The Dork Lord

Ok, I'm running a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo PI 1505 laptop for around 2 years now, and recently have come accross a rather irritating problem.

Around 75% of startups, the screen turns rather like this:


This effect is present even from the very start, before windows or anything loads up.

Looking around when windows is fully loaded up, the monitor only apparently has 2 resolution modes 1024x768 and 800x600.

My computer is running Windows XP, and I have attempted uninstalling and reinstalling the graphics drivers, to no avail.

Anyone got any ideas as to whats wrong there?

TriggerFinger

Hmmm it looks like an LCD problem (notice the cut on the right side?). Try first with an external monitor and observe if it displays the same (75% of the time). I feel it is hardware related but just to be sure, run a live CD (XP/BartPE or PCLinuxOS if it runs well on your laptop).

If you get a good screen try it several times and see the screen will behave like the one on the image.

The Dork Lord

Thanks for your help, I've suspected it was a hardware problem for some time now, this makes me almost certain, but could you please clarify this quoted statement for me? Kinda washed over my head a little.

TriggerFinger

Oh about the live CD. I usually run a linux live CD (i.e. PCLinuxOS, Knoppix, etc.) if I cannot pin down a problem to hardware or software.

Running a different operating system helps me narrow down to just hardware or software. A live CD runs from the CD/DVD drive. That means you DO NOT have to INSTALL anything in your HDD. No formatting, no partitioning. And yet given that, you still have a taste of the 'other' operating system. It removes the possibility of corrupted Windows, defective drivers, etc. as it is a totally different operating system.

The downside is (although it works well with MOST brands and models) some may need a little tweaking to have it boot up successfully. In my experience it runs without problems almost 99% of the time in the laptops that I have used it with.

So here's my point. If you get a linux live CD like PCLinuxOS, use it from your CD drive. This way you will know if it is the LCD if it will give you the same as the image you uploaded. If you do not get that screen in linux, you can say that it could be caused by Windows.

The Dork Lord

I used a LiveCD of Ubuntu, and ran accross the same problem, thus meaning the problem is very likely to be a hardware one. Thanks for your help anyway.

TriggerFinger

Yep just as I suspected... btw, have you tried it with an external monitor? If you did already, is the problem the same when using an external monitor? If you get a good screen using an external monitor, then consider replacing the video cable (unlikely) or the LCD assembly (very likely).

af3

Do laptops have factory screen adjustments in the BIOS setup or is there a utility to adjust the screen like one would with a conventional LCD that has adjustment buttons on the front? I hope this never happens to my laptop...