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I have a Dell e1705/9400 notebook that has recently just gone out of warranty coverage. Today I was working on it and all of the sudden the screen went completely white- to whitish gray. I rebooted etc, and after awhile the screen started to get darker and darker, yet it was clear that the back light was still working, as I could adjust the brightness. On one reboot the screen was light grayish and you could see almost clouds behind it then a wide green vertical bar formed and another yellow smaller one, again I rebooted and now those are gone, all is left is a grayish screen with fainting darker gray vertical lines..

So I took it apart to see if any cables were loose but were not, put it back together and hooked it up to my lcd tv through hdmi, and it seemingly boots up perfect but then only allows me to go into safe mode, if I try to boot into normal windows itll just go black. While in safe mode all of the windows icons etc are crips and clean yet the background which i presume to be solid blue is now blocks of black and dark blue with smaller rectangles inthem allmost like bricks, also if I view any photos from the hdd the dark areas look as if they are very bad resolution and have other colors in them....also in safe mode I am unable to get out of 800x600 resolution (which may be normal?)


I am hoping that it is just a bad lcd and not an inverter or graphics card or motherboard, has anyone had a similar problem and found a solution. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated!

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Dani AI

Generated

A few practical notes based on this thread: was correct to suspect the system board/video chipset, and the report from that Dell replaced the motherboard lines up with a board-level fault rather than a simple panel/inverter failure. For anyone hitting similar symptoms, use a short, ordered diagnostic flow to avoid unnecessary parts swaps.

  1. Check pre-OS output. If the problem appears on the BIOS/POST screen or immediately at power-on, it is almost certainly hardware.
  2. Test with a known-good external display. If the external shows the same artifacts, the GPU/logic board is the likely culprit; if the external is clean while the internal screen is not, suspect the LCD panel, LVDS cable, or inverter.
  3. Boot a Live USB (Linux or Windows PE) or use the vendor diagnostics to rule out driver/OS corruption — generic drivers can mask or reveal different behavior.
  4. Power off, remove battery and AC, then carefully reseat and inspect the panel cable and its connector for bent pins or damage. Try swapping the inexpensive parts first (inverter, cable) if you can source them cheaply.
  5. If the fault is on the board (soldered GPU/chipset), replacement is the reliable fix. Reflow/reball is a temporary, risky fix and not recommended unless cost-constrained.

Safety and practical tips: always disconnect power and ground yourself to avoid ESD. Back up the drive before any repair or RMA. Compare part numbers when buying replacements (panel and LVDS cable are not always interchangeable). If not comfortable opening the lid, get a professional diagnosis — a correct isolation step can save time and money.

Member Avatar for mechbas

You're not gonna like this. Your suspicion about the GC and/or mobo is right on. Unless the GC is a replacable module then it's a new mobo or it's time to send Mr. Dell (minus the HD) to the dump.

Member Avatar for jimhalpert

Got dell to replace my motherboard for free! So hopefully that will come through, this will most likely be the last dell ill get, not because i dont like them just because ive had to many issues with reliability.

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