only half of screen visible

[enzet]

Hi there,

I have had a strange problem lately. When I start up my laptop, only the top half of the screen is showing what it is supposed to, the bottom half stays white or, alternatively, striped. The hard drive functions without problems.
After a bit of play (switching the laptop on and off several times etc) and warm-up (about 20-30min), the bottom half of the screen starts to become visible very slowly, but foggy and flickery, and improves gradually til everything is back to normal after about 30-60 min. As soon as everything is in place again, the screen functions as if nothing happened, without a flicker, for the rest of the day.

I know, this really sounds like a hardware problem, but the first appearance of that strange behaviour conincided with a massive malware/ spyware/ virus attack.

Is it possible the screen thingy has anything to do with the virus attack or is it definitely a hardware problem?

NZ

[Andy128]

enzet-
Try re-installing the driver for the video card. As to the malware/spyware attack- do you think you were 100% successfull in efforts to clean up the computer.
On the surface one would suspect that the screen is going- but I have not owned a laptop and therefore have no experience with them nor do I know about their longevity. Malware/spyware and viruses can affect all aspects of
computers -that I am certain of though. I would try the above first. Second I would make sure I have all windows updates.

I presume that this occurs while plugged in and with battery use?

Let us know how it works out.

Andy

[enzet]

Thanks, Andy.

Have re-installed the driver, can only tell you tomorrow whether it worked, when I switch on the machine again out of the cold, so to speak.
Fairly positive that I am up to date with windows updates.
Not too sure about spyware thingy, several logs are being analysed by security team just now. Need to wait for reply and green light from them.

NZ

[The Prodigy]

It's not a definite, but should reinstalling the drivers fail, adjusting the resolution has always helped when it happened to me.

[Chevy]

Since you mention warm-up time, it maybe a bad LCD display. Besides drivers for the video card, there may be monitor drivers needed as well. Try it, but (and I hope not) you may be looking at a toasted LCD.

[enzet]

Well, the problem re-occured today :-(. I'll look into the screen drivers. My laptop is about 3 years old now, is it worthwhile getting it fixed? People are always telling me it would be madness to get laptops fixed - is it really that expensive???