Some users sometimes state the problem of a white bar appearing on the screen (several vertical and horizontal stripes) when the laptop is working or the screen does not work at all. The software method does not always solve this situation. But here it is possible to diagnose the causes even at home.
White screen on a laptop or stripes: causes
In general, not only white horizontal or vertical stripes may appear on the screen, indicating hardware failures.
Often you can notice ripples, mirroring of the contents, dimming or completely turning off the screen. What could cause such failures? As the main reasons, most experts indicate the following:
- overheating or failure of the graphics card;
- damage to the system board;
- malfunctions of the screen matrix;
- damage to the loop between the main unit and the screen;
- system problems.
Software failures when the laptop screen does not turn on are not so common and they are mainly associated only with incorrectly installed video adapter drivers or attempts to use programs with requirements above the configuration of the graphics accelerator. Sometimes a problem can occur when trying to overclock a video card. But in most cases, this is a violation in the operation of the hardware at the hardware (physical) level.
Diagnostics and software troubleshooting
If a completely white screen appears on the laptop, this may indicate a hang of some currently running application or a “crash” of drivers.
The first problem is solved by forcibly terminating the program through the "Task Manager", called up by the "three-finger" combination Ctrl + Alt + Del or the taskmgr command in the "Run" menu (Win + R).
The second problem, when a white screen appeared on a laptop, can be fixed by reinstalling the drivers. To do this, you just need to restart the device first, and then install or update the corresponding graphics chip drivers at least through the “Device Manager”. But you can use special utilities to automatically update drivers not only for the video card, but also for all other devices present in the configuration.
Sometimes the fact that the white screen on the laptop does not respond at all to any actions can lead to resource-intensive applications (most often these are games whose system requirements are much higher than those supported by the video card). In this case, it’s better to first complete the application (if the “Device Manager” does not help, you can use the forced shutdown of the laptop and restart), and then completely delete it.
Video Card Testing
Now a few words about the appearance of stripes, ripples and other effects. Most often, the reason is overheating of the video card. Too much load is produced on it, and the cooler can not cope with cooling. Of course, it is possible for specialists to apply an additional layer of thermal paste, but this will only help for a while.
To determine that the reason lies precisely in the graphics adapter is quite simple. To do this, simply connect a stationary monitor to the laptop via the standard VGA connector. If the effects of the failure appear on it, then it is the video adapter that needs to be replaced. Maybe these are problems with the motherboard, but you just won’t get to it without special knowledge and skills of an electronic engineer.
If there are no bands and visual effects on the second monitor, we can conclude that these are violations in the operation of the matrix and the connecting loop.
Checking the screen matrix
Screen matrix test can also be done by yourself. For this, a partial deformation technique is used. First, try to slightly press on the matrix in the places of the greatest accumulation of stripes, and then try to bend it a little in the horizontal plane.
If the colors change during deformation, the matrix will have to be replaced. The same thing should be done if ripples are noticeable or a wide white band passes across the screen, or the image looks like a negative, or there is a color change at the entire stage of the system boot (even when entering the BIOS settings).
Is the loop working?
If the laptop screen does not turn on, the problem clearly consists in damage to the connecting cable located between the cover and the keyboard unit. At the loading stage, streaks or ripples can sometimes appear, replacing the black screen.
If they appear, try to quickly close and open the lid, watching the image. Any changes will become a sign of a loop failure (sometimes the image may flicker, ripple, additional rows and columns appear in the form of white pixels, etc.).
White screen on a laptop: what to do?
Finally, the question remains how to eliminate such problems. Programmatically, everything is clear. Two methods have been described above. And it is better not to install programs or games, the requirements of which the laptop simply can not pull. In all other cases, when the cause of the breakdown is determined at least at the initial level independently, repair or replacement of the problematic component is inevitable.