Problem with horizontal lines across screen on boot

Paul Black · 11 Feb 2021

Hello @SaggyMaggyPoo [ great name BTW ],

One thing that might be worth doing, more as a safeguard for you in the future, is to create a System Image, therefore making it easy to return to a previous state in next to no time. If you require ANY additional information on this, then please let us know and we will provide the relevant information.

I hope this helps.

SaggyMaggyPoo · 11 Feb 2021

Paul Black said:

Hello @SaggyMaggyPoo [ great name BTW ],

One thing that might be worth doing, more as a safeguard for you in the future, is to create a System Image, therefore making it easy to return to a previous state in next to no time. If you require ANY additional information on this, then please let us know and we will provide the relevant information.

I hope this helps.

Thank you. We did do regular System Images, but not quite so often these days as we store all documents, videos etc. on separate external hard drives, so if the laptop crashes, we don't lose much except the programs, which can be reinstalled. I'm okay with maintenance like this, but thoughts of dismantling the laptop or baking a GPU are way out of my comfort zone

Try3 · 11 Feb 2021

SaggyMaggyPoo said:

We did do regular System Images, but not quite so often these days as we store all documents, videos etc. on separate external hard drives, so if the laptop crashes, we don't lose much except the programs, which can be reinstalled.

And I hope you do some sort of backup to protect your external drive data so you are prepared for the day they go defective [which they will].

Denis

SaggyMaggyPoo · 12 Feb 2021

Try3 said:

And I hope you do some sort of backup to protect your external drive data so you are prepared for the day they go defective [which they will].

Denis

Yes we do, thanks. It sometimes feels like we are drowning in backups, and backups of backups, but better that than losing something you can't replace

Mal Capone · 04 Apr 2021

SaggyMaggyPoo said:

For a short while now there have been multicoloured lines, though mostly pink, appearing across the top half of the screen when booting up.

They are quite random:

Sometimes there is a narrow band of lines, sometimes a wider band.
Sometimes it's just one quick flash of lines, another time they appear several times, another time not at all.

The lines only stay onscreen for a second or two, and always disappear before the login screen appears.

I'm looking for advice - as simple to follow as possible please - on how to check this out further.

Thanks

I have a Toshiba laptop (W7) with AMD integrated graphics and it has been doing the same thing or a few years on and off. Pink and sometimes green horizontal lines propagating from the bottom of the screen and sometimes across the whole screen.

From careful observation I have determined that it is related cold hardware (GPU or display) as it only happens on cold startup and goes away once warm. It will not happen on a restart but will if the display is set to turn off for a length of time. It is worse in winter.

I have eliminated the problem by having no background image and leaving the computer/display running 24/7. With no activity the computer is like it's asleep anyway.

I hope this helps.