Weird Laptop Pixelation Problem

[Madmick]

So my mother's Toshiba Satellite laptop has a weird pixelation problem. There are about a dozen patches scattered across the display that constantly go red/blue in the shape of the letter "Z" although there is a level of flashing (almost like a neon sign). At first, I assumed that the greens in the pixels had gone out, but in order to test this, I went into the control panel and changed the display format from landscape to portrait. My reasoning was that if it was a hardware problem, and not software glitching, then the same pixels would be a problem regardless of orientation. When I change to Portrait, though, suddenly these patches resembles the letter "N" instead of "Z"; they rotated with the display orientation. Ergo, it isn't fried hardware in the display.

I asked my father, and he said they'd ran a full Norton scan, and detected no malware/viruses. He also said that he doesn't have a Windows 7 boot CD for the laptop. This makes reformatting the hard drive and re-installing everything somewhat problematic (or at least an severe hassle).

What would you recommend I first try/inspect?

 

[Tommy1983]

Have you tried booting into safe mode and see what happens? To get into safe mode press F8 after the post repeatedly. Thats the first thing you should do. And i dont know how old the laptop is or what model number it is but most laptops these days come with a recovery partition wich can be used to restore the OS. Read the manual to see how to activate it. Mostly its booting the laptop and after the post screen you need to hit F11/F12. There's most likely also a option to activate it from within windows but just check the manual. Every brand has there own methods to activate it. The problem you describe is most of the time hardware related but you never know. It could be software.

 

[Bubbaleone]

You don't state what model Satellite you have. If it's 2007 or later; the HDD contains a hidden recovery partition that will allow you to restore it to factory original condition. This procedure formats the drive so be sure you backup any personal data to an external drive before beginning. Have the AC power adapter connected to ensure not running low on battery.

1. Start with the desktop open, then hold down the power button until the laptop powers off, and continue to hold down the power button for an additional 20 seconds afterwards which drains any residual current stored in the capacitors.

2. Press and hold down the zero key, then press the power button once while continuing to hold down the zero key.

3. When it starts to beep; release the zero key and the laptop will boot into the "Toshiba HDD Recovery Utility".

4. Select "Restore Original Factory Image (Recommended)".

Keep in mind that if the pixelation is due to either the inverter or the LCD screen going south; a restoration isn't going to fix bad hardware.

 

[Madmick]

It was a failing GPU. I'd already tried a Safe Mode boot, and nothing happened. So I uninstalled the NVIDIA driver, rebooted, and voila! No more screen blotching. Not surprising that it confused me since the graphical problems were being transposed when I changed the screen orientation; the problem was software-driven, but the source was hardware. Oddly, though, there are remaining blue lines. I think it's just done. Need to get here a Thinkpad or something that's got the best build quality with the cheapest hardware (she just uses it as a glorified emailer and word processor with some facebooking, so it's not like she needs performance...just something that won't overheat and is durable).

Thanks for the tip on the Factory reset. I do have an external hard drive. I could try that to see if the blue lines will disappear.