Re: Toshiba Tecra 8100 Laptop - LCD Screen or Inverter Fault?

[John Williamson <johnwilliamson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Andy wrote:
> Hi. My old Toshiba Tecra 8100 laptop has developed this fault with one 
> whitish thin green line running vertically from top to bottom of screen on 
> the right hand side near to the middle of the LCD Screen and I am trying to 
> fathom out if this fault is to do with the LCD Screen itself or the Inverter 
> module so I know what to replace.
> I have already replace the laptop main board (due to a different fault) but 
> the laptop screen still has this vertical line there. So its not the 
> graphics chip at fault on the main board and also when I plug an external 
> monitor into the VGA port the line doesn't appear on the external monitor.
> Must be either Inverter or LCD Panel but which one????
>
> A video of the fault I have uploaded here on youtube so you can see 
> whereabouts it is and how the line looks like:
>
> http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=xtqPjSBZDiI  or http://tinyurl.com/2nqho9
>
> Thanks for any helpful advice.
>
> Andy.
Definitely not the inverter. The screen looks even enough & not 
flickering on the video, so the inverter & cold cathode tubes as well as 
any dimmer control connected to them are almost certainly OK.

It *could* be the LCD (Specifically the chip that deals with the LCD 
column drive ) or ( *Much* more likely IME on old laptops) the multiway 
cable or connector connecting the LCD to the main board. If the cable, 
you may be able to make the fault come & go by flexing the lid gently to 
& fro with the unit operating. If the fault has appeared since you 
changed the mainboard, it's very likely that either the connection isn't 
fully seated or the cable is damaged.

If you can make a DOS boot floppy, you can run the Toshiba DOS 
diagnostics for your machine which you can get off the Toshiba Canada 
website ( www.toshiba.ca ) by navigating to support, then selecting your 
model number & following the links. Usually, it's a self extracting 
archive, that will install DOS and the utilities onto a blank floppy 
disc. This removes Windows & all its drivers from the picture, & lets 
you confirm it's a hardware fault.


Hope this helps.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.