Laptop Screen Broken?

[Cherat]

Hey guys, so here's the deal, I have a laptop that's about 5 years old, and today it flashed and is now displaying a 1-inch vertical black line through the screen which sometimes turns very weird colors.

This line will not go away when restarted, and I doubt it has anything to do with the software because right now the laptop is hooked upto another monitor and works fine.

Below is a screenshot of what my screen basically looks like. Is it costly to fix problems like this? Let me know if you need anymore information!

Thanks!

 

[Lexluethar]

Yes it will be costly. For a 5 year old laptop it will not be cost effective to install a new monitor. Usually after 4 years or so things like the motherboard and monitor are too costly to replace in comparison to how much a new laptop would cost and how much the laptop is worth at that point.

Who is your laptop manufacturer? If you are in a situation were you really can't afford a new laptop then either purchase a new laptop monitor OR purchase a new LCD monitor to use.

Give us some more details and we could price some parts for you.

 

[Trotter]

Or use an old CRT monitor.

It sounds like the laptop itself is working, but the screen isn't. You could hook up an external monitor and use your lappy with it. It's not a perfect solution, but it would work.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I would say look on eBay. Often times you can find older model laptop screens, boards, inverters, etc for cheap because people are selling off parts from broken models. Other than that, buying a new screen isn't worth it. I'd first check the obvious, open the laptop up and make sure there isn't any loose plugs or anything that could be messing with the signal. If you can't find anything, just hook up an external monitor and use it as a low power desktop, it may be time to invest in a new laptop.

 

[Cherat]

Thanks for the great suggestions guys.
I think I'll be investing in a new laptop, good run with this one though.
For now an external monitor works fine.

 

[KurrentEweser]

If this happened just after flashing, it wouldn't hurt to flash back to the previous version.

 

[aspire]

If this happened just after flashing, it wouldn't hurt to flash back to the previous version.

If the problem goes away with an external monitor your definitely looking at a hardware failure of some sort, not a firmware issue.

 

[KurrentEweser]

If the problem goes away with an external monitor your definitely looking at a hardware failure of some sort, not a firmware issue.

It's too much of a coincidence that an update would cause a hardware failure. I was thinking flashing with the wrong video rom/bios version could cause that.

 

[aspire]

Like I just said, if it was a problem with the video bios it would be reflected on the external monitor...

 

[KurrentEweser]

Like I just said, if it was a problem with the video bios it would be reflected on the external monitor...

I didn't know the code for writing to a digital flat panel was the same as writing to an analog VGA output jack.