Laptop display issues - Confirm my diagnosis?

[ohlin5]

Ok guys any help you could lend on this issue would be much appreciated.

My brother has a laptop that is about 1 1/2 years old. The display in it has recently been having some issues with an occasional "flickering" in and out.

We also connected laptop to external monitor w/ VGA, and couldn't replicate issue. This leads me to believe it's not software/driver related. The problem also seems to be getting worse as time goes on, and it seems to happen especially when the lid is closed. Additionally, slightly jarring the laptop seems to promote the issue as well.

Taking all this into account, it almost seems to me like the display cable connecting the display to the motherboard is either going bad, or has simply started working it's way loose, and I'm leaning towards the latter.

Any thoughts on this? From your experience would you guys say looking into the display cable is my best first step? Thanks again! -Dave

 

[OhSnapWord]

I've seen the cable in the lid go bad before. Does the flickering change or go away when you move the lid?

 

[Der-PC-Mann]

Sounds like checking out the cable is a good move.

 

[ohlin5]

The issue is very tempermental. I went home the other day and found that for the first time in a couple weeks the laptop was working perfectly. The next day, however, it was back to completely unusable. It also did seem to flicker more when the screen position was changed.

After talking with my brother I realized my laptop age estimate was completely. It turns out the laptop is only 7 months old, and so we've called HP and are having it sent in. Just hoping that the laptop has a "bad" day the day they take a look at it!

Thanks again!