P100-188 Wierd screen problems - any advice help appreciated

Toshiba P100-188

I have a strange problem which has just appeared in the last couple of days.

I am getting some cyan coloured vertical lines which appear in areas that are in a tonal range of mid-grey (so it appears).

Since I;ve never encountered this phenomena and can't find anything on the net about it I am hoping someone can tell me what might be causeing it.

Some information first:

1) The lines only appear on grey areas which are roughly mid-grey. eg. If I were to adjust gamma whilst lookng at a grey area the lines would move accordingly as the mid grey moves around.
2) I have connected to an external lcd screen and the problem isn't present.
Although this would appear to eliminate the graphic card , I am still unsure as the external circuit might be different to the internal one.

3) The lines are always vertical with gaps in between them and always a cyan colour (see photos)
4) Turning the laptop on / off does not cure the problem. It appears to be here to stay.

 [URL=http://www.imagebam.com/image/38a18d194520665][IMG]http://thumbnails61.imagebam.com/19453/38a18d194520665.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
  - see on the apple laptop the 's' shape
 [URL=http://www.imagebam.com/image/7a6214194520711][IMG]http://thumbnails7.imagebam.com/19453/7a6214194520711.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
  - a closeup of the above showing the defined vertical lines with gaps in between
 [URL=http://www.imagebam.com/image/7ced51194520744][IMG]http://thumbnails77.imagebam.com/19453/7ced51194520744.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
 - another example
 [URL=http://www.imagebam.com/image/297b6d194520801][IMG]http://thumbnails72.imagebam.com/19453/297b6d194520801.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
 - a closeup of above.
 [URL=http://www.imagebam.com/image/6225a3194520865][IMG]http://thumbnails43.imagebam.com/19453/6225a3194520865.jpg[/IMG][/URL]     
- just to illustrate a point, I've twiddled the gamma to make a whole area hit this mid grey and virtually cover the whole screen. Note that a slight change in the shade as in the outer areas of the page clear the problem completely!

There seems to be a sudden inability to cope with a particular grey on any part of the screen. For the most part under normal conditions it doesn't show too much but can be annoying when a grey bar hits the 'sweet spot' eg in the last example or when watching a video when the grey affected areas will be changing around contrast bands.

Can anyone tell shed any light on what this problem might be? I could get a new screen but if it's something else that could be a total waste of money. I'd also be interested in the technical reason for this as it's not something that I'd expect to happen when either graphics or screen go wrong.

 

I don't think this is a driver problem purely because of the external monitor results. I do feel however, that in all probability the lcd is on it's way out. Today when I turned it on after many hours of being off the problem is significantly worse. ie. The band of contrast / tone or grey has got much larger so now I'm seeing much more of these lines all over.

it might be time to get another lcd and hope.

thanks for your reply

Joy! I took the bezel off and pressed on the cable connector above the keyboard and to my surprise the problem disappeared. Happy that I don't have to replace the screen. :-)