Laptop screen problems
Spots, dots, lines, patches, flicker and bleed on a laptop screen — what each one is, whether it can be fixed, and what a panel costs.
White screen⛶ Full screen
On whitedark spots, pressure marks, lines
On blackbright dots, backlight bleed, glow
On red, green, bluedead or stuck pixels, colour lines
Black spot on laptop screenA black spot that stays in the same place on every colour is physical: a cluster of dead pixels, a crack in the LCD layer, or pressure damage where the liquid crystal has been crushed.Not fixable — new panelWhite dots in laptop screenWhite dots that show on dark screens and vanish on white are almost always in the backlight, not the pixels: a tiny reflector dot inside the backlight has come unglued and is bouncing light straight at you.FixableVertical black line on laptop screenA one-pixel-wide vertical line that runs the full height of the screen is a failed column driver on the panel or a broken trace in the panel's flexible connector.Depends — see testWhite spot on Lenovo laptop screenOn Lenovo ThinkPad and IdeaPad screens this is a known pattern: a bright, soft-edged white spot that shows on dark backgrounds, most often near the lower half of the screen.FixableLaptop screen bleedingBacklight bleed is light leaking around the edges or corners of the screen, visible on a black screen in a dark room as brighter patches.Depends — see testPatches on laptop screenLight or dark patches — cloudy areas, often called mura or clouding — come from uneven pressure on the panel or the backlight diffuser: the lid was pressed or twisted, the laptop was carried under weight, or the panel warped from heat.Not fixable — new panelLaptop half screen whiteHalf the screen turning white (or grey, or a block of colour), usually with a sharp vertical or horizontal boundary, means half the panel is no longer getting image data: the panel's driver board has failed, or the display cable through the hinge has broken some of its lines.Depends — see testBlack pressure marks on laptop screenDark, sharply defined marks on a white screen — dots, smudges or short lines — are pressure marks: the liquid crystal has been squeezed at that point and no longer twists to let light through.Not fixable — new panelLines on laptop screenHorizontal lines, vertical lines, coloured stripes, or a flickering band each point somewhere different.Depends — see testLaptop screen flickeringFlicker has more software causes than hardware ones.FixableWhy is my laptop screen green?A green tint over the whole screen — or a screen that is entirely green — almost always means one colour channel is missing or one is stuck on, and that is a signal problem, not a panel defect: the display cable through the hinge has worked loose or a pin has failed, a graphics driver has misconfigured the colour output, or a colour filter (Night Light, a colour profile, a screen-reader filter) is on.FixableWhy is my laptop screen pink?A pink or magenta tint means the green channel has dropped out: white turns pink, greys turn purple.FixableWhy is my laptop screen blurry?Blur on a laptop screen is nearly always settings, not the panel: the display is running below its native resolution, the scaling is set to a value that forces interpolation (125% or 150% on a 1080p panel is common), ClearType or font smoothing is off, or an external monitor is set as the main display at a different resolution.FixableWhy is my laptop screen white?A screen that is fully white — the backlight is on but there is no image — means the panel is getting power but no picture data: the display cable is disconnected or broken, the panel's driver board has failed, or the graphics chip has stopped sending a signal.Depends — see testWhat causes black lines on laptop screen?Thin black lines on a laptop screen have three causes, and where the line is tells you which.Depends — see testHow to remove pressure marks from laptop screenThe honest answer first: pressure marks inside the LCD cannot be removed.Not fixable — new panel
Warranty: dead pixel policy by brand.
Not sure which one you have? Open the full-screen test, step through white, black and grey, and match what you see: a mark on every colour is in the panel; a mark only on light colours is a shadow on the backlight; a bright spot only on dark colours is a loose backlight reflector; lines that change when you tilt the lid are the cable.