Screen started showing a vertical stripe on the screen
I have an Acer Aspire 3000 laptop. A couple days ago the screen started showing a vertical stripe about one inch thick and about one inch in from the right edge of the screen. The colors in this stripe appear ‘washed out’- they’re still there, but paler. I’ve updated the video driver (a SiS driver), but it didn’t help. Any ideas?
Most likely that is the LCD screen fault. Just in case connect an external monitor and restart the laptop. If you see the same strip on the external video, then that is the motherboard or the video card (if it’s a separate module) problem.
June 6th, 2008 at 5:45 am
I have a friend who owns a Dell Vostro 1000 and is also experiencing the same problem. It usually happens 2x a day. Is this hardware (LCD, Graphics Card, etc.) or software (AMD Cool and quiet, corrupted norton anti-virus, etc.) problem. Some posted hardware but when we restart the laptop the LCD goes back to normal. Some say it’s because of the AMD cool n quiet features of or a corrupted norton anti-virus, bacause it’s true that my friends processor is AMD and he has a corrupted Norton Anti-virus which can’t be removed. By the way, we tried doing the LCD pressing but It did not work. A lot are experiencing this problem which are posted on diffirent sites and almost all brand of laptops like HP, Dell, Toshiba and even Apple are experiencing this. Hope someone can help out there.
March 19th, 2008 at 12:58 am
I had exactly the same problem with an Acer Aspire – I have finally added a piece of tape between the lCD frame and the backing that applies pressure and solve the problem. There is still a slight colour difference but that is a lot better than a blacked out strip.
February 15th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I have a similar issue. I have an Aspire 3000 (3003wlmi)
And it like the backlight is turned off. From Ebay, I got a new Inverter and also a new LCD and nothing. What else am I missing. What else could cause there to be no backlight for the on screen image. I have hooked it up a external monitor, and it looks fine.
January 27th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Senaid,
Looks like a problem with the LCD screen. I think you’ll have to replace the screen.
January 27th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I think i have same problem. So I decided to upload a video on YouTube,so somebody can help me.Did any of you know how to fix it, I try to fix it with cylinder as Adrian said but it does not work again.Here is my video look at left side when I press the LCD it goes out,but it come again.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sl3I069nvaE
Any suggestions? Any help?
January 13th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Lei,
These 1 inch ribbon cables are located on the top of the LCD screen. In order to access them you’ll have to disassemble the laptop display and remove the LCD.
Touching these cables might be not a good idea, even though it worked for Adrian, you can damage the screen. Usually there is a warning on the cover above these cables and it says “Do Not Touch”.
January 10th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Adrian,
I have the same problem as you….could you clarify PLEAAAAASE the instructions that you posted to solve the problem? Where exactly are the 1 inch cables and what did you do to them?
Thanks.
December 27th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I’m having the same problem on my HP Pavilion dv6000. 20 days after purchase the screen started showing a vertical hair like pink stripe. The stripe doesn’t show when the background is white… Oh my God, as I was writing this the stripe went away… I have no idea what happened… LOL. Unbelievable…
November 24th, 2007 at 8:16 am
I have a simillar problem with a Toshiba Satellite p105. I had a single vertical stripe one pixel wide that was allways blue, sometimes it changed shade(depending on background), but it remained blue. The problem persisted no matter what. It then became 2 vertical stripes, then 4, then a one inch stripe with faded collors (not very visible) appeared alongside another 1 inch stripe with blinking white light. They appear after the notebook is iddle for a great amount of time (eg. seeding) it may be caused by overheating, as I read people complaining. The common denominator has allways been this godamn inverter board.
AS for now, I have the left half of the screen with the 2 one inch stripes, the other with a 4inches solid white, followed by solid black sprinkled with 10 nice collored 1 pixel stripes.
And THANK GOD I live in f@cking Brazil, where the ONLY store authorized to rapair toshibas in the COUNTRY is 100 miles away and speciallizes in SempToshiba industrial products.
And travelling dude, I would use the heck out of the computer and wait for you to go back home to rapair it.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Now I feel lucky! My laptop is a Compaq Presario that I’ve had for about 5 years, and it just displayed a garish horizontal screen, so that the total screen looked like bad fifties boudoir wallpaper. It remained, so I turned the laptop off. I’m thinking it might be heat related, so will turn it on again later on, and will try some of the diagnostics that have been discussed, and then possibly some of the attempted fixes. When I immediately turned it back on, I got nothing.
November 9th, 2007 at 3:31 am
No, I haven’t gotten any resultion regarding this issue, except that Dell has said it is possibly environmental and if I used my laptop outside of my home it wouldn’t do this. Well the laptop doesn’t care where it is at, it does it outside, in my home, at coffee shops and in my office. I took some pictures of the various stripes/black screens I have been getting and Dell Customer Service actually emailed me after I gave a bad review of the 2 Vostro’s I had. I sent the pictures and let her know about the problems I was facing. So no resolution as of yet. However, I have noticed that since I have gotten a SmartPhone and plug it in to sync up that it seems to do it more often.
November 8th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Martin,
I would run diagnostic on the hard drive and memory. You can use Hitachi DFT for the hard drive and Memtest86+ for the memory, links to both utilities in the “Useful Links” on the right side.
A faulty memory module can freeze up the whole system as well as a faulty hard drive.
November 5th, 2007 at 5:06 am
Hello Slick and Peter
I have the same problem as you with a Vostro 1000.
Mine freezes 2 times a day average.
I will write to DELL now and be back with any responses from them when I have it.
If you have any new information please writes it here.
TKS
Martin
November 1st, 2007 at 1:48 am
Hi Slick,
I have the same problem as you with a Vostro 1000. I found at least one other post (in french) about this problem. Mine freezes up 2 times a week on average. Have you found a solution yet?
Peter
October 12th, 2007 at 2:00 am
SOLVED!!
..
So… I had the same vertical stripe of 1″ in my computer, with the same features as described above. When I press in the frame of the LCD, just above the stripe, it disapears for one second
I try to solve it by twisting the corners (as suggested) but it didn’t work.. so I decided to open it following the next link http://www.screentekinc.com/lcd-removal-instructions.shtml
But without removing it completely!
The origin of this problem is a bad connection inside the LCD screen… you should see several 1-icnh connection-cables-stripes all around the back of the LCD screeen… one of these cables is generating your problem
and by pressing in the frame of the screen you were just “fixing” this bad connection so the way I solved it was: I made a small cilinder (1mm-diameter-10mm long) with isolating tape and I puted it just over the place where I use to press,… yes just over the connection cable in the back side… then I just close it so that this cylinder pushed the cable back to its right position…. I know my explanation is a mess… but I didn’t took any photos.. I was just trying until it work
If you understood the origin of the problem.. then you just have to make something to push the cable.
I hope it works for somebody else too.
October 5th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
I have a Dell Vostro 1000, that I purchased in August 2007. The 2nd day I had it, I would be doing something on the laptop and all of a sudden I would have vertical lines on the screen, it started doing this twice a day, and there were either vertical lines or a black screen with a little box with vertical lines. Whenever this would happen I would have to reboot. I called Dell they stated it was the video card sent me a new laptop, well I am on my second Dell Vostro 1000 and the new one did the same thing. I called Dell and they got into my computer and cancelled the start-up programs, it went to only doing this around twice per week, but every week it has gotten more and more consistent and now I am up to around 3 times per day. The only explanation Dell could give me is that it is environmental. Any suggestions?
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:23 am
Hey, i’m a student studying abroad and my laptop lcd screen has cracked. There are visible lines of colour as well as black patches splattered across the extreme right of the screen. I’m just wondering is it safe to continue using my laptop until i can return home and get it repaired ( it cost way too much here ). thank you very much
February 11th, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Truong,
I think the problem you are having is very typical so I’ve published your question and some suggestions here. Maybe somebody else has exactly the same problem and can help you to find the right solution.
February 11th, 2007 at 8:18 am
I have a 1 yr old Dell M170 and also have vertical strips on the laptop lcd but the external always works. I can sometimes get it to work by closing and opening. Running diagnostics, it failed to detect the lcd inverter and I get: “error accessing lcd inverter” and code. When I look up the code with Dell they say it’s either the cable, lcd inverter or motherboard but nothing about the lcd itself being bad.
February 1st, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Sean,
If the same problem appears on the external monitor, there is nothing wrong with the LCD screen. Do you know if this IBM laptop has a discrete video card? Try reseating the video card, it might be just a loose connection between the video card and motherboard. Here’s a list of IBM manuals. May be contact on the video card got oxidized.
I would test memory too. You can use Memtest86+.
January 30th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I am having a problem with the display on my IBM T60p. Occasionally the display will dissappear on my screen and be replaced with either a) vertical fuscia and grey stripes b) horizontal grey, blue and fuscia stripes, or c) a “static” pattern of black grey and white. At this point my laptop shuts down. On restart it resumes normal function.
This is a problem that I have with two identical machines now.
I think that the problem is not due to the LCD, as the display shows the same symptoms on an external monitor.
Any help at all would be appreciated, as this problem is driving me nuts.
January 8th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Hey guys, just wanted to say a quick thanks. I had a black vertical stripe appear in the middle of my Dell laptop screen. Sure enough, I just grabbed the corners and twisted them a bit. Now it’s working good as new again (for now). Thanks for the advice.
January 3rd, 2007 at 9:27 am
How so Eric?
From my understanding the inverter board works as a power supply for the LCD CCFL (backlight) tube. It converts low voltage DC power into high voltage AC. If the FL inverter is good you get the backlight if it’s bad the backlight will not turn on and the image on the screen will be very dim. But how a faulty inverter can affect data on the screen? How it can cause vertical stripes? Could you explain please?
January 2nd, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Vertical stripes on an lcd screen are often caused by a faulty inverter board.
December 6th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
Hello,
(((((((
I have the same problems as you’ve posted above! I have an Acer aspire 3003 wlmi….. There is no chance for rapair it?
December 3rd, 2006 at 1:23 am
Japots,
Yep, looks like a bad screen. Unfortunately the only way to fix it is replace the screen. You can try this. Twist the screen by moving top left and right corners into opposite directions, do not twist too much or you can crack the screen. Sometimes it helps and you can get rid of the vertical strip at least for a while.
December 2nd, 2006 at 4:39 pm
So I tried disassembling it again today. I peeled the adhesive tape keeping the wire in place and as expected, everything turned white. I put the wire back again (with great difficulty), but the white strip remained. Even while on several attempts to reseat the video cable and the video output to the LCD was just a plain black screen, the strip still remained as clear as ever. I consulted live-help from Compaq last night and as expected, he had no clue what the problem was and it seems my warranty has expired.
I’ve pretty much given up, and I’m trying to get used to the white strip. It’s a real eye-sore, and I’ll be bringing it soon to The Source for a quote, but knowing them, I’ll definitely be paying way too much.
December 1st, 2006 at 11:38 pm
I have a Compaq Presario 2207AS notebook. This just happened to me a few hours ago. The vertical strip is 3inches wide right smack dab in the middle of the screen. It’s not very noticeable on grays and very light colors, but it’s really noticeable on solid colors. As the original post states, the color just seems paler, or rather, it’s like the strip has higher gamma than the rest of the screen (ex, when highlighting text, when it reaches the strip, the color turns gray.)
I’m 99% sure it’s the LCD’s fault since this strip does not appear on an external monitor. As soon as the LCD turns on, the strip’s already there. I tried disassembling the LCD, but nothing seemed broken or out of place inside.
On a side note, I’ve had this laptop for more than a year now. I’ve taken it daily to university, and I guess keeping it in a normal backpack isn’t really good for it, but it’s never been dropped before. Other than this newly appeared strip, the laptop’s still working great.
October 4th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
I have the exactly same problem with my HP nx6120. It happened about 7 month after purchase.
I agree with Chris. Because i do the same thing like Chirs do with your Screen.
But this temp solution is not good, and the error now become so difficult to control, I still need a good solution for this case. Some one can give a help?
P/s: sry about my english
July 7th, 2006 at 7:51 am
I have the exact same problem with my Acer Aspire 5002. It happened about a month or two after purchase.
This is not a problem with the mb or video card.
With my laptop, I can make the bar go away by pinching the plastic frame just above the screen where the vertical bar anomaly is. This would indicate that the problem is due to some sort of loose connection. As a workaround, I have affixed a binding paperclip to the screen frame where the loose connection is.
With the paperclip attached, the screen looks good as new. I will post again once I find a proper solution.