[aithne]

I have a Dell Inspiron M5010 laptop. The screen started having some pink lines that went vertically on the screen. That was brief. Then it started flashing white for a second or two and would go back to normal. The amount of time for the white screen got longer fairly quickly. So i got frustrated and went to close it and noticed the white screen went away. The white screen started happening a lot more often and for longer periods of time but would go away depending on what angle of my screen. So flipping it back and forth helped at first. Now i am having to tap the bottom left hand corner of my screen or jiggle the wires that come out the bottom I have had it hooked to an external monitor and it worked fine. I can still hear whats going on even when the white screen shows. It does tend to overheat even with the laptop cooler thing i got for it. SOmeone said it could be heat related but idk because it does it sometimes on startup when its cool already and hasnt been on for hours. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am new, very new, to this so some terminology i may not understand but that doesnt mean i cant learn

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What you are experiencing could be the display itself or could be the cable going to the display. The cable isn't all that expensive, the labor for tearing it apart and putting it back together will likely be your biggest expense. Problem is, taking it apart and putting it back together is going to be required just to confirm the suspicions of the cable, and once it's apart you are going to have to decide if you want to replace the screen if that turns out to be the culprit.
I would suggest having a professional take it apart and repair it for you, as laptops are not nearly as easy to disassemble and reassemble as desktops. But if you decide to do it yourself, I'm sure you can locate a service manual by searching in Google.

[Cotutor]

What you are experiencing could be the display itself or could be the cable going to the display. The cable isn't all that expensive, the labor for tearing it apart and putting it back together will likely be your biggest expense. Problem is, taking it apart and putting it back together is going to be required just to confirm the suspicions of the cable, and once it's apart you are going to have to decide if you want to replace the screen if that turns out to be the culprit.
I would suggest having a professional take it apart and repair it for you, as laptops are not nearly as easy to disassemble and reassemble as desktops. But if you decide to do it yourself, I'm sure you can locate a service manual by searching in Google.

[aithne]

i took it all the way apart this morning out of curiosity because ive never seen the insides of a computer, and put it back together after having a small fill of looking. im using it and practicing white screen patience. thank you for your comment and input. the wires er cables are covered and i didnt take the cover off to see if they are damaged. not sure if i should do that or not? or just get the replacement and see if it helps? i did find a service manual lol but was much easier to put it back together the way i took it apart than trying to go back and forth and find a logical order in the manual. i also found people who are having this white screen because of graphics card. that i know very little about really other than i saw it this morning. i have seen that some are suggesting baking it or using a hair dryer to heat it. mine isnt coming off for baking so it would be the hair dryer but i am not too sure i want to heat everything around it. is it advisable to heat them? and yes i kno....i have a lot of questions

[Cotutor]

i took it all the way apart this morning out of curiosity because ive never seen the insides of a computer

You are braver than most....LOL My mother used to say curiosity killed the cat... but satisfaction brought him back.

the wires er cables are covered and i didnt take the cover off to see if they are damaged. not sure if i should do that or not?

I think the covering you are talking about is probably tape wrap, you can remove it, but I dont' actually expect you to find anything. Typically if a wire is damaged it will either be obvious, as in a severe pinch mark where it bends, or the insulation will be damaged as well, or.... it will not show any obvious signs of damage, this is not very likely.
I may be that your connection could be damaged where it's soldered on or in one of the connectors at either end.

or just get the replacement and see if it helps?

If the replacement isn't too costly this might solve the problem or lead you to the solution. I don't typically recommend part swapping as it can get expensive fast, but if a $10 part might solve the problem, by all means give it a whirl.

i also found people who are having this white screen because of graphics card. that i know very little about really other than i saw it this morning

If it were your graphics chip, then plugging it into a monitor should yield the same results. As the same graphics chip that drives the laptop screen also drives the external monitor when you plug it in. So that pretty much eliminates the graphics chip.

i have seen that some are suggesting baking it or using a hair dryer to heat it. mine isnt coming off for baking so it would be the hair dryer but i am not too sure i want to heat everything around it. is it advisable to heat them?

NO, heating will not solve anything, and I don't know where they come up with this idea, but please don't go heating things... that's just crazy... Sometimes people should have their keyboards disabled for some of the stuff they suggest on the internet...LOL

....i have a lot of questions

That's how we learn.... you think you got questions, you should see some of the posts I've driven my instructors to pulling their hair out with it....

The fact that you can run on an external monitor indicates the cable/connection, or the backlight, or the screen itself. The white screen kind of leaves me believing it's not the backlight. But the other two are open to suggestions.... I would suggest possibly getting a price to replace the connecting harness for the screen, if that's not to expensive it won't hurt to try it. If that doesn't work, I wouldn't suggest buying a screen unless you could get one for reduced price on a parted out laptop.

YOu said you can plug external in and it works, have you tried this once it white screens? I'd like to make sure it's not just coincidence when you use the external and that you can still see the image on external when the white screen appears.

[aithne]

lol yea i did get brave and had to take it half-way apart a second time because i didnt replace the hard drive securely enough. that was fun:) i am about to get the cable and see if that helps. i have also noticed that the pressure of typing is now sometimes enough to cause the screen to go white. fun fun. when it was connected to an external monitor, it was done by someone in a computer store and he wasnt interested much in doing it for more than a minute or so because i was in to ask questions and he wanted to replace the screen end of story or charge for looking at it, so i do not know if the white shows on another screen or not. and yes i figured heating anything wasnt the smartest idea. i am about to take it to a friend and have her hook it up again to another monitor and if that goes well, replace the cable. thank you so much for your help.

[Cotutor]

If hooking it up to another monitor still shows the white screen, I would suggest that you have a mainboard connection issue, and unless the connector where the screen plugs into the board is loose, it's very likely a mainboard problem and won't be worth fixing. Sorry to say that, but figure you don't need to pay someone in a computer store to tell you that. The mainboards for most laptops runs in the 3 to 4 Hundred dollar range..... way too much to go there.

[aithne]

i finally got my lcd cable today and just now switched it out. so far so good. thank you again for your help. i do have another question, although i am not sure if it should go here or somewhere else...a dell tech came and replaced my hard drive last summer while i was still under factory warranty. after he was finished i started having the problem of while i am typing, my letters and words skip around and my sentences come out jumbled. the space it skips back to is completely random. sometimes it even highlights a small section or whole sentence while i am typing... i have even two finger peck typed to be sure i am not inadvertently hitting something that would cause that to happen. any idea how to remedy this or am i just stuck with it?

[Cotutor]

Aithne,
It could very well be your touchpad, even though you are 2 finger typing, the sensitivy could have gone haywire and it's picking up your key taps....
I would disable the touchpad, and plug in a wireless mouse, test it using that for a few days, and if that seems to fix it, just stay with the wireless mouse. I always disable a touchpad and use a wireless mouse on all laptops, as they don't like my body chemistry. I'm partial to the MS minimouse 3000. They work great and are not hard on batteries.
If this does not solve the problem, it's possible that you can replace the keyboard, which could also be wearing out. These are usually in the $25 range.

[aithne]

thank you so very much. i will try that.

[aithne]

sorry it took so long to get back about the touchpad. i did get a mouse. it fixed the problem. ty again for your help. lol though now it seems i am spending more time replacing bits and pieces of my laptop than anything else. i just may be back for more help soon.