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I got this refurbished laptop (Dell Latitude E6430) a week ago. It’s been fine until this afternoon, when the display went haywire while I was in the middle of using it. There are a couple of pictures of the screen at the bottom of this question.

At times, you can just barely make out what the real screen should look like, but it’s like you’re seeing it through a cloud (e.g. the second screenshot is of Gmail in Chrome). Even when you can make it out, the display is frozen, not reflecting updates caused by keyboard or mouse input. This happens immediately at boot. I’ve seen it clear up momentarily before going bad again, but I haven't found a way to make that happen consistently.

I’ve connected the laptop to an external monitor, and the display on the external monitor is perfectly normal.

I spoke to somebody from Dell Financial Services (dellrefurbished.com, where I bought the laptop), who suggested I verify that the screen connector is making a good connection. I was able to verify that, at both ends of the connector.

Anybody know what’s causing this? Any tips for determining whether the problem is with the LCD itself, the LVDS connector, or something else? I’d hate to replace the LCD only to find out that it doesn't solve the problem.

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  • Probably the on-board adapter portion to the LCD is failing. Probably a failing graphics card. Not worth spending money repairing as it'll be a new motherboard. It happens and is probably some reason the laptop was got rid of in the first place... How old is the laptop?
    – Kinnectus
    Mar 17, 2015 at 23:59
  • @BigChris according to the service tag, the laptop is from late 2012 or early 2013, I think. You think the graphics card could be failing even though it can drive an external monitor without a problem?
    – Jonathan
    Mar 18, 2015 at 0:02
  • Possibly, because the VGA output is different to the LCD output. You could try replacing the LCD cable that goes from the motherboard to the LCD (cheapest option first). If this doesn't work the LCD to change. Ultimately, if this doesn't work, guaranteed the graphics card is on its way out. Do you know the warranty/guarantee status, as per JakeGould's comment?
    – Kinnectus
    Mar 18, 2015 at 7:56

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