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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August 8th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Fahd Y Sharaf,
This problem could be related to:
1. Poor connection between the keyboard cable and motherboard.
2. Bad keyboard.
3. A problem with the keyboard controller on the motherboard.
Here’s what you can try:
1. Reconnect the keyboard cable. Make sure it’s seated properly.
2. Replace the keyboard.
3. If 1 and 2 do not help, replace the motherboard.
August 8th, 2009 at 2:40 am
my HP compac labtop keyboard suddenly types two letters when I key in one letter for example typing e show we. this happen to some letters not all. your swift help is highly apreciated
August 6th, 2009 at 5:34 am
heyyy i think my computer has the problem of example number two but most of the time while using the computer i get red vertical lines and a loud noise from my computer. so do i do what example number two to reffering to??? and i have a Pc not a laptop.
August 5th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Hi. Thank you for this article. My HP laptop problem is like example #2. I am going to replace the screen myself. This has saved me a great deal of money. Thanks again.
August 1st, 2009 at 7:47 am
Well my screen doesn’t look anywhere near your examples, but I am worrying. A fine blue line appeared on the left hand side of my dell inspiron. I updated the drivers and it went away and came back. Is it from opening my monitor to 85 degrees? Someone mentioned that on another website.
July 28th, 2009 at 6:00 am
I have a dell d600. My thin lines and then half black screen were not vertical but horizontal. Does it make a difference as to what might be wrong. If I jiggle the screen I can make the lines get better.
thanks
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:02 am
I have a tx1000 laptop with a bad screen. Like show in the picture above in Example 1. I thought I had a bad screen. It turned out that the screen was not bad it It’s Something to do with the motherborad. I’m not sure how it fix it. Other than get a new motherborad. I was lucky enough to test it on another computer that i had.
Any idea on how to fix a fulty connection on the on the motherboard. The external monitor works fine and all of the drivers are istaled correctly.
July 7th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I have a problem just like example number 1, the external monitor does not work fine, but does not show the lines like the Example 1. It shows the screen with wrong colors and very mixed up.
This happend just after the windows 7 + driver for NVIDIA site installed + Changed resolution to the maximum possible.
July 5th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Hi
I have a HP pavilion laptop and my problem looks like (example 5).The only difference is left half of the screen is black
and the other half is ok.
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:49 am
Hi, I have a Toshiba M115-s3094 and I’m sure it now needs a LCD screen. But it started off showing random lines and display irregularites, kind of like your example in the first example and example 7. When I would press on the outer edge it would sometimes be corrected. Well I started using a small plastic clamp and that worked for awhile. Now it has an obvious crack in the LCD screen. Just wanting to make sure that just the LCD scree would correct it? And where is a good place to order one? I’ve done some searches, one was smart-micro usa laptop lcd, there was one called screencountry, but I think it is in Canada. There was a few more, but there doesn’t seem to be much info on them when searching. Thanks.