Latitude D820 WUXGA NVidia. LCD Vertical lines. Now Blue garbled screen.

Well just sometimes it's basic troubleshooting. I've learned too many times, I pour over super complicated stuff and turns out I forgot to turn on the PSU switch or something.

If the external piped out display is 100% fine with no artifacts, then I'm just going to say you have a bad LCD.

If you are tired of Ebay sellers;

DELL LATITUDE D820 LAPTOP LCD SCREEN 15.4" WUXGA GLOSSY CCFL $115

D820 15.4" WUXGA LCD for 130 shipped, based in New Jersey. Very reputable company.

 

Let me get the facts straight...the old LCD slows lines, the new LCD is blank, and you didn't replace the cable? Whenever Dell sends out a replacement LCD, they always include a cable. Right now, I would say that the cable and motherboard are suspect.

Try cleaning out both sides of the cable connector, as well as inspect the cable for damage. Based on the pattern on the LCD and the fact that an external monitor works, the graphics card should be OK. I would also doubt a LCD failure when you see that kind of pattern on the LCD, since it's systematic.

 

I don't suspect the GPU as it pipes out the display perfectly fine. Could be the connector on the motherboard that is defective, I would also second another LCD cable, they can't be more than 20 bucks.

 

I have noticed one interesting thing. When I open up chrome, IE, Firefox, the browser font is either too small or too big.

For example, IE has google as home page. When I open IE, it showed fine but then went so small I could hardly see it.

In Chrome, the font went so big that its unbelievable.

In FF, font went small.

Is it possible that there is short circuit of some kind in my system?

As for Robin24k's question, I got this from ebay and it didnt come with cable. It came with inverter. So I connected the existing cable to new LCD.

About the purchase from the link, I came across that but I guess they only had glossy in wuxga and I wanted to go with matte finish. I paid about 116 for this one and this seller doesnt know what I am saying to him. Read this email response I just got
we thinks it maybe your laptop video card bad.you may link to destop LCD,try to see if it can display on desptop LCD.thanks,have problem please tell me
I guess He is saying connect external monitor but I already told him I did and connected external monitor and it shows fine. I sent him same pictures as I sent to this forum. Crazy stuff. Do you think He is referring to something else which I dont understand?

Updated 12 09 AM Feb 14 2011

1. Also found this ebay listing for display cable. Is there anything I need to check or all these cables pretty much work the same way. Reason I say is my resolution is 1920 x 1200, so like LCD has to support this resolution, is there anything with cable also?

2. Good tip on brightness. I (again) installed new lcd and this time played with brightness and I can see brightness go up and down as I press the keys, but no picture though.

3. Also during several restarts based of external monitor I have, on one of restarts, I saw same blue ish fuzzy screen on new lcd. This is the only time, I have seen any color on new lcd. By the way, I had changed resolution to 1024 x 768 before restart. So can we say it could be the lcd cable?

4. I opened keyboard etc earlier and checked cable connection on motherboard and it looked fine. I also removed it once and put it back in place. No luck after this as well.

So I guess, buying new cable is something I should try correct? any comments on the link I posted related to the cable?

 

I tried again today same things and on one of the occasions during login and also during shutdown, I saw blue fuzzy screen on new lcd. See attached picture. the external monitor shows login screen and new lcd shows blue fuzzy screen but the screen is fuzzy, its not clear. This happened randomly once or twice thats it and its back to black screen again.

Also, I made sure the memory is connected well in the back as well as inside. I opened the keyboard and checked lcd motherboard connection etc. Removed and Reconnected again but still no luck.

By the way, the zoom I was referring to earlier happened again. Internet explorer would go unbelievably small after I clicked on a page, same with Firefox and chrome would go extra big size. So I opened an image in irfanview software and as soon as I clicked on image, it zoomed 1000 times. No kidding about that. So I made a guess and turns out I had my dpi set as 120%. I changed it back to 96% and now the zooming etc is gone. oh what a relief. I was convinced this is a short circuit of some kind on my system. lol.

Coming back to main point, Could it be inverter or LCD cable to motherboard or both?

 

You should be able to swap inverters as well, and see if that makes any difference. I would get a cable and see what happens.

 

Is LVDS cable and cable that connects LCD to motherboard the same or they are 2 different cables? Sorry, I am not sure. I have ordered LCD cable from ebay and hoping to get it next week or so.

 

The LCD cable is a LVDS cable, so you should be OK.

 

So I replaced the old LCD cable with new LCD cable and result is same. I get blank black screen and occasional fuzzy blue like the image I had posted before.

I cant think of anything now. So everyone agrees its the NVidia graphics card that is bad or we can try something else?

Here is a thread where a user had similar problem.

Also, here is NVIDIA claim link for the known faulty video card issue.

My question is, I guess if they find, problem is NVidia video card, then they will replace motherboard right? I will have same hard disk right?

Plus, this will be free replacement and if *ONLY* they find something else, I could be charged if *I Wish* to get it fixed. Can someone confirm that for me please.

Thanks all.

 

Replacing the motherboard will take care of removing a lot of unknowns from the equation. Here's one more thing to try:

1. Connect external monitor and keyboard.
2. Power on laptop through docking station, if you have one. Otherwise, hit the power button and quickly close the lid.
3. Hit the F2 key to enter the BIOS.
4. See how it is displayed. If it works on external, and when you open the lid the LCD is still not working properly, I would call Dell and ask about a motherboard replacement.