LCD screen trouble on a laptop

[Jim2121]

I have this 3yr. old Dell Inspiron 5150. (came with a 30gig HD. I put in a western digital 80Gig) and transferred all the data via Norton Ghost. Anyway more & more the pic's on the screen are showing a grainy pattern, lines thru some pages & pic's...happens 4-5 times a week. running win xp (sp2) pro. even when I start the laptop or do a shutdown, the blue background will have circles & lines. Ran the Dell video diagnostic and it passed. Could it be the video card, drivers? I'm at a loss...........TIA.... Jim

Maybe the LCD is starting to go? anyone? tuesday

[JAYMZ]

What you are describing is also prevalent on Thinkpads. Probably most laptops, as well. As time goes on depending on heat and use your VRAM will eventually start to fail. When this happened to my laptop it would pass all video tests, but not for long. It displayed itself as either red or green dashes and lines on the LCD during use. Would sometimes be fine when firing up the computer cold, but would start to appear as it got warm.

Unfortunately there is no consumer fix for this without replacing your MoBo unless you laptop has its own removable/upgradable VRAM. But this is not to say that it is the LCD as well. To find out you can do a few things, first hook to an external monitor to see if the lines and patterns are still there. If they are, it's your VRAM/Video Card, if not it is probably your LCD.

[Jim2121]

hum! LCD or VRAM? well thanks for the tip James. Now I have to dig up a cable to hook it up to a CRT... I have 2 Dell notebooks, wonder if I can hook up the 5150 with a cable to the 2200 notebook? well its in its early stages. and this has been exposed to Arizona heat! will post back after we try hooking this up to a CRT.... thanks again for the reply...Jim

[kf4sqb]

Sounds similar to, but not exactly like, a problem I sometimes have with my old Compaq Contura-series laptop. Do you see any change in the "patterns" on the screen if you open/close the cover several degrees while its running? My Compaq has strange lines on it's display sometimes because of a faulty flex connector on the mobo where the display flex connects.

[Jim2121]

Sounds similar to, but not exactly like, a problem I sometimes have with my old Compaq Contura-series laptop. Do you see any change in the "patterns" on the screen if you open/close the cover several degrees while its running? My Compaq has strange lines on it's display sometimes because of a faulty flex connector on the mobo where the display flex connects.

Today its not giving me any problems at all??? I went to the Dell Message BBS and did a search for posts/threads on the same problem.... so it seems like JAYMZ post or idea is the way to go! and yes if I move the lid/lcd while I'm viewing a website it sometimes happens...circles, lines, Its going to wind up as an LCD problem or the Video Card. what else can it be? but its not a pain in the butt yet! I checked the ribbon to the LCD and thats secure. So I'm in the busy season at work. so this project is not on the top of my list.
I can use any contacts on where to buy an LCD (if I need one) for this model?? Or if its the video card? which this is a: NVIDIA GeForce Fx Go 5200 I'm in Payson now --small town, very few stores. Only two computer repair shops -- charging top dollar... 1st I need a cable to connect it to a CRT. thanks for the reply! regards, Jim

[thebigphish]

I have an 8200 which is at least 4 years old now, and had some video problems with it also...not the same grainy image thing or lines, but i had some unexplainable blue screens when using certain resolutions, which up until the end were not a problem. I am not sure if the 5150 has the same innard makeup, but most dells of that era had daughter card style video cards and power supply boards, which means you can ebay the cards and chips and find usually the parts you need to swap one for one.

If your 5150 has a modular video card, like my 8200 did...it was just as easy as finding another one (i managed to upgrade as well as fix) and replaced it. Two weeks ago, i had some really hideous power problems on the same system (batteries only charged to 20%, and below that...the power supply had to be on all the time, in lieu of the 20% battery), I ebay'ed "inspiron 8200" and found some guy selling a two-revision newer DC daughtercard for my system, $18 dollars later...i had a fully functioning laptop again.

If you want to keep the system up and running, i reccomend the following; ebay hunt for a parts laptop of the same variety. If you can find a broken one or one w/o a screen or something...get it. It may cost you $40 or so, but if it breathes new life into your system when you rip the good mobo out of it, drop your processor into it, RAM and HD, congrats...you have a working system again...much easier than replacing integrated video chipsets or VRAM chips.

Live and die by the broken systems, as the usually have enough working parts to fix the ones that don't have both feet in the grave.

BTW, i have a GeForce vid card in this system i upgraded to for under $30 on ebay.

[Jim2121]

very well put..right now I'm out of town on business. But the ebay route is the way to go, your right! Or find the broken stuff and see if I can use any of it... Dell wanted over $400. for a LCD replacement screen..LOL (I just wanted to see the quotes) don't know if its the Vram yet? I have an Ebay account with 100% feedback. Will post back the results. thank you for the reply! but I got a spare Dell Inspiron 2200... (always have a backup) So the 5150 I won't get around to checken it out till the middle of next month. The 5150 and a year later the 2200 were the 1st pc's I ever bought that had a LCD.....so its a 1st time adventure.
thanks again..will post back the results....JIM

[thebigphish]

I would say slap an external monitor on it and run it thru it's paces, this way you can identify either the video card or the LCD as the problem.

[Jim2121]

the lines and patterns appear on the notebook LCD screen only, nothing on the CRT monitor I plugged in the notebook... So is this the video card? I have a feeling its a bad LCD? TIA?

[thebigphish]

Eh, its tough to say. If the LCD & the monitor pass a video RAM test the same, i would say it's the LCD. Time to ebay those. I have seen some LCDs for my inspiron 8200 for under $50.

If it was failing video ram and burn in tests, then i would say it's the video card.

[Jim2121]

I got a few PM's saying it was the LCD since it was not on the external monitor.
If it was on the ext. CRT that I plugged in the back, it would be the VRAM.
well just my luck... hope these LCD are on the bay... thanks for the replies!...Jim