Toshiba laptop screen flickering

Frem

So, I've got a 2.5 year old Toshiba M55-S139. For the past several months, the screen has randomly started flicker when there are vibrations. Sometimes it does it, sometimes not. It has been doing this more frequently and longer as of late.

I have a four year warranty on the thing, but the warranty does not cover the screen (I know it's probably a loose connection, but try explaining that to some random Toshiba tech support person over the phone), and I'm currently in school as a CS major, so I sort of need the laptop for a while. The six or so week gap where I would not have a laptop would be a major inconvenience, and I'm not terribly keen on trying to ship it over Christmas break.

So, um, does anyone have any ideas? Anyone been in a similar situation? I'm sort of tempted to take the casing off the screen and search for loose connections, but I'm not sure if it's a great idea. Any pitfalls there I should look out for?

TL DR

I feel your pain. Now on my 3rd screen for the ol' Toshiba Satellite.

yoshamano

I've done a few laptop screen replacements before and it's usually not too difficult. Most laptop screens can be removed by removing the piece of plastic above the keyboard (which usuall includes the "shrouds" covering the screen hinges) by gently but firmly prying it off (most are only cliped into place). At which point you might need to remove the keyboard so you can unplug the screen from the laptop. After that it's just a matter of unscrewing the screen from the rest of the laptop.

If it's not a bad connection, check to see if when the screen flickers out you can still see the screen. If you can still kind of see it, it's probably the power inverter that went bad that's causing the lamp to lose power. If that's the case it's a $50'ish replacement. It's the power board that's usually at the bottom of the screen. If the screen goes stone cold black, then you have some bigger problems going on.

Frem

yoshamano wrote: »

If it's not a bad connection, check to see if when the screen flickers out you can still see the screen. If you can still kind of see it, it's probably the power inverter that went bad that's causing the lamp to lose power. If that's the case it's a $50'ish replacement. It's the power board that's usually at the bottom of the screen. If the screen goes stone cold black, then you have some bigger problems going on.

When the screen flickers, it's not going dark. It's just getting extremely bright; the whole thing is saturated with white. I'm not sure weather or not the display is actually getting brighter, or weather it's just the white messing with my mind.

TL DR

Mine would always stop refreshing, so the mouse would freeze in place, etc. Then gradually lines of pixels would fade to black. It was maddening.

mastman

Frem wrote: »

When the screen flickers, it's not going dark. It's just getting extremely bright; the whole thing is saturated with white. I'm not sure weather or not the display is actually getting brighter, or weather it's just the white messing with my mind.

99% loose connection. All you see is the light. I used to repair these bad boys in High School