Lines running across my screen

Randomly one day my screen on my Alienware 18 went to crap and I have a bunch of distortion with lines running horizontally across the screen. It never goes away and can be seen in the bios. I ran diagnostics and the d button test which came back ok I uninstalled my display drivers as well and did a system restore.

 

GPU / Mainboard / Panel cable any or all have failed.

Most likely GPU has failed though

 

I also connected it to my tv via hdmi and the image on the tv was fine. What do you think that would indicate?

 

Then it's most likely the panel or cabling to it.

 

Once booted, try immediately putting your system to sleep and waking it back up and see if it doesn’t suddenly clear up.

I’ve had this problem in the past with AW18’s and a cold boot, sleep, wake up resolved it for months on end. External display works fine, but internal display will get that odd distortion.

what is your exact configuration and bios version?

 

Putting it to sleep didn't change anything unfortunately. I Feel like its an lcd issue at this point. Before I commit to getting a new lcd screen is there a test to check if the lcd cable is bad and not the screen? Here's my system info and thanks.

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Version 10.0.18363 Build 18363
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name DESKTOP-JMCAUU4
System Manufacturer Alienware
System Model Alienware 18
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU Alienware 18
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4800MQ CPU @ 2.70GHz, 2701 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Alienware A15, 7/22/2019
SMBIOS Version 2.7
Embedded Controller Version 1.01
BIOS Mode Legacy
BaseBoard Manufacturer Alienware
BaseBoard Product 01W2J2
BaseBoard Version A02
Platform Role Mobile
Secure Boot State Unsupported
PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.18362.752"
User Name DESKTOP-JMCAUU4\coleb
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 31.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 27.0 GB
Total Virtual Memory 36.7 GB
Available Virtual Memory 31.0 GB
Page File Space 4.75 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection Off
Virtualization-based security Not enabled
Device Encryption Support Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and device is not Modern Standby, Un-allowed DMA capable bus/device(s) detected, TPM is not usable
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes

 

Now it seems like the lines went away and its more pixilated. interesting

 

I've had this problem on a different laptop before where the internal screen cable came loose from the display (the tape holding the cable lost its stickiness). Try opening up the screen housing and reconnecting the lcd cable to the screen.

One way to check if this is the issue is to move the screen back and forth, and see if the pixelation or lines on the screen change appearance.

 

I will add to what Clamibot already said above:
1. Move the screen back and forth and see if the picture changes for the better or worse. If it does - it's most likely an LCD cable issue
2. Take the top of the screen from the corners and move left corner back and right corner forth at the same time very gently. Be very gentle, so that the screen would not crack. If the picture changes for the better or worse when doing this - it's the screen issue.
3. Does your Alienware have a button on the keyboard to turn off nVidia GPU? If it does, try running on Intel only to see if this is a GPU issue. If it does not have that option - just remove the GPU to test for the same problem.

Hope, you will get this sorted soon