Strange Lines on Laptop Screen and Locking Up - Help?

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Chiseled Jawline

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Hi All

I have a Laptop from 2008 that is doing strange stuff.
It will run fine for a hour or two or three, then randomly weird lines form across the screen and locks up. I then have to hard restart the laptop to run again.

I've included a picture describing what I am talking about.
Anybody have an idea what causes this symptom? I'm guessing it is some type of hardware failure?! :confused:

Thanks

20160208_201117_resized.jpg
 
Messugga said:
Nope. Machine might be clogged with dust. It's pretty old, after all. You could get someone to open it up and clean it out for you, or do it yourself if you're up to it.
Click to expand...

I'm sure its got a lot of dust in it. Thanks for the tip, I like DIY, so i'll open it up and give it a blast of air.

Would down-clocking the GPU help?
 
Do you get artifacts when playing games/ some text is a pinkish colour?
 
If cleaning do not help, you have to remove radiator, clean from old thermal compound and apply a new one.
 
I've seen almost that exact pattern before, on quite a nice laptop as well. I'm not sure of the brand but it was a higher-end model. Definitely not a HD issue, not a LCD issue (although you can plug a PC monitor in to try - I always do for process of elimination) so much more likely a graphics issue like the one I spoke about.
 
Chiseled Jawline said:
Hi All

I have a Laptop from 2008 that is doing strange stuff.
It will run fine for a hour or two or three, then randomly weird lines form across the screen and locks up. I then have to hard restart the laptop to run again.

I've included a picture describing what I am talking about.
Anybody have an idea what causes this symptom? I'm guessing it is some type of hardware failure?! :confused:

Thanks

View attachment 344851
Click to expand...

It can also be caused by the the system RAM if your GPU doesn't have it's own memory. Try reseating it while your cleaning or swop it with a new/different one.
 
NullHypothesis said:
I've seen almost that exact pattern before, on quite a nice laptop as well. I'm not sure of the brand but it was a higher-end model. Definitely not a HD issue, not a LCD issue (although you can plug a PC monitor in to try - I always do for process of elimination) so much more likely a graphics issue like the one I spoke about.
Click to expand...

Are you high?
 
Agreed. Gfx card is most probably the culprit. Clean everything while you are in there, some thermal paste will also make a big difference.
 
Connect laptop to an external screen.


This will rule out any issues with LCD display or connectors......
 
Are you running some flavour of Linux?

I've had very similar problems with a specific distro, reverted to an earlier version and the trouble went away.
 
NullHypothesis said:
I've seen almost that exact pattern before, on quite a nice laptop as well. I'm not sure of the brand but it was a higher-end model. Definitely not a HD issue, not a LCD issue (although you can plug a PC monitor in to try - I always do for process of elimination) so much more likely a graphics issue like the one I spoke about.
Click to expand...

Deadmanza said:
Are you high?
Click to expand...

Are you slow? I am talking about a different laptop I diagnosed and on that laptop the graphics card was the problem. What is so difficult to understand?
 
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