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 31st, 2009 at 3:10 am
Hi I have an Advent K4000, it was dropped and the screen sometimes works (the picture is perfect) but most often get lots of multicoloured vertical lines and PC crashes. In safe mode it works fine all the time. External monitor only works when the laptop screen is ok. The safe mode bit confuses me it also fine prioe to XP starting and will display perfectly in bios. Have reseated video cable behind screen but struggling to get keyboard off to check other end. Any ideas please?
March 24th, 2009 at 3:28 am
my is laptop hp dv 2700,…a week ago i notice a horizontal blinking green line at the very bottom of the screen…i don’t why is that line apear, its annoying…
my cousins speculation that it is not a dead pixel and she said to me if i dropped the laptop but i haven’t drop it yet, but i always borrow it where ever i go.
can it be fix? by myself? or someone at the repairshop?
PS: grammar error ^^
March 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Hi
I have spent numerous hours trawling sites to try figure out if my laptop LCD screen has failed, looking at all the different scenarios hereI can not find a clear cut answer, On boot up the screen flickers with vertical sharp white lines randomly spaced, at this point I can see the windows load up process bar etc, I am already set to fire up to a second monitor that being a standard 25htz standard TV. This I have to connect via a s/video cable. The reason for this is that I have tried 2 different external LCD monitors, and my trustworthy IIYAMA high res visionmaster pro. But can not get any of them to show my desktop? But using the old TV with s/video I have a perfect desktop? Also when iI do flex the laptop screen I have a combination of vertical white flash lines and what looks like a splotchy desk to, patchy blotches that look kind pixalated or like a low res background? Well after that long winded explanation. Can you give me any expert inclanations? Is this likely to be SCREEN or GRAPHICS CARD? My laptop is a SONY VAIO VGN-AR21M.
I will include a link if this is OK? To a swf video of my problem it shows exactly the symptoms.
March 16th, 2009 at 1:35 am
cj2600,
I check the original screen already. Seem it show the output at example 6 from other laptop as well. So, the original screen was damage. Now i just need to make sure is the motherboard problem or video cable problem.The cable for another laptop is the same connection for screen but different from motherboard side so i cannot use that cable to test. Any idea ?
March 15th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
cj2600,
You did a great job for this site. I got one question. I got one laptop Dell D600. The screen is showing flicker and big window logon before startup. Use the external screen it working perfectly. After that i bought a new screen. The new screen didn’t solve the problem. The senario for new screen is white line at the begining then after go into window logon screen it show a flicker screen like example 6. I tested the new screen using other laptop it working alright. I didn’t check for the original screen before I order.So the original screen propably is alright. But i don’t why it show different video output. So, is relate to video cable or motherboard problem? How to test these part?
March 13th, 2009 at 5:31 am
I am not having any problems with colors on my laptop but periodically i get the horizontal white flickering stripes that seem to appear in your examples when you torque the screen…but I am not touching the screen at all.
Some days it seems fine and others it is really bad.
Moving the lcd seems to make the bars worse, as well as when i move the mouse on the touchpad. Any ideas?
I attempted to disconnect the video cable and reconnect it but that didn’t help.
March 9th, 2009 at 10:52 am
i have a similar problem with a compaq v3600 like the example 1 but this happen only when i close the lcd panel when I torque the screen to close up, but when is open is not to seam have the problem you can work fine is only when you close the lcd not when you open up the lcd.
sometimes is only the lower part of the lcd, other is the full lcd the laptop has only one year of use (in that time i can say it has been used about 4 mouse of full-time) i don’t use so much.
March 7th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Hi, I have a very big problem with my laptop, I don’t know really what to do, so I need your help. I was working something in my computer and it suddenly shuts down, and now when I want to start it the video on the screen has lines, some strange characters or other defects and it appears as it is going to reboot but it restarts it self, and this repeats until I fore to shutdown.
What can be my problem?
Please help me!!!!
March 5th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Chris,
I assume the laptop works fine with an external monitor and external video works OK, right?
“Inverter colors” sound like a bad LCD screen. Apparently failure, same as on the example 8.
March 5th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite M105 that I believe has a bad LCD screen. The backlight works (changing brightness up and down is OK) but the screen is a bit dimmer than normal and the colors are all inverted. Does this sound like a bad LCD?