Video card problem
 

Hey everyone,

I'm hoping someone could tell me if I need a new video card?

Half my screen works perfectly fine, but the other half is white and blurred.
I remember accidentally dropping my laptop awhile back, which was around the same time this problem started happening.

So to the computer savy revsceners...is this a sign I need a new video card?

Or if that was the case would my entire screen be black?

I'm hoping my video card is just slightly loose or something and needs to be put back into place properly.

Which brings me to my next question...where the fcuk do I find the video card on a sony vaio VGN-NR430D model?

I have the backside of my laptop all exposed now...but still clueless.
Do I have to go through a few layers to find it? I should also point out that there's no way of opening the front side/Keyboard part of this laptop.

I had a similar problem years ago, but had a comp tower at the time...and putting the video card back into it's place was eaaasy.

Anyways, any nsight is greatly appreciated...even if you could fwd me a link to a good site to help me through this, that would be great.

THANKS!

sounds like u have a LCD problem more than a video card problem.

First of all, video in a laptop is different from a desktop. A video card in a desktop is very easy as you said, just a card which you put into a slot. Almost all laptops video chips are integrated into the motherboard and to change it would require you to desolder the chip and put a new one, which requires a lot of work and it's expensive. I am very sure your laptop falls into that category, someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Second, as TOPEC said, there is a chance that it's your monitor. Changing the monitor is a bit easier than changing the video chip but you will have to find another monitor of the same model, which could be expensive. There are some stores which specialize in selling used laptop monitors, you can try your luck.

Here are the things I would do:
1)It seems your laptop has a vga port, you can try connecting it to a monitor and see if it has the problem too. If it doesn't, try to back up your files and stuff into an external drive or something. If you can't, you can still buy a case for your hard drive and use it as an external hard drive and you should still be able to access your files.

2)Find out if your laptop still under warranty, either store warranty (if you bought any) or from Sony.

3)You can try to send it to Sony or another shop to diagnose the problem and find out how much it would cost to fix it, but I got a feeling it will be better/cheaper to buy another laptop.

Anyways good luck

It's a monitor issue.

Get a replacement online off eBay.