month, the screen would show up inverted from startup and would never go away. Then eventually my Ubuntu’s X became all messed up (on the screen were one corner of my desktop repeated three times across the monitor). Oh, also, I connected an external monitor and everything was alright (except when my Ubuntu desktop was messed up.. it showed up on the external monitor that way, too). Recently I restore the xorg configuration file back to its original. Well, the inverted colors still persisted until one random day, my laptop monitor was okay again! the colors were fine! so i unplugged the external monitor and just used my laptop’s. I turned it off and then later turned it back on only to find out that it’s inverted again. At first it was inverted NOT from start up but when I got to the Ubuntu login screen. I restarted my computer a few more times and the inverted colors started from startup each time. What appears to be the problem?? I haven’t tried reseating the video cable yet…
June 11th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
Thanks for the help. I’ll try the cable and hope that solves everything.
June 11th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
JLoyd,
I think the next step should be replacing the video cable, the cable could be bad. I could be wrong and it’s possible that there is a problem with the graphics card (even though external video is fine) but a new video cable should cost you too much and there is a good chance to fix the laptop.