LCD Vertical Lines - Bad Cable?

I have a Latitude CPX that I got used recently. There are various places on the screen where the pixels are solid colors of either black or blue going in vertical lines and they seem to slightly flicker. Usually it contours with certain images. It seems to skip every other line so they're not right beside each other. The amount of it on the screen seems to fluxuate and sometimes it goes away completely. I hooked up an external monitor and everything worked normally on that. So my only thought is perhaps the lcd cable is bad somehow? Any light you can shed would be appreciated. I took a fuzzy digital camera shot of the screen.



http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/9500/bluelinesdj5.jpg

 

Try reinstalling the graphics drivers as a first step.

 

Well I can see the distortion on the Dell logo post screen before it even boots into windows so I know it's hardware related.

I'm guessing it's some part be of the display, inverter board, lcd, cable, etc. I'm just hoping someone has had a similiar issue or is aware of a certain part that is known for going bad as the likely source. I don't want to get a whole lcd assembly if some internal part can be replaced.

 

Do you have a graphics card on it or is it integrated graphics?

 

If it is just during the boot process as you mention and you have an integrated graphics card, it is NORMAL. Its just a glitch that happens with every integrated gfx out there most notably the X3100.

if you have a dedicated graphics card, it shouldnt do that. It might have minimal distortion if any at all, but it is normal.

 

It has a onboard/integrated ATI Rage M1.

Well I can see the odd pixel distortion like shadows on the dell logo as well as in the bios screen. It looks pretty much the same as it does in windows so I know something is wrong. Like I said sometimes for a brief few moments everything looks normal. At it's worst the affected areas become larger and it sort of looks like a color bleeding motion blur.

 

You can check the cable by unplugging it and plugging it back in. The service manuals are available on dells website if you need them. It seems to me mroe of a graphics card failing...in which you have it integrated onto the motherboard which would be an expensive fix.

 

Sorry for the late reply. If you suspect the graphics card and not the actual display why would it work normally when connected to an external monitor?

 

Your problem is the screen itself. I had the same exact problem and got my screen replaced (LED one) and it wasnt even shipped with a new cable and it fixed the problem. New monitor is so ****ing beautiful. It seriously looked better than my 42in LCD TV

 

I hope you didn't pay for the CPx... it's an old machine.