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Recently, one of my laptops have had its LCD go bad: a lot of flickering, colourful lines will appear (the more wellknown version of this problem is that the LCD displays one or several horizontal, colored lines permanently. That is not the case here: the lines are very animated.) The significance varies greatly: at times, its like an old TV not finding its channel (only in color), while at other times, I am actually able to see what it is going on on the screen, but its frightingely bad: the cursor will leave a trace after itself etc.

This first happened about a week ago. While trying to connect it to the TV by HDMI, it initially did not work. Suddenly, I saw the screen on the TV, but at that time, the original laptop screen was also working perfectly. The screen has been working perfectly for about a week now, but yesterday the problem came back. In particular, the screen is usable (that is, I can see what is on it, but it is very flickerish) during the bootup and the initial loading of Fedora/Win7, after that, it tends to go "old-TV-not-finding-its-channel". As well as the obvious question asked in the title, are there any suggestions to fix the specific LCD-problem, without replacing the screen? (I checked the screen, all cables etc. seem to be where they are supposed to, and none are loose.)

If its noteworthy, changing brightness and all that stuff works perfectly.

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2 Answers 2

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If you get the similar flickering while using any output (built-in LCD, HDMI, VGA, etc), then perhaps the issue is with your video adapter rather than the LCD.

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  • Well, the heart of the problem is that I get no output when the problem is present. As described above, the problem went away once. The HDMI immediately worked once the LCD went back to normal.
    – Andrew Thompson
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 17:45
  • If your output channels all give problems, you have a problem with your GPU and not the connected devices. Your LCD is most likely working just fine. If you have an internal graphics card, you have an issue with your mobo or the connectors. If you have an dedicated GPU, you may solve the problem by reseating or replacing it.
    – Jakke
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 17:51
  • Well, the output channels do give problems, in the sense that they do not show anything. I will attempt to reseat it, though.
    – Andrew Thompson
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 17:55
  • I took a look at the graphics card, but I was unable to remove it due to some extremely tight screws. It has this thin piece of plastic sticking out of it, is this supposed to be some kind of glued connector? I could feel a slight hint of glue when touching it, but it was so little that it does not function as such at all.
    – Andrew Thompson
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 19:12
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This sounds like it could be a graphics card issue. As far as I know, the HDMI and LCD display are separate systems. Try doing a clean install of your graphics card drivers (uninstall, restart, reinstall, restart). If that doesn't resolve your issue then it sounds to me like your gpu is going bad.

http://www.ehow.com/about_5410687_signs-dying-graphics-card.html

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  • Thank you, although this will be extremely difficult, given that I am unable to see anything on my screen. Also, while the problem is less present at bootup, it is still there. (At times, it is just as bad.) This would indicate that the graphics drives is not the issue, correct?
    – Andrew Thompson
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 17:53
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    Well something's going bad for sure and I doubt it's your LCD/TV. It could be the motherboard, CPU, and/or GPU but would be difficult to diagnose since you can't really see anything. I had a graphics card that kept "overheating" which turned out to actually be a motherboard issue. Have you tried using a VGA or DVI cocnnection if your computer supports that? Also, how old is your computer? Do you know what CPU and GPU it has?
    – slow_excellence
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 18:16
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    It is about four years old: a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13". I am not familiar with its GPU or CPU, and am somewhat uncomfortable opening a computer. I will try VGA display.
    – Andrew Thompson
    Commented Jun 26, 2014 at 18:20

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