A515-55 Any way to fix vertical lines on LCD other than putting pressure on the edge/ ribbon cable

A few weeks ago, my laptop had a few vertical lines and one horizontal line appear on the screen. The horizontal line is close to the bottom, and seems to be a roughly even mix of solid white pixels, pixels that should be there, and pixels copied from an earlier row. Because of how close to the bottom it is, it isn't a serious issue, but I'm mentioning it in case it's relevant. What is a serious issue is the vertical lines. When the issue started, there was only sometimes one or two colored vertical lines. While that was annoying, I could live with that. Now, about 1/16 of my display almost right in the middle is almost completely unusable. There are several groups of completely black bars and most of the rest of the area is colored vertical lines. (Interestingly, the colored vertical lines seem to alternate between a correctly-displayed pixel and a bad pixel. Not sure if this is relevant.) It seems to get worse every time I use the laptop. I suspect that eventually I'll just have a black bar there.

When I looked up fixes, I only really saw sketchy stuff like pressing on the edge of the display, pressing on the ribbon cable, and attempting to reflow the ribbon cable. When the issue started and there were only a few lines, pressing on the bottom edge of the display in the affected area got rid of either all of the lines and left only one or two, and they wouldn't reappear for about a week. Now pressing on the bottom only makes it worse, so I don't want to do that anymore. And my laptop screen is glued in, so removing the panel to get at the ribbon cable will almost certainly destroy it. Is there any other fix that I'm missing? I really do not want to buy another panel because they are expensive, and I'm not convinced that the new one won't fail in an unreasonably short amount of time just like this one did.

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]

Accepted answers

JackE

It's likely that the Intel CPU/GPU somehow overheated one too many times and eventually failed. completely It's soldered to the motherboard so is considered unreplaceable. Which mean that, unless it's still under warranty, you'd have to replace the mainboard. New replacement mainboards for this model are about $200-250usd excluding installation. You can still buy a brand new A515-55 for a bit more than $300usd. So it's probably not worth trying to repair. Sorry.

All comments

JackE

Might help if you could reveal your full model number. For example, E5-575G. Usually don't have to remove LCD to replace the video cable if it's the problem.

vwThaZNSBgbHLnJO

It's an A515-55-56VK. I really don't think it's the cable, but I guess it would have been worth a try if I didn't release the magic smoke by attempting to swap in a screen from a C771-C4TM. (Now I have no video on both the internal display and HDMI

vwThaZNSBgbHLnJO

And the laptop either bootloops or sits there doing nothing, without ever reaching the OS. (Sorry for 2 comments, for some reason the forum wouldn't let me put everything in one.) A non-Acer replacement laptop is on the way.

JackE

»»>Now I have no video on both the internal display and HDMI»»>

No HDMI screen? Not a good sign. Does the external screen come on if you press FN+F5?

vwThaZNSBgbHLnJO

I definitely should have tried that before, but Fn+F5

vwThaZNSBgbHLnJO

n+F5 does nothing. Neither does Super+P.

JackE

Does the Acer boot logo look OK on startup? Does the BIOS menu look OK when you tap F2 on startup?

vwThaZNSBgbHLnJO

There is no Acer boot logo on startup. Neither the internal display nor the display backlight turn on. External monitor receives no signal.

The BIOS menu might or might not be loading. There is significantly different behavior when I press F2 on startup. However, I cannot actually see it so I cannot 100% confirm it.

In case it helps, the significantly different behavior that I've noticed is:

After pressing F2, it seems to never bootloop. Without pressing F2, it sometimes bootloops. (Have not yet figured out if it's random or if some factors can cause it to reliably bootloop or not.)
USB ports always start working immediately after pressing F2. If I don't press F2, it can be anywhere from about 10 seconds to several minutes for the USB ports to start working, if they ever start at all. (I consider a USB port to be working if my external keyboard turns on the backlight when plugged in. It seems to do this if it is communicated with, but not if it is only connected to power.)
If I press Ctrl+Alt+Del on the internal keyboard after pressing F2, the system reboots. External keyboard does not seem to do it. If I do not press F2, Ctrl+Alt+Del reliably does nothing.
After pressing F2, if this is the first power up after the board had both AC and battery disconnected, Fn+F5 will cause an immediate reboot and a few bootloops. If this is not the first power up, or F2 is not pressed, Fn+F5 does nothing.

JackE

Do you see any life whatsoever from the lid screen or external HDMI screen (other than no signal) anymore?

vwThaZNSBgbHLnJO

Absolutely no life from the screens.

JackE

It's likely that the Intel CPU/GPU somehow overheated one too many times and eventually failed. completely It's soldered to the motherboard so is considered unreplaceable. Which mean that, unless it's still under warranty, you'd have to replace the mainboard. New replacement mainboards for this model are about $200-250usd excluding installation. You can still buy a brand new A515-55 for a bit more than $300usd. So it's probably not worth trying to repair. Sorry.

vwThaZNSBgbHLnJO

I didn't think it was possible for the iGPU to be dead but the CPU to still be good, as they are on the same die. But maybe that did somehow happen. I guess in the future I won't plug random LCDs into laptops. I just ordered a thinkpad.

JackE

I doubt overheating was from plugging in random LCDs. Usually happens due to poor air circulation between the intake & exhaust vents on the bottom . Might've been duet to a failing fan, dust clogged air ducts, dry thermal paste on the CPU/GPU heatsink, not positioned high enough above a hard surface to promote airflow, etc. Lot's of possibilities.

vwThaZNSBgbHLnJO

I'm pretty sure the damage was caused by my incompatible LCD. Magic smoke was released as soon as my motherboard got power with it connected, before I even turned the computer on. (Though the magic smoke was from the display panel connector area, not the CPU area.)

The fan was making horrible crunching and grinding noises before I did this so I think it was in the process of dying. However, it still seemed to blow air, there was very little dust, my computer almost always got used on a hard surface. And on the rare occasions when it was used on my lap, I went out of my way to not block the vents. Thermal paste may have been an issue, but checking that would require repasting, and I expect it to last more than 2 years. (Then again, I expected the LCD, keyboard, trackpad, fan, battery, and hinges to last more than 2 years too, and those are all broken.)

I have the CPU temperature in my status bar and have not had any issues with it. It's been in the mid 50s to low 60s the vast majority of the time. Sometimes mid 70s to low 80s while gaming, compiling, or otherwise doing intense stuff, but that doesn't happen super often. I've only seen it hit 90 a few times, and probably spent less than a minute there over its entire life. No thermal shutdowns ever. So I don't think it has ever overheated.