Vostro A860 White Screen of Death

I have a laptop that is working flawlessly, with one exception: White screen of death. I'm trying to determine if it is just the LCD, or if it is the mobo that is the problem.

The screen is white on start-up, but then goes to desktop. It will work fine on the desktop for browsing, word-processing, etc as long as you don't close the lid or put it to sleep. if you do, it takes a while to come out of white.

If I game on it, I have about a half-hour before it fuzzes out (about 3 seconds - so not straight to white.) These things make me think it's the integrated graphics hardware....however, if I hook it up to an external monitor, it works fine, which makes me think it's just the screen.

I have take then LT apart, cleaned the connectors and made sure the cable is seated on both ends, so I know that it is not that. The model is a Dell Vostro A860. Hopefully, someone can offer some input, as there is an LCD panel for it on Ebay right now that I may pick up.

Thanks!

 

Do the following while you have a video signal and be careful.

Sounds to me like a bad cable going from the LCD display to the motherboard. My suggestion would be to take the covers off and wiggle the ends of the connectors at each end and then each individual wire. I would also put slight pressure slightly moving the cable ends away from the connector on the mobo as well as slightly pressing down. This helps determine if you have a crack in the motherboard where the video connector is at.

Has the laptop ever been dropped?

 

Hey, thanks for the response!

So far as I know, the unit has never been dropped. At one point, the PO spilled wine on it, but this was contained to the keyboard (cleaned, checked and no issues.)

Question on the wiggling of the cable: Would this be a different effect than the fact that I fully unplugged it and reseated it? Also, will a bad cable have intermittent problems where hard use causes the screen to fuzz out (like the gaming mentioned above.)

I suppose that it could heat up, expand and disconnect, but I wasn't so sure about that. There is also a cable on Ebay, so I might snatch that up and try it.

 

Don't be so sure, even spill resistant keyboards can still allow fluids to leak through. Also wine has sugar which if it happened to come in contact with components it can cause problems. Just because you don't see fluids doesn't mean they didn't touch anything.

Yes because you are trying to simulate breakage in the wires which you can't see because of the insulation. You are also trying to see if the connector ends have a defect.

Yes it can but the hard usage could be an indication of either a component malfunction due to heat/wine spillage or a solder joint issue or even a crack in the motherboard. These types of problems usually become apparent with stress pressure or temperature.