White Line

[john]

My Dell laptop has just developed a fault in the form a a thin (1-2mm) horizontal white line that has appeared about a third of the way down the screen and goes from edge to edge. I don't think it's a monitor fault as although it appears when booting up it does momentarily disappear whilst it does so.

Also if I copy the screen to the clip board and paste it into the paint application it does not appear in the pasted image.

Ny ideas ?

[zappaDPJ]

To me that does say it's a problem with the screen rather than anything else. Have you tried plugging the laptop into an external monitor?

[john]

Thanks for your reply Zappa, I've got a lead that lets me plug my laptop into my TV, I'll dig it out and try it 

[Glenn]

It will be a screen or cable/connector fault, the output to an external screen will no doubt be OK.

[Rik]

I agree, John, the sceen grab is capturing the pixels sent to the screen, so if it's different to what you see, it's almost always the screen.

[Technical Ben]

Yep. It's a common fault with laptops, and lcd screens in general. Mainly on laptops because they are moved so much more and the case can bend ever so slightly. This will break either the crystal display or pixels, or the cable and connectors. I crimped the cable by mistake once when cleaning my old laptop, but thankfully removing the screw I put in the wrong place fixed it. No such hope for this though, as it's down to wear and tear or a failed part.

[john]

Found the lead and plugged the laptop into the TV and there's no white line so it must be the laptop's screen. The cheapest price on ebay for a replacement is about £70 so I think I'll live with it for now and put the money towards a new laptop instead.

[Rik]

It's a bugger, isn't it.

[john]

It's not too bad Rik, it's only a minor distraction and I've been looking for a justification to buy a new netbook anyway. I'll still be able to use the current laptop for the things that a netbook won't do.

[Rik]

You could always apply a thin line of dark grey paint.

[john]

Looking out of the window at the sky the worlds grey enough Rik 

[Rik]

 

Well you could use alternating RGB dots instead.