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Question

Laptop LCD strange behaviour, what is the source of problem?

Mar 26, 2018 1:48PM PDT

Hello community,
I apologise for the long post but I want to describe the problem as well as I can.

The problem:
The screen flickers and scrambles almost constantly. These are my observations and what I tried.

Observations:
- The problem starts before the OS starts to load, right during boot time
- The problem is depending on what picture (or webpage) is the screen displaying (check video Nr.1)
- Sometimes the screen go completely dark or change some colour to another (usually blue to dark green, but not always)
- Everything is absolutely fine on my external monitor, actually if my external monitor is connected the screen on the laptop is more stable (check video Nr. 2). If I pull out the VGA cable the laptop screen goes really crazy (as well as if I start up without the external monitor)
- Also tried to let the VGA in but pull out from the external monitor and the screen also went crazy
- White dotted vertical lines appeared few weeks ago (can be seen to the left from icons), which I didn't pay attention to. Later the flickering started. The white dotted lines are present 95% of time but sometimes they actually completely disappear for few minutes.

Things I've tried:
- I checked the LCD cable which is fine, I pulled it out from LCD and from motherboard, nothing changed
- I tried to push the LCD surroundings but the screen didn't react
- I tried to move the lid but the screen didn't react
- All of the drivers are up to date
- Tried to roll back and reinstall the drivers, but it didn't help

My question is, what could be the problem? The whole LCD? Invertor? Backlight? GPU? Or something else on the motherboard?

Video Nr.1: https://streamable.com/moj1s
Video Nr.2: https://streamable.com/cti0b
Video Nr.3 (bonus): https://streamable.com/2twgp

Please help, any advice would be very helpful
I see the video quality is quite low, I can re-upload them in higher quality if needed

Discussion is locked

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Answer
At first it looks like a GPU issue
Mar 26, 2018 2:00PM PDT

But the external monitor is OK. I would not suspect the LED or backlight. Since you left out the model number I can't look to see prior issues on the web.

So it's likely to be from the motherboard upto and including the LCD. I know folk will skimp and not replace the cheap parts so my view is you can not know which part it is until you replace it.

This is why I go from motherboard to LCD and replace from cheapest to that last expensive part. If that doesn't cure it, it's a motherboard and usually the end for the laptop. At least it's under 100 bucks to find out.

DO CLEAN CONNECTIONS like in this video first.
Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuwG5wqxTpE&t=325s

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Thank you
Mar 26, 2018 2:18PM PDT

Thank you very much for your answer.
I will definitely clean the connections, maybe it will help. I'm also afraid it is the motherboard Sad
The laptop model is Acer Aspire E15 Model No. E5-571G-57N2.
Such a pity, I was really satisfied with the laptop, although I bought it more than 3 years ago.

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There are priors.
Mar 26, 2018 2:51PM PDT
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1&ei=gGq5Wvv5HdSqjQOmgLCgCQ&q=E5-571G+display+flickering&oq=E5-571G+display+flickering&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39k1.21808.24208.0.25210.3.3.0.0.0.0.102.286.2j1.3.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.2.188....0._x48M3-KN9A

All seem to bounce around the same ideas of connections and the LCD panel.

Here it looks like 100 bucks for all the involved parts except the motherboard.
https://www.amazon.com/Aspire-E5-571-E5-571G-Replacement-Screen/dp/B018UWTX4S

I can't be sure this is the right LCD. be sure to email the suppliers.