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Hey folks,

I ran into an interesting issue with my neighbors laptop yesterday. When the computer had been shutdown for several hours and you turned it on the screen would have red/purple likes vertically down the entire thing; but after leaving it sit for a couple hours they when away... noone touched the computer in this time (so I don't think it's a loose wire) and I did full diagnostics. (I thought maybe it was HD but nope).

Any ideas why this might happen?

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[Martyr2]

Sounds like it might be the screen going bad. Do a print screen, post it somewhere, check it through a different computer to see if you can see the lines. If you can't it means that it is probably the screen and not something software related. If you can see the lines, might be software related and then you can try something like updating the video card driver.

Being that the lines disappear after time is telling me that perhaps it is going away when the computer is warmed up and is again a hardware issue. My guess would be the screen is giving out and all you can really do then is take it to a repair shop or cash in on a warranty if you have one. That or simply by a new laptop.

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Hey Martyr

Thanks for the reply;

I let it run diagnostics for a little longer and now the screen looks like this:
(Note the purple pixels at the bottom)


The owner told me it has been getting progressively worse. I think that it is the monitor or video card.

I think it may be the video card because when I add an external monitor and use the built in commands to change screen nothing happens...that is assuming that it is getting past POST.

What do you think?

The laptop is 5+ years old, the only thing I can think of back up their data and get a new laptop ( and of course its that weird mini IDE that I have no enclosures for ) baah what a pain in the ass /rant

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[no2pencil]

I don't think I've ever seen this on the video card. Most display issues are caused by the LCD &/or a loose cable.

If it's changing with no one touching it, that pretty much removes the cable as the issue.

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Well I think I'm going to conclude this as a dead LCD and start looking at ways to recover the data from the hard drive...

What is the mini IDE connection that laptops use?

[no2pencil]

Most laptops use SATA now.

If you want the screen repaired/replaced, feel free to shoot me a PM. If you just want the data recovered, just yank the drive out & copy the data.

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no2pencil, on 20 February 2011 - 12:30 PM, said:

Most laptops use SATA now.

If you want the screen repaired/replaced, feel free to shoot me a PM. If you just want the data recovered, just yank the drive out & copy the data.

Again this is a 5 year old computer, it uses what I think is 2.5" IDE connection?

I have a bunch of SATA and standard IDE enclosures.

I'm probably gonna have to pickup a 2.5 to usb or 3.5 ide converter.