Horizontal Line On Laptop Display

Question

I have a latitude d610 and, after an incident where an antivirus software upgrade caused instability and I reloaded everything from a disk image, my computer has developed a horizontal line across the lcd screen.  It is there before the operating system boots as soon as the power is on.  My assumption is that my lcd may be getting old and something has gone wrong with it.  However, I would appreciate any comments.  Thanks!

Balaji Ramanath · Answer

Attach an external monitor to the computer and see if the line appears on the external monitor.  If so, something is wrong with the motherboard or video hardware and/or software on the computer.  If not, there is something wrong with the LCD screen.

laurelmark · Answer

Thanks for the help.  I did connect my laptop to a regular monitor....no horizontal lines there.  So I am guessing it is my laptop lcd.  I am wondering whether anyone has any other thoughts.  I contacted Dell to see how much a replacement lcd might be...over 300.  I am thinking about a new computer as this one is three years old and is used daily, all day, every day.  Any thoughts or opinions on this idea?

Balaji Ramanath · Answer

You might be able to get cheaper LCD replacements by not going through Dell, but I think you are on the right track in thinking that it is probably not worth the trouble for a 3 year old laptop.  Especially if you want to stick with Win XP, you have to get a new computer by June 30 of this year, so this may be a good excuse to stock up on a computer that will last through the first 5 or 6 service packs of Vista (by which time it might become passably stable or at least useable!).

Laptops General - Locked Topics

Horizontal Line On Laptop Display