Dell laptop problem

[llaxorc]

I hope someone out there can give me some guidance here with my
daughter's laptop. When i first looked at it, she just had a white
screen with very faint blue horizontal and vertical lines in it. I
started to unsnap the bezel surrounding the screen to see if i could
spot a loose connection somewhere, but before i finished, the screen
came up normally, so i snapped the bezel back in place and
everything was fine for a while, but now it is eventually fading out
to a white screen again. When I press the bottom of the bezel, the
screen comes up normally and all is well, but then the pointer stops
moving and the screen gradually fades to back to white. Sometimes
the upper half of the screen goes white, while the bottom half is
normal and pointer doesn't move. I unsnapped the screen bezel and looked at the connections i can see, but some are covered with tape and i am reluctant to peel the tape off if i don't have to, which is why i'm posting this to see what i may be dealing with before i delve deeper. When i replace the
bezel, everything on the screen is normal, but eventually fades to
white as described previously. I discovered my daughter had been
picking up the laptop to move it by grabbing the top of the screen
instead of from underneath, so my thinking is that she's loosened a
connection either in the screen or from the motherboard. I asked my
daughter if the laptop was still under warranty, but she said she thought she'd had it over a year and couldn't find the warranty papers which came with it, so I'm assuming the warranty has expired. Any advice or suggestions anyone out there can give me on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Her laptop is a Dell Inspiron N4010, Intel Pentium (R) P6 100 @ 2.00
GHz, 4.00 GB RAM, 64-bit operating system (Windows 7)

[jdc2000]

I'd say your assessment of the situation is accurate. The connection from the screen to the mainboard is flaky, likely due to the stress of being picked up by the screen. It may now be time to carefully remove the tape and examine the ribbon cable connection. There may be dirt of glue that needs to be cleaned off, or it may just need to be reseated.

[llaxorc]

Can the tape be reused once i take it off or do i need to replace it with new? If so, where can i get it?

[jdc2000]

I am not sure what sort of tape or adhesive type they are using on that system. I'd try to reuse it the adhesive is still sticky enough though.

[SpywareDr]

Dell Inspiron N4010 LCD Screen Replacement Guide – How To
http://augustapcrepair.wordpress.com...-guide-how-to/

[SuperSparks]

As far as the tape is concerned, I don't think they use anything particularly exotic. Ordinary electrician's tape should do if you need to replace the original. It's rated for the voltages and temps that are found in laptops.

[Train]

Usually I find the cloth based tape in laptops.

[atwspoon]

So most laptops use LCDs, which are liquid crystal displays. Those displays require a vacuum to work internally, and are a series of vertical matrices. Simply put, there is a seal on the edge of the screen that can fail, and will create a vertical striping situation. Twisting the screen temporarily creates a vacuum and it 'works'

The fix is to replace the LCD. If it is a dell - might see if you can buy a warranty plan on it - then call in to dell and they might replace it then.