When I turn on my laptop, the screen has either has semi-transparent vertical, colored stripes OR the whole screen is semi-transparent light gray. I can see my desktop through either. It gradually starts to clear and then after 3-4 minutes, it looks almost normal. I say almost because I can see very faint lines if I look closely. I am using the only available VGA driver. I checked that with both Acer and Intel. (Iris + graphics.) I have connected my laptop to an external monitor so I can watch both screens during power up. The external monitor is fine. The laptop display is not.
The other thing I notice since this started is that the fonts on my desktop icons have missing pixels making them almost impossible to read. I don't know if that is part of the same problem or a different one because I still can't read the icons even after the screen stripes go away.
I took it to a local computer tech who thinks the most likely problem (without taking it apart/charging a diagnostic fee) is the graphics card. He said that it cannot be replaced separate from the mother board which will be very expensive. He said there was a slim possibility that it is the cable. He tentatively ruled that out because of the disappearing stripes after warmup. I searched for a motherboard and found one on eBay for $750 and it was only an i5 and I have an i7 which theoretically would cost more. Add labor to that and I'm not sure it's worth it.
Has anyone else encountered this problem?
