Screen failure diagnosis

I've got an old laptop that occasionally shows black vertical bars on the LCD at bootup and then the LCD shows random patterns around its periphery while the center fades to white after a minute. Turning the laptop off for a few minutes and restarting has resulted in the LCD working every time so far.

I'm assuming this is a warning sign of impending GPU failure?

 

Sounds like GPU to me. Test the system by hooking it up to an external monitor. If it shows on the external monitor, it's GPU. If it's not on the external monitor, it's the LCD itself.

 

You should check the cable on the back of the LCD. If the lcd ribbon cable is loose, these problems you mentioned can occur.

To fix this, you need to shut the system off, flip the system over, and remove the battery.
Than proceed to taking it apart. It is important that the power sources are removed, so that you do not get shocked, or accidentally turn it on.
You will see small round rubber dots along the perimeter of your lcd lid.
You need to remove them, than once they are removed, you need to use a small flat head screwdriver to remove the screws which are located underneath the small rubber pieces. When removed, the screen should come apart into two pieces. You may need to use a small flat head screwdriver to help separate the two halves of the screen.
Than when you get the lid apart, you will need to remove the screws which hold the screen in.
Your goal is to get to the back of the LCD.
You will have to remove about 6 screws to get to the back of the LCD.
Than when you get to the back, you will see a gray cable, which plugs into the top of teh screen. Their should also be small yellw strips of tape holding teh cable in place.
Remove the cable from the port on the back of the LCD, than you need to clean the conenctions.
Use some rubbing alcohol on the end of a q-tip to clean both the male and female parts of the connection. Than when the connections are dry, reconnect them.
When you are sure that the cable is connected properly, use some electrical tape to tape the cable in place (use tape to connect the cable physically to the lcd)
Than put everything back together and see what happens.

Hopefully this fixes your problems.
If the problems continue, than you will need to replace your graphics card.
If the graphics card is integrated, than you will have to replace the entire motherboard, which is a pretty big ordeal.
You may want to get a new laptop if you have to replace the gpu or motherboard, cause they can be very expensive depending on the model of the system.

Good luck,

K-TRON