amilo-forum.com

[paragon]

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year!

I have a problem with the screen on a family members Amilo Pro V2010.
It was faulty from new, but unfortunately was just tolerated instead of being resolved under warranty.

Some pixels are sometimes a shade of red, instead of the correct colour.
The screen display is otherwise bright and clear.

The position of these pixels varies dependant on the image on the display at any given time.
From the pattern of the pixels, it appears that these pixels would otherwise all be a same, correct, colour.

The problem only occurs when a display contains lots of colour, e.g. viewing photos, websites etc.
When the display does not have such a large range of colour, e.g. using Word for example, or the XP desktop with no backdrop image, it appears fine.
Screen test software to display solid screens of colour also display fine.

When connected, an external monitor displays correctly, whilst the laptop screen has the red pixels showing.

This, to me, suggests the 'graphics card' and software / drivers etc are not the issue, the screen does not have a general pixel problem, just a problem displaying a large number of colours.

Is this likely to be an issue with the screen itself?
Is this likely to be an issue with the connection from the 'graphics card' to the screen, i.e. loose connection etc?

Has anyone else encountered this problem and managed to resolve it?

Any help very much appreciated.

[aspettl]

I think these are stuck sub-pixels.
E.g.: you have a red sub-pixel that always stays on. If the color of the pixel should be white, it's ok (red, green, blue: on). Only if the red sub-pixel should be off, then you can see the problem.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defective_pixel
Maybe you can solve the problem by yourself, see the section "Stuck versus dead pixels".

Regards
Aaron

[paragon]

Thank you for your response Aaron. Much appreciated.

I might be wrong, but I am not sure the problem is stuck pixels.

If my understanding of stuck pixels is correct, stuck pixels would be obvious when solid screens of black, white, red, green, blue, yellow etc are displayed, however, in this instance, the display is correct for all colours.

Nontheless, the laptop is currently running JScreenFix to see if that has any effect on the symptoms.
To give it a fair chance, I will let it run for 72 hours.

To further clarify my original message above:

I described the problem pixels originally as red, perhaps a more accurate description would be light red or a dark pink.

The problem only occurs when a display contains lots of colour, e.g. viewing photos, websites etc.
If that window is dragged around the screen, the problem pixels follow accordingly. It appears that these pixels would otherwise all be a same, correct, colour.

If this is a pixel problem of some sort, then the entire screen is affected. Is that likely?

Other than the entire screen itself being defective in some way, it occured to me just now that the gaphics card shared system RAM may be faulty in some way and causing the issue. Presumably, since the internal monitor and external monitor can display independantly of oneanother, each display is addressed to seperate memory areas, and it may not necessarily be the case that all is well just becuase an external monitor works correctly.

If JScreenFix does not sort anything out, I will get hold of some memory and swap it out and see if the problem is resolved.

Failing that, the only other thing I can think of is the cable from the 'graphics card' to the screen.

If anyone has any further suggestions, they would be very much appreciated.

[aspettl]

If my understanding of stuck pixels is correct, stuck pixels would be obvious when solid screens of black, white, red, green, blue, yellow etc are displayed, however, in this instance, the display is correct for all colours.

You're right, then stuck pixels don't make sense.

The problem only occurs when a display contains lots of colour, e.g. viewing photos, websites etc.
If that window is dragged around the screen, the problem pixels follow accordingly. It appears that these pixels would otherwise all be a same, correct, colour.

Yes, sounds like problems with the memory.

Other than the entire screen itself being defective in some way, it occured to me just now that the gaphics card shared system RAM may be faulty in some way and causing the issue. Presumably, since the internal monitor and external monitor can display independantly of oneanother, each display is addressed to seperate memory areas, and it may not necessarily be the case that all is well just becuase an external monitor works correctly.

I don't know how this is technically realized, but maybe the external monitor shows the same problems when you disable the internal LCD?
Given you've got two memory modules, you can test both alone. And run memtest86+.

Regards
Aaron

[paragon]

Thank you again Aaron for your response. Much appreciated.

JScreenFix had no effect on the symptoms after running for over 36 hours, presumably because the problem is not Stuck Pixels.

External monitor always displays fine whether laptop screen disabled or not.

Memtext86+ found no errors after 10 standard passes, but it can only check system RAM. It does not seem able to check the Shared Video RAM, which was reduced to the minimum 16Mb in the BIOS, thus 16Mb remains unchecked and cannot therefore be ruled out as possibly the cause of the symptoms.

It looks like I will have to purchase a new SODIMM, dismatle the laptop to remove the existing module, install the new module, and find out if the hard way if the RAM is the cause!

If anyone has any further suggestions, they would be very much appreciated.

[aspettl]

If you have two RAM modules, then I'd recommend to remove each one and check if the problem persists with the other one alone. If that's the case for both, then it isn't the RAM. (I doubt it, because memtest86+found nothing in the other memory areas. How long did memtest run? It should be a long time, 10 hours or more.)

Regards
Aaron

[paragon]

Thank you again Aaron for your response. Much appreciated.

Memtest86+ ran for about 3 hours and found nothing. In the mean time until the replacement RAM arrives, I will leave Memtest86+ running for at least 24 hours, but since it cant access the Shared Video RAM, it wont find anything in that area anyway where the problem may be, but may find something eventually in another area.

Unfortunately, the laptop only has the orginal single factory fitted 256Mb SODIMM installed so I will need to purchase another SODIMM and dismantle the laptop to remove the existing SODIMM and install the new one in order to hopefully resolve the problems, or at least eliminate RAM as the casue of the symptoms.

If anyone has any further suggestions, they would be very much appreciated.

[paragon]

To follow up on my earlier message above:

Upon starting Memtest86+ it automatically recognises 239Mb of the 256Mb SODIMM installed as available. Memtest86+ shows the 'MemMap' as 'e820-Std'.

16Mb is set for usage as Shared RAM for the Graphics within the BIOS.

Memtest86+ has completed 10 standard passes automatically and detected no problems.

However, 239Mb + 16Mb does not equal the 256Mb installed as single SODIMM module. Memtest86+ has 1Mb is unaccounted for
(note that within Windows XP Home, System properties shows 240Mb available)

Pressing C for Configuration within Memtest86+ and then selecting 3 for Memory Sizing shows that option 1 'BIOS - Std' has been automatically selected.
Selecting option 2 'BIOS - All' then shows 240Mb recognised as available. Memtest86+ shows the 'MemMap' as 'e820-All'.

Instantly, about half the Memtest86+ screen turns red with errors, all with address ranges marked 239.0Mb

Setting 32Mb and 64Mb Shared RAM in the BIOS and performing the same test shows errors marked 223.0Mb and 191.0Mb accordingly.

The question is, does a known working machine behave in same way, of is this indicative of faulty RAM?

If anyone can offer further help or advise, it would be very much appreciated.

[aspettl]

I tried it with my Samsung NC10 (Intel graphics chip), the moment I choose "BIOS - All" the program seems to freeze: it doesn't show any progress and doesn't react to any key strokes.
Unfortunately, that doesn't really help...

Regards
Aaron

[paragon]

Thank you again Aaron for your response. Much appreciated.

I ordered a new 512Mb SODIMM to replace the suspect faulty 256Mb SODIMM.

When it arrives and I get a moment to install it, I will post a follow up as to whether the problem with the screen is resolved, and if Memtest86+ exhibits the same behavior.

[paragon]

A brand new 512Mb SODIMM arrived today to replace the suspect faulty 256Mb SODIMM.

After removal of the 256Mb SODIMM, and installation of the 512Mb SODIMM the symptoms remain the same, whichever socket the new SODIMM is installed in.

Testing of the new SODIMM with Memtest86+ shows it to have no errors in ''BIOS - Std' mode.
Selection of 'BIOS - All' causes the same errors as previously described, which presumably have no relevance to the symptoms.

It would appear that in this instance, the symptoms are not caused by the memory.

Removal and reseating of the video cable on the motherboard has no effect on the symptoms.

To check the other end will require dismantling the screen, which I will do at another time.
If that fails to resolve the problem, the only other thing I can think of is to replace the cable, and if that fails, the screen itself.

If anyone can offer further help or advise, it would be very much appreciated.

[Mary]

Hi You all,
I have the same problem with my Amilo M3438g. Or at least it sounds a lot like the problem I'm having.

But my LCD is replacing some colors with green (in web browsers and MSN window white is mixed with flickering pink). This thing started to happen in the end of summer when on a heavily shaking ferry boat I opened up my computer and got the bad surprise. I was sure the problem must be some loos connection so I went to the repair-shop, were a guy said that the only solution is to put in a new LCD panel, but as my computer is quite old 4 years or so I figured it can wait (as it reacts only to some colors I was able to ignore this problem) and think about maybe having to buy a new computer all together (as the price they told me, was bigger then the market price of my old machine I guess ).

In the beginning of January things went worse, my computer failed to boot and started to run just in safe mode. I tried several things (reinstalled boot sector, let windows search for problems while booting) but non of it made it work again til I uninstalled my graphic card driver (card is Go 6800 last Siemens driver dates back to 2005 ) and as I installed the driver again it all started to work again, but as I suspected something suspicious had made its way to my hard drive I let AVAST scan everything while booting and to my surprise, when I got back, the screen was covered with cubist dream (rows of pale squares covered it, I never saw the log and don't know if any virus was found), computer was not responsive and so I forced it to shut down, but when I switched it back on it started like old times and no green showed up when opening different pictures. Ray of hope, LCD was fine again. This lasted only for a week, then the green pixels came back.

http://i45.tinypic.com/vxy97t.jpg this is a shot of that pagehttp://www.afsc.noaa.gov/Quarterly/ond2003/images/exampletransientweb.jpg on my display.
And the amount of disorder is dependent of the color quality (running on 16bit it's bearable....hardly).
http://i49.tinypic.com/2ihmqmv.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/1053yns.jpg
Ok pic did not turn out fab but as my display is not working I even don't know how bad they are.

PS! Sorry for the long post...I was hoping this saga would give someone out there an idea what is causing it... and if indeed the LCD has just "died" (the repairshop reception guy just looked at it for 1minut so I started to second guess his story as I was not given any explanation of what the problem actually was) and should be replaced or might it still be a problem with connections OR even some virus corrupting my laptop (although neither Avast or SpyBot found nothing worse than cookies when searching now)and I should try format C... but as my monitor worked for a week it reminded me that this problem should be solved NOW... and not be put on any longer (as I have tolerated this far too long). Hope this plea for help is heard.

Best wishes Mary.