Laptop LCD screen horizontal lines

[Traumatized]

Hello,
My Toshiba Satellite Laptop has horizontal lines running across the screen upon start up. I can not see my desktop underneath the lines. The problem was intermittent, and is now happening daily.

To stop the lines and display my desktop on the screen, I have to swing my laptop screen back and forth until a picture occurs. At first, it was a either simple readjustment back or forth to find the spot when the desktop screen would come back up. Or simply squeezing the left bottom corner of the screen would stop the horizontal lines. Lately, I would have to swing it back and forth.

Thanks for all your help

[caperjack]

Hello, , I have to swing my laptop screen back and forth until a picture occurs. Lately, I would have to swing it back and forth. Thanks for all your help

Sound like a Etch-A-Sketch .lol

[f575gtc]

shake it a little bit maybe it will fix it...get it you erase a etch-a-sketch by shaking it....o well...umm yea bye

[Tekmaven]

That really does sound like a Etch-a-Sketch!

Joking aside, I would contact Toshiba. Sounds like your LCD has some serious problems ;-).

[f575gtc]

umm if you got it delivered make sure they didnt replace it with one of those high-tek etch-a-sketch that look like Monitors, trust me I've seen some that do.

[Redshift]

Sounds to me like you have a connection issue with the ribbon connector. I had a laptop that only displayed the desktop when you opened it a small bit, when you opened it all the way the screen went all white anyway it was out of waranty so I re-seated the connector onto the mainboard and it seemed to solve it. incidently the processor also needed regular re-seating, every now and then the laptop would just keel over and not even boot I found removing and reinserting the processor borught it back for a while. Stangest laptop I ever owned.

[RoyOBannon]

I am having the same problem as described above. The only difference is that I have no problem at all when running windows, it is just when I run games after 5 minutes or so multiple horizontal lines start up and gets worse and worse until the screen is unreadable. I move the screen back and forth and or press on it (from behind) and it sometimes comes good for a bit. Any ideas or how to fix it? BTW it is a Compaq Evo N800v Notebook. Thanks in advance.

[RoyOBannon]

Some more info, updated the bios and now instead of the lines it goes black after a while and moving the screen doesn't always work! Any info would be great!

[rghai6]

i used to own a compaq armada notebook ...
after a few months of use the screen used to start going haywire ... got it fixed outside(too risky to spoil the laptop by myself)..the problem was in the ribbon connector .had to get that replaced

[sourcez]

Two problems I've had:
- The ribbon cable, they do wear out and they cause intermittant problems.
- The GPU has been shorted, or is on the way out. Had a HP laptop with a screw loose inside (don't know how it got there) and it shorted over the GPU before I found it. This meant the GPU shoved big vertical lines over everything and the situation degraded over time to leave a VERY faint Windows behind hundreds of lines.

So, either of these ways it's probably hardware, and unless you've got any experience I would send it out for repair.

If it's a software problem then I'm afraid I don't have any recent experience :(

Good luck!

[jennie7837]

My laptop screen went crazy after i tried to scroll up on the screen during an IM session with a friend. It suddenly started showing different colored vertical lines and automatically went offline. I restarted my computer & the lines were still there,but when i connect to the internet my screen is fine. Any ideas as to what the heck this could be?

[5eagle]

got satellite pro L100 with similar problem, used 3x bulldog clips positioned arround the screen framework for sometime and now needs only 1x top left of centre.
put it down to the 'slim' panel as I do not have such problems with the 'older' toshibas-except for my satellite 1100 which has one Verticle line, manageable by moving the screen position slightly.
also have a dell 9300 with Verticle lines-10x 3 different colours which does not respond the same as for horizontal lines unfortunately.

[xTaay]

Omg i have this same problem! :( My lines are black, horizontal, and they move up and down sometimes. The first time i saw them they were that bad but when i went to bed i would close down my laptop & the next morning there was more. They get worse everyday. My laptop is my life! >.< Everythings in it. I'm thinking sbout taking it in, i just hope they dont delete anything. You guys think they delete anything? If they do, please tell me cause i want to send everything to my email so i dont lose anything! Thanks. OR ! if you guys have any advice on how to fix this, do tell me! :) thanks guys.

[5eagle]

Try pressure thumb/forefinger around the screen framework/edge. \one hand first all way round and then two hands, starting together and working away. Then two hands about 2 inch apart and work around screen left to right, right to left-get the idea.
If you find area/areas were improvement/fix found then place bulldog in the areas, over time you sould be able to reduce the number required and maybe down to none.
However, the problem my be the Graphics Card/Inverter and mean replacement.
Bulldog clips and some time are a lot cheaper.

[baberb]

We're having the same exact problem with our Toshiba Satellite A105 laptop, there are intermittent horizontal lines across the screeen. The lines are like dotted lines, grey dots like every other pixel. For us its the same line in the same spot every time. Like others, I thought it was something that moving the hinge fixes, or it seems that somehow pressing on the back or sides of the screen helps. The problem eventually degraded to random speckles all over the screen, sometimes pink bars accross the screen; The computer needs restarting when it gets to that point.

I tried re-seating the ribbon cable, even tried deoxit on the connections. Didn't work for me.

^ Seagle you bring up some very good advice. I left the laptop taken apart while it was on and was experimenting a little, trying to reproduce/understand the problem. Its gotta be either the GPU, LCD, or somewhere in between. I don't think its the GPU because even when it craps out to the most god-awful patterns across the screen, the computer is still functioning. Sometimes the screen will get weird patterns across it and it appears that the computer is frozen, but actually the computer is still operating fine (I can see the hard drive respond when I give known inputs on the keyboard).

That's when I noticed the circle. On the plastic cover over the back of the LCD, there is a little raised circular area that must have been part of the molding process of the plastic part. It creates a circular imprint on the metal film, and a circular imprint on the LCD Ribbon Cable. There is also a linear imprint just below the circular one on the lcd ribbon cable. It appears that I can reproduce/fix the problem by fiddling with the circular spot on the ribbon cable.

Looks like they go for ~$25 on eBay