I am contemplating buying a Gateway 15" screen from a friend , it displays picture perfectly but the only thing is that the colors are inverted (black equals white and white equals black) i was wondering if this was perhaps an issue with some filter in front of the lcd that is flipped around the wrong way, i heard from somewhere that you could invert the picture of caculator lcd displays like that. im not sure

or is this an electrical issue with the moniter board. which cant easily be fixed? or maybe a connecter is pushed in upside down? im not sure, but i would hate to see it wasted if i can fix that issue and use it for my projecter. Thank you so much in advance!

Has it already been stripped?

no, from my knowledge i dont beleive it has been taken apart. but a previous owner could have taken it apart then rerragned something wrong. im not sure. but i find it odd that instead of the lcd just not working, it can perfectly invert its color to be negative. do you think maybe its actually his pc settings that are causign this and he only thinks the screen is jacked? it seems like something should be easy to fix. thanks!

That of course would be an easy thing to test: plug it into another computer. Also, can you tell if the colors of the on screen display are inverted? (See if you can find any pictures on the net or in the user's guide.) Does you friend have another monitor plugged in, or is he using the weird colored monitor for the time being?

Also, are the colors on the images displayed during bootup inverted? If they are, then I'm 99% sure it's either the LCD, the cable, or maybe something wrong with his video card.

One last thing: have you tried any "technical taps" (hitting)? Jiggle the handle wires, see if that helps.

if its not a cable or connection it could be the polarizer... When I stripped down my LCD, I also took off the polarizer on one side. I played around with it and when the polarizer is rotated 180 degrees so it has opposite polarization it causes the colors to become inverted. Not just black and white but all colors. Just thought this may help you figure out your problem.

this helps alot! thanks! perhaps someone did dissassmble it and put the polarizer on wrong, i thought thats what caused the colors to invert, i just wasnt sure, but you just made my day. thank you. This brings me to a next question, when you pull off a polarizer, how critical is it in placing it on like, do you have to line up the polarizer peferctly for every pixel column area or is it not touchy like that? also, is the polarizer connected to any ffc's or any electrical connetion that i should be aware of/


again thank you, now i know that if the polarizer is the problem, i can just rotate it 180 . (actually, from testing other lcd screens, like from caculators, i think its 90 degrees)

even if the polarizer is not the problem i can still rotate it 180 and then its fixed also. either way, that should get the colors right. Thanks!

I havn't put my polarizer back on or even cut a size big enough. From playing around with the old one and a small piece of the new one it seems that you do not have to be "exact" it seems like + or - 5 degrees shows the same brightness but do not take my word on this... On the other point, from my physics classes I think it is best to be exact. I probally can't notice a 10% difference in transmittance of light... Also I would doubt you need to line up the polarizer with the pixels since there are thousands of lines that cause polarization compared to about 1280 pixels across your panel. Oh and one last thing most monitors have 45 degree orientation of polarization such as my Samsung but my Dell is 90 degree orientation so if you cut a new polarizer be sure which way the polarization is oriented first.
edit. polarizer is not connected electrically to any thing its just glued to the panel