[CS-FSLUG] LCD screens and Warranties

[Nathan T.]

Hi listfolks

I have an important question, I recently discovered a dead pixel on my
laptop's LCD screen and shortly thereafter I noticed there were also
two off-colour bright spots. The two bright spots and the dead pixel
actually seem to almost line up so the cause might have been related,
and they're all in the same general area on the screen. As far as I
can tell the laptop still has two days on warranty, so I have to get
it in tomorrow in order for it to be in under warranty.

I asked around as to what could cause a dead pixel so soon, I'm
amazingly unimpressed that I wound up with so much screen trouble, and
so close the the time the warranty expires too (it's gone in two
days). I would have gotten an extended warranty, except all Staples
had to offer when I bought the machine was their own instore warranty
which I knew from experience wasn't worth a fraction of the price (no
less of a scam than some really bad insurance policies imo). Anyway, I
was told that if I pushed the graphics card too hard (ie playing
games) it could cause dead pixels because the graphics adapter would
be overwhelmed and would put too much current through certain pixels,
I don't know what the credibility in that is, but if I know that
caused the problem it would at least help me to avoid this happening
again (assuming it's avoidable).

I'd like to know whether this is typical of Toshiba laptops, I'm angry
enough right now over this to promise never to buy another Toshiba
product again. I'm counting on this still being under warranty,
because if it isn't it's probably not going to be fixed. If the cost
of having the screen fixed is high enough and not covered under
warranty then I'm going to consider another laptop, in which case I'd
like suggestions based particularly on hardware quality, warranty, and
how long it takes for warranty work to get done. Around here I can buy
IBM/Lenovo, HP and Toshiba, but I've considered getting a Mac Mini, so
I might have a MacBook special ordered in instead as long as someone
can tell me that it'll run Windows fine without OS X if I decide I
don't like the later. If I get a Macbook I'd also like to know that if
it's running Windows it'll still to be able to handle some games,
nothing particularly special, just Rise of Nations and Age of Empires
II.

I'm also interested in suggestions on what might have/could cause
damage to an LCD display. I can't think of anything that might have
caused the damage, as far as physical damage goes I wasn't
particularly hard on it, I was careful to keep pressure off the
screen. But where software is concerned I did push it to run Rise of
Nations before I got the RAM upgrade (the video card is shared, it
used to have 256 MB), and worse yet I had it running Linux in VMWare
(because some of the hardware is poorly/not supported in Linux).

Please reply soon people, I have until the 30th to take it in for the
warranty work, and even then it might not be coverd any more. I also
need to know how important it is that I invest my next paycheck into a
new laptop fund before it all goes towards other things.

Thanks.

Nathan T.