Intermittent Video problem... GP or LCD?

[westsailor]

I have a T60 with ATI 1300 & Flexview LCD.

A couple days ago I booted up and the screen was basically a 'colored smear'. It's as if a timing/trigger/sync clock is missing.

I rebooted and everything was fine. Later, after coming out of standby it was 'smeared' again. It took me a couple reboots before everything was normal again. Once I was able to recover simply by putting the T60 to sleep and out again. My (blank) screensaver doesn't seem to cause the problem.

It doesn't seem to be getting worse except it's guaranteed when I first boot or come out of sleep mode I'll have to reboot at least once to recover. Otherwise everything is working perfectly.

My question is this... I'd already been dealing with 'hot spots' starting to appear at the top of the LCD. Does this appear to be a problem developing with the ATI GPU or the LCD?

[underclocker]

The best way to deterimine if it's the motherboard or LCD is to hook the machine up to an external display. If you see the smear on both the LCD and external display, then it's the motherboard. If it's only on he internal LCD, then the LCD itself is probably going bad. Good luck.

[westsailor]

I thought of that first thing. Just gotta find a external monitor to try it out with.

I was kinda hoping someone maybe ran into the same thing and had some further info that it ws something simple (as in 'Oh yea... just need update your drivers'

No such luck I guess

[underclocker]

Just gotta find a external monitor to try it out with.

You can use pretty much any flat panel TV made in the past 10 years, they all have some kind of computer input. For an external panel or TV, check with a friend, library, school, office building, electronics store, etc.

Alternately, sometimes with bad LCDs, you can twist the lid slightly to show the defect. Put a hand on each side of the LCD lid and twist slightly and slowly in different directions. Only a little! Sometimes this will clear up a distorted image, sometimes it will cause it to happen. If you twist too much, you will damge the LCD! Proceed with caution.

If the LCD distorts easily with a twist, it's likely the panel.