What causes colored vertical lines on laptop monitor?

Question

We have a Toshiba Satellite is this a common problem for this laptop?

Answer 1

The video card is going bad or the LCD screen

Toshiba Satellite's are c**p laptops.

Answer 2

the vertical lines could be a probem with the screen refresh rate. If tha is the case, in vista, right click on the screen and select personalize then Display Settings and click advanced, then next to the adapter tab, there should be a monitor tab, go to it and look at the screen refresh rate, make sure that the check box Hide Modes the Monitor Cannot Display is checked. Then check to see what its refresh rate is, and change it if it is an option. Hopefully that'll fix the problem.

And XP instructions are almost the same, except you just have to right click and select Properties and go to the Settings tab. similar process from there.