Thick vertical line on laptop screen?

I have a Dell Latitude D510 laptop in front of me that shows a thick transparent dark line going down the screen. The line starts about 3" from the left side of the screen - and is 2" or so in thickness. It's not solid, but transparent and starts at the very top all the way to the bottom. The line shows immediately upon booting. Would this be a bad screen issue or a video card issue? The next idea I had was to reinstall the video, but have to locate drivers yet, but I'm thinking it's a screen problem that would need to be replaced to fix.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

It's a hardware problem not software. It could be a loose connection, or a bad video card. Is it still under warranty?

 

Plug in an external monitor and see if it has the same problem. If yes, then it's the screen. If no, it's the graphics card.

 

I don't believe it is under warranty any longer. It is my sister in laws, and she has had it about 3 years now. I can ask if she had any sort of extended warranty.

Thanks for the quick response TabbedOut and pixelot!

 

I have the exact same problem on a latitude D510 that I was given. It sounds like it is even in the same spot. In my case it was definitely a problem with the LCD screen. In fact if I lightly pinched the screen frame (bezel) it would change in intensity and if pinched in the right way would disappear all together. The cost of a new LCD was not much less than the cost of a used D510 so I placed a bulldog paper holder on to pinch the bezel in the right spot and gave the laptop to my daughter and I bough myself another. The screen is fine if you don't move the clip but that isn't really much of a solution for someone who wants a portable laptop with a good LCD.