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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April 24th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Ronald Catapano,
I don’t know exactly why lines appear on the screen but here’s my guess.
The LCD screen has a controller board on the back. The controller board connects to the LCD via a few ribbon cables. It’s possible that one of the traces inside one of the ribbon is not making good contact with the LCD or controller board causing lines on the screen. This is just my guess.
Your description sounds like the LCD screen failure. I think you’ll have to replace the screen.
April 24th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Morac,
Not sure what’s going on. Maybe you should try updating the BIOS?
April 24th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Fred Schuff,
Is it happening only in Windows or you see the same shifted screen problem on startup?
When you press on the power button, the Toshiba logo appears on the screen. Is it shifted to the right?
April 17th, 2010 at 6:55 am
I have a Toshiba M105-S3041 laptop. The display appears correct without spots or lines or bands or white sections but it is shifted on the display by about 1″ to the right and 1/4″ from the top. An external monitor displays the screen perfectly centered. I have not seen this problem reported elsewhere. Can you tell me what the problem might be? I did not know if there is some adjustement to shift the display right/left and up/down. Thanks.
April 16th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
I had a problem with my Dell Inspiron 9300′s display that was fixed by buying a replacement lcd screen, but now the brightness controls are reversed. Turning up the brightness in the BIOS makes the screen dimmer and vice-versa. The new display did not come with an inverter, I needed to use my old one. Could that be the problem?
Is there a way to fix this or do I have to simply live with it?
April 15th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite P105-S9722 laptop running Windows XP Pro and I have a problem with lines on the screen like in your example #2. I don’t get the lines on a seperate monitor and I’m prepared to replace the screen if it gets any worse but I still don’t know what caused the problem.
Each of the lines on the screen has appeared after the computer was restarted from standby mode.
I don’t get a line every time it goes into standby, but every line has appeared after coming out of standby.
While the lines may be caused by partial monitor failure, I get the impression that something else is causing the monitor to fail. Any ideas?
April 9th, 2010 at 5:31 pm
I use my HP dv5 laptop for editing videos and editing pictures and the screen is being extremely glitchy. The lightest parts of the screen are pink, and the darkest are green. It appears shimmery and glittery looking and looks to be a hardware problem. When I tilt my screen to a certain degree (different each time i open my laptop)everything will be normal. Well, it used to. Now everything is pink and green and annoying. :/ anyone know how to fix this at home???
April 7th, 2010 at 3:43 am
Hey great site. Those youtube videos dont really have any real solutions. Keep up good work
. I had this acer 3102 wlmi and it had northenlights problem and similar disfunctionality. Havent replaced the lcd (make of lg) model LP154W01 (TL) (D1) the connector cable for screen dc020007o00 appears to mee that it is ok.
April 6th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
I’m having trouble with my laptop. Whenever I try to charge my laptop, suddenly turns off or the image in the LCD would be disrupted and it would have horizontal or vertical multicolored lines appearing. And the stripes would appear and dissappear and you will be able to hear a loud noise.
But whenever I use my laptop in safe mode, I am able to charge my laptop. Although sometimes I need to try it over and over again just so i could use my laptop while it is charging.
I hope you could help me. Thanks!
I tried to use another charger to see if that was the source of the problem. But my laptop still doesn’t function properly whenever its not in safe mode.
March 30th, 2010 at 10:28 am
My M5000 laptop was bought recently, and when i webcam with my friends on msn, i realise only a picture of clouds and people appear. And when i tested my webcam, i realise the webcam only worked at a resolution of 1280×780 and above. Smaller then that, only a picture of clouds and people were shown.