Vostro 3550 Screen Problem

Hi there.

This is my last try at getting some attention at this forum, but here it goes.

I got my 3550 about 5 months ago, broke the screen 2 weeks in due to the shockingly flimsy back cover of the laptop. Anyway, after a long while of trying to figure out what to do, got a new screen for the laptop, I think a Samsung screen it was, the only screen my engineer could find that fitted.

It comes up as "Mobile PC Display" if that means anything.

Ever since this swap, the screen has been displaying what looks like a weird colour show at any given time. It can be really common, or really rare, and there is no particular spark to the problem. Even by messing around with the chassis, this isn't changed. The only way I can see to fix this is shutting the lid and opening it again, which resets something I presume. You can still see the screen if you plug in an external display while this problem is occuring.

I've been using updated Dell drivers to fix the flaming OpenGL/GPU problem, which was a bodge job in itself, and even after going back to the factory image pre-installed, I'm still getting the exact same problem.

I really do hate this laptop, I want to get different one. It has a poor chassis, a terrible screen (Both the original and replacement have been as bad as each other as far as quality is concerned), gets too hot when gaming and now I have this screen woe.

Screen Problem Video

I'd be so appreciative if someone could suggest a solution to this problem.

 

- Double posted by accident -

 

This looks like a bad connection between the LVDS socket on the mainboard and the LCD screen's circuit board. It could either mean three things:
1) The LCD LVDS cable is not connected properly to the mainboard. It could also be that the cable is loose at the other end, which connects to the LCD screen itself. In this case you could try removing the screen assembly and securing the cable in place.
2) The cable was damaged during the screen swap. You need to find a new LVDS cable for this particular model of the LCD screen.
3) The connection between the LCD circuit board and the actual screen is broken. I don't think it's possible to fix without some serious engineering, so you might consider buying another LCD screen.

Don't know if I listed all possible causes, but I'm sure it's one of these. You say it doesn't look like this all the time, so it's very likely the problem number one or two.