Little colored lines on my laptop screen

Question

My LCD screen has three noticeable problems. Note that when I plug an external LCD tv into my laptop, the picture that the LCD TV displays the screen is fine.

As seen in: http://ubuntuone.com/5Mf2cNq14NeprqlcRG1Pce

The first and most noticeable and frequent problem is white lines that go horizontally along the LCD screen. When I touch the monitor or adjust the angle, some of the white lines appear while other white lines disappear or flicker.

Here is a picture: http://ubuntuone.com/6jqkeHiRnAwijI8LJLPfuL

The second problem, much smaller, is the little colored lines, usually just one or two, that go up and down the screen. You can see one vertical blue line in the picture. The last thing is a glowing, rectangle-with-rounded-edges shaped halo that sometimes appears on the screen with the white lines.

The halo looks like this: http://ubuntuone.com/44rfw1scomcHl0aOZdxpV6

The middle 1/3 of the glowing halo is missing, but as you can see, the entire halo would block pretty much the entire screen. It usually appears to be shining forth from behind the white lines. Last thing: replacing the display cable that connects the LCD to the motherboard made absolutely no difference. Same screen problems before and after I replaced the cable. That's all.

So, do you know what's up with my hp dv4-2170us laptop?

Solution

At this point, the wires that connect directly to the pixels from the cable are probably shorted or separated. There is nothing you can do about this now, but you can buy a new screen for a very low price on eBay, and they are very easy to replace.

Source - Your question on Yahoo answers!

Comments

[Dave]

Please don't ask people to go away to get the question! Please take the time to put your question here, including any relevant pictures! -1 I have made the changes you want though

[Dave]

You also have an answer on Yahoo Answers! answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130814071926AAUOtpF

[dfsghfdsh]

@David - Thanks for editing the question (and answering it twice) for me - I couldn't do it conveniently from my smartphone and my laptop was being a pain.

[fixer1234]

None of the links in the question work.

[dfsghfdsh]

I tried changing the display cable, but just in case, I'll try opening it up and re-fastening the display cable to the motherboard.

[dfsghfdsh]

Refastening the display cable to the motherboard didn't make a difference. Neither did loosening the tension on the display cable, where the cable goes around the left hinge of the monitor.

[dfsghfdsh]

Now, tugging at the display cable of the disassembled laptop produced some interesting patterns, including the halo pattern, but also some weird discoloration and blacking out half of the screen. It didn't produce the typical horizontal white lines, though. See weird halo... ubuntuone.com/1SOzrfTWadxaBb1Y52VcQR ... And discoloration... ubuntuone.com/6HZ92BNMrngfwTXf71ThK0

[dfsghfdsh]

I separated the lcd from the plastic lid. Nothing was soldered, but the connections were fine.

[dfsghfdsh]

Also, you wouldn't happen to know how to find the hinge dim switch? It keeps getting accidentally hit, but I don't see that hinge switch anywhere.

[Chaos_99]

If you can see a small plastic tip dipping into a small hole near the hinges when closing the lid, this may be a mechanical or optical switch. But most laptops use a magnetic switch located at the outer rim of the lid. Just use a small screwdriver to find the magnetic spot. On one side you will find the small magnet, on the other side a small magnetic-flux sensor (called a Hall-sensor) mostly in the form of a tiny black plastic chip on the main board or a separate small board (maybe also containing microphones, antennas or light sensors).