LCD screen inverter failure symptoms

Question

I have a toshiba laptop, it's about 4 years old, had been working flawlessly until ...

Recently, the LCD screen started to show some artifacts, like flickering, screen freeze in dark image and corner starts to get brighter. Most of the flickering happens in a horizontal pattern (horizontal lines, parts)

At first, moving the screen a little bit corrected the problem.

Now, if it appears at startup, its very hard to get rid of it (the screen may get clean, but the problem reappear very fast).

But sometimes, it just works fine.

Searching in the web, I concluded this could be a screen inverter failure, but I have no idea if another piece of hardware could be responsible of this.

Please note, the problem appears even before loading the os and an external screen works correctly.

What do you think ?

Answer 1

It could be the inverter, backlight, or the LCD panel itself.

Backlight failure is usually hinted at by a pink hue to everything.

Inverter failure usually results in the dimming of images on the screen to the point where the backlight is not even on (the inverter provides power to the backlight)

This sounds more like it is a failure in the LCD panel itself, though it could just as easily be a loose data cable connected to the back of the LCD. If you're feeling adventurous and you laptop is out of warranty, you can take the LCD out of the bezel and reconnect everything, checking for loose cables along the way. It's really not that hard, and what do you have to lose? Either you pay to have it replaced, you fix it yourself, or you break it trying to fix it yourself, but you probably would have to get it replaced anyway.

Answer 2

It could be a backlight related problem or the connector just got a bit loose.
I think, its time to get a service round with your laptop.

My Dell had a loose display connector after about 5 years and one service round got it fixed.
The service tech would also be able to tell you if you need any specific part replacements.

If you really want to try this out yourself,
I'd suggest at least getting the service manual for your model handy
(calling the tech is the safest method though).

Answer 3

I'm not sure what causes the problem but it's quite common on laptops, I suspect it's something to do with the way the screen flexes when it's opened and closed since I've never seen it on a desktop flat screen. Whenever I've reported the fault to a laptop manufacturer they have always swapped the screen out (under warranty) so I expect that's what you'll have to do.