Odd Video Issues with Toshiba A100

I'm having a really odd problem with my Toshiba A100. Generally the machine works well but anytime I apply any moderate pressure to the front left of the machine with my palm while typing the video goes crazy. (side where the PCMCIA card goes) Either I get squares, lines or a combination of both. If I tap the spot the display changes but I can never get it back. The only way to get the display back on the track is to hard power of the machine and boot it back up again. I though there might be a short somewhere so I took apart the machine entirely, and had a good close look at everything. All looks well so I put it all back together, same issue.

I've seen a lot of laptop issues and taken many apart but this one has me stumped. Almost afraid there is a crack in the motherboard causing a short to the video card.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this one? I'd hate to have to buy another motherboard.

Thank-you in advance for all of your input.

Cheers,
Shawn

 

It's odd that restarting it fixes it. If it was a short or a crimped wire or something physical, it seems like the problem would persist right through a reboot. But then, what software problem would manifest itself when you apply pressure to the front of the laptop? None that I know of.

It may well be something wrong with the motherboard.

If you hook up a monitor or secondary display to the laptop and apply the pressure do the lines show up on all the displays or just the LCD? If it happens to all of them, then you can probably rule out an LCD connection problem. Where is the video card in relation to the palm rest? If it's on all the screens and the video card is near there, it might have something to do with applying pressure to it.

I'd be interested to hear the resolution when and if you find it.

 

Maybe a video cable or something to do with the display is there.
Just don't put pressure there