Colour fading or dripping effect on laptop monitor

[klantee]

I have a Sony Vaio Model: VGN-FE31Z Laptop and the display is usually very good. Last night while surfing the net my screen colour just turned pale, with the colour looking like it was fading. a breif message popped up regarding memeory but it went soon after.

i started to run anti virus & spyware scans but nothing has turned up so far, i also use system restore as well as booting from my installation CD, but no joy. When i restart my laptop, the screen just stays black, and i have to reboot a few time in order to get a sort of screen back in order to work on it. Although there are programs running in the background, as i can hear all the familier sounds which indicate the programs seem to be running as normal.

I don't know what else to do. I have run checks on the NVIDIA GForce-Go 7600 display driver and all is well there. My screen is just the colour of the rainbow!!! I have even run the windows malicious software tool, with no joy!!!

Help...

I have now been told that it is a hardware issue via the microsoft forum support web site. What do i do?!

[Blencogo]

Try plugging in an external monitor - that will tell you if it is the graphics chip or the LCD display.

If an external display works OK then the fault is with the screen.

If the external screen is corrupted or does not work then you have a GPU hardware or driver fault. It may be worth trying a new nVidia driver.

Do you see the Vaio logo when you first boot the Vaio before windows loads or is it always black?

I know your Vaio is pre-Vista and so it must be over two years old and outside warranty but I would speak to Sony Vaio Support and see what they say. Unfortunately screens and graphics chips do fail so they are not liable but they may be able to give some advice.

[klantee]

I will try an external moniter when i get the chance. On start up the screen sometimes stays black and other times it will eventually show me the vaio logo, then as and when it feels like it, i will be able to see my deastop, if not then i have to reboot at least two times. On seeing my screen, the display flickers from black to desktop, sometimes rapidly, others a little slower. The sceen seems to stay steadier when i pull up the task manager box and hover over the screen.