What's it mean when an LCD has a vertical yellow line of pixels?

[IonBlade]

I recently purchased a laptop on eBay for one of my friends. Its LCD has a one pixel thick yellow line up and down it around 3/4 of the way across. It's not a driver issue, as it's always present when a display is (BIOS to shutdown, except when there's no signal because the LCD is in the middle of changing resolutions). Furthermore, I've taken the LCD completely out of the laptop and made sure that none of its pins on the connector are bent - they are not, and the connections are tight, both on the LCD side and the motherboard side. I put the LCD in my other laptop (same model), where the display normally works fine, and the screen still has the yellow line.

The problem, then, is in the LCD screen. Anyone have enough experience with these things to tell me what would cause this? The seller claims that it wasn't that way when he shipped it and that it's UPS's fault, but given all the other lies about what was in the laptop (ex: only 64MB when the description said 128, or including a battery that wouldn't hold a charge - the seller told me that he only claimed it included a battery, but that he never said it worked - I figure if you say the laptop works fine, you should note if the battery doesn't), I'm beginning to doubt that this was a shipping problem, but that the seller was trying to dump some defective murchandise onto a tech newbie who would give up easily. That's why I need you guys to tell me if this is a problem that could be caused in shipping and how, so that I can either get this guy to give my $ back or collect the UPS insurance - the screen shows no other signgs of stress or breakage, just that, and a single line of yellow pixels seems awfully precise to be a shipping problem.

Thanks,
Shawn

 

[fr]

You got ripped already when he sold you a dead battery. If it is not in good working condition, he must disclose it.

Can he prove the LCD was without that defect before shipping? Given all the lies he's told you already, there's no reason for you to believe another one.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: fr
You got ripped already when he sold you a dead battery. If it is not in good working condition, he must disclose it.

Can he prove the LCD was without that defect before shipping? Given all the lies he's told you already, there's no reason for you to believe another one.

did it get shipped insured? if you have to blame UPS, do it. you can't be sure that wasn't their fault.... make sure to give the seller negative reviews though.

 

[IonBlade]

Yeah, I paid the extra money for insurance. My past experience with UPS, however, has been that it generally investigates claims over 100 dollars, making sure that the package appeared damaged - here, the package was fine. Furthermore, the laptop was packed well, so I don't think UPS will take responsibility, especially since the seller has no way to prove it worked before shipping other than his word, which, at this point, doesn't hold much weight.

The seller, now, said that he will not give refunds for items, as he says that, "in the past," people have tried to swap his good parts out for bad ones and return it. If that's implying that I did that, I'm insulted... and a little more than angry. I'm pretty sure that this seller is either 1) completely tech illiterate, thus not noticing the extra 64MB RAM, carrying case, ethernet card, and battery charge issue that were not included, or 2) trying to rip me off.

I paid for the item 14 days ago, and it didn't get here until 3 days ago, which didn't leave me much time to contact any of the 14-day anti-fraud protections. I've emailed him yesterday and asked for either replacement parts for those that were not included (I'll leave the LCD to UPS) or the funds to buy them so that the laptop will be as advertised, but haven't yet received a response. Also, I think UPS is going to need to come out to look at the packaging to authorize an insurance claim, and if they turn me down, I don't really have a safety, as it'll probably be past the point to argue charges. I dont' know Mastercard's time frame for disputing charges, but I paid via paypal. If this guy refuses to help, can I dispute the charges, as I was a victim of fraud and did not receive what I paid for?

Anyway, sorry this has degraded from an LCD discussion to an explanation of my situation, but I'm in a corner and figured with all the troll hunters here that someone would have an idea of what to do

Thanks,
Shawn

 

[Kingofcomputer]

It seems to be the notebook has a bad LCD screen, so the seller wanted to get rid of it.

 

[IonBlade]

I agree that this probably was the case, but to get back to a more hardware-based question, what exactly could cause this problem? I don't know anything about LCD technology, so if someone out there does, could you explain how this stuff works to me and why a single yellow line could form?

TIA,
Shawn

 

[dkozloski]

For $500 and expenses you can get a guy out of Youngstown, Ohio that is really good at dispute resolution. He'll make him an offer he can't refuse.

 

[ozone13]

He screwed you. That yellow line is what happens when a transistor (??) is dead for that entire row of pixels. I had that exact thing happen to my new nec lcd monitor and that is what nec's tech support said. They had to ship me a new one because you cannot fix that short of sending it in to the manufacturer.

 

[Siddhartha]

I bought a laptop on ebay that developed a similar LCD artifact after I had it for a month. Fortunately the laptop came with a 90 day warranty and the vendor replaced\fixed the unit without any problems.

 

[YancyGalutia]

> What's it mean when an LCD has a vertical yellow line of pixels?

Means it's time to buy a new LCD.



Sorry bad joke. Sorry you got ripped off.
If the seller does not resolve this with you, post his ebay nick so that we can all stay away.

-Yancy