Vertical Lines, not PRAM, bad LB or GC ???

[weegirl23]

So I just got this 2.16 white MB. Originally when you started it up, there were the colored vertical lines on the screen and it didn't recognize a HD. I assumed that all I needed was a new HD, fresh install of Leopard, and to reset the PRAM. The install of a new HD went well but I can't get the lines to go away! I reset the PRAM and changed the display settings. I did a hardware test and it came out clean. Here is a shot of the lines



As you can see, this isn't the typical vertical line at start up problem. Is this a faulty graphics card, logic board beginning to fail, or something simple like a cable that may be going out or not connected properly? I've never seen this so please help!!

 

[eman]

Have you hooked the macbook to an external monitor to help exclude the graphic card? Have you dropped the macbook? It looks like a damaged LCD to me. I think the hardware test is pretty lame IMHO.

 

[weegirl23]

I really don't know if its been dropped or not. I got it off CL with the intent to fix what I thought was a minor repair. The previous owner said he had it for about a year and it never gave him any problems until one day he opened up the screen and it wasn't working. I'm picking up a monitor tomorrow from a friend to try hooking it up that way. If it works fine on the monitor then we've ruled out the graphic card and logic board right? Hoping that is the case, what would be wrong with the screen? The housing and screen look like they are in perfect physical condition. No dents or scrapes, and on the part of the screen that works, there are not dead pixels or imperfections. I've been doing some more advanced apple notebook repair as of recent, but I haven't taken the plunge into screen repair.

 

[weegirl23]

Update:
And its good news!
I bought the mini-dvi to vga adapter today and the display is flawless on the external!
So now here's the question...
Since we know its not the graphics card going out,
What part of the display is broken? If it were the back light I wouldn't see anything right? What exactly does an inverter do? And, what other cables are part of the display?
Thanks!