Vertical Stripes... Can They Go Away?

Hello! I have a laptop and it is acting crazy. I'm hoping that some of you can assist me in fixing it! I have a Compaq Presario v5000 with a 15.4" screen.

Every now and then my laptop's LCD screen turns into a vertically striped mess (all color, no black). It looks somewhat like this:

http://www.laptoprepair101.com/wp-images/LCD-screen-no-image.jpg

My warranty is up and I don't feel like paying the expensive rates to have someone repair this for me. When I use an external monitor, my picture is fine. If I unplug my computer and shut it down it is fine upon start-up about 40% of the time. Things do not repair themselves if I press on the screen, but things WERE working as normal if I flicked it up until last night. When the stripes appear their colors reflect the black screen of booting, blue screen of the window start up, and my desktop wallpaper colors. Unfortunately, all I see are colors. If I'm patient and keep trying to reboot, eventually I'll turn the computer on and everything will look perfect again. There is no hint of there being anything wrong with the LCD - everything looks good. However, if I leave the laptop on long enough it will degrade into the stripey colored mess and not restart prefectly until I play with it (ie, shake, flick, flip upside-down, remove the power and battery... ) Eventually, it will start up and look good again.

Do I have a loose connection somewhere in the cables? Do I need a whole new LCD or can I just replace something like the screen inverter part? Do I need new cables? I believe that I can replace any of these on my own.

I shopped around for a new LCD screen, but they are around $150+ with shipping. Considering that I can buy a new laptop for around $500, it feels just wrong to pay that much.

 

Honestly, you're better off selling the notebook on eBay as broken. You'll net more money than you would if you replaced the screen and sold it, so long as you provide enough detail to show that that's the only thing wrong with it.

Check out the new dv5z's.

 

Your graphics card is dying. Classic symptom.

Not worth repairing.

 

It is the graphic card memory. I had the same fault but was still in the warranty so HP fixed that for free by replacing the whole mainboard. I don't thik it's a LCD fault as you see the stripes, etc. The screen seems to work so it's a deeper problem - as I said probably graphic card memory.

 

Only one way to rule out a graphics card problem... plugging it into a external monitor.

 

From the original post:

"When I use an external monitor, my picture is fine. "

 

Oh sorry, that paragraph was so bunched up i sorta skipped it.

Thats good to hear its not your system board. Its either your LCD cable or LCD screen then, which is still a repairable option. Id put my bet on the LCD cable, since its the most likely culprit and easiest to repair

 

Thanks for the help... I'll look into pricing a new cable / LCD. The laptop is just a backup computer -- I don't really want to replace it with anything expensive. Repair is a better option.

 

What a pity!
Find someone to help you to repaire it.

 

My M2000 LCD had a similar problem. It's my backup computer so I
took it apart and found a broken wire in the LCD cable. Fixed the
broken wire and all is well now. The wires are real small and I had to
use a magnifying glass to do the repair. A new cable would have been
easier, but not as much fun !

James

 

How do you fix a broken wire? Soldering? Surely not. How did you do it James? It might be essential for me to know as I am experiencing blue vertical strips where black should normally appear. With Travelmate 8104 I will struggle to find a new LCD cable, so how do you fix a broken wire?