HP Pavilion dv5: Screen issue
 

A relative of mine is having issues with her HP Pavilion dv5- basically, the screen is messed up, showing signs of banding and I think ghosting...

Here's what I know:

• It apparently started occurring when the graphics card drivers were updated (a few days ago).
• The GPU in question is a GeForce 9600M GT. I believe it was updated from 258.96, but I am not sure. Updated to 285.62 (clean installed twice).
• The laptop is about 2 years old.
• The battery is dead, so it's constantly plugged in.
• As shown in one of the pictures above, it can get quite hot. The laptop is plugged into a notebook cooler. It hasn't been placed on any soft surfaces. Temps can vary between about 45 - 83 degrees Celsius (113 - 181 degrees Fahrenheit) depending on component.
• The screen issue happens occasionally. Appears and goes away at random.
• Testing it with an external monitor: the monitor shows none of the banding issues shown in the first two pictures.

I'm mainly concerned that the laptop has sustained heat damage before the owner started using a notebook cooler, and I do believe that the laptop fan(s) have taken in a significant amount of dust, but I don't have the time to open it up yet. I'm not sure which component is causing this. Essentially, I believe it's either the motherboard, the graphics card, or the screen itself (or the connections in between these components). Could I please get some help with this?

Since I did a clean install of the drivers twice, it deleted the old version of the drivers (so I can't use the "Roll Back Driver" function in the Device Manager). I cannot use System Restore at this stage, as the drive requires a Disk Check (which should be running as we speak).
I've manually uninstalled the current drivers (285.62) and reinstalled an older version stored on the hard drive (258.96). It's still showing the issue though.

The real issue is with the display hardware; presumably there's a loose connector somewhere between the video adapter and the LCD panel, which may explain for the banding. Or a possible frayed-out video wire.

As most repair shops tend to charge much for a laptop fix, the solution (at least for diagnostics) is to get an official HP servicing manual (you can Google for them; they're mostly in PDF format), prepare the appropriate tools and take the laptop apart (did just that with an older Compaq and a more recent Acer, both with heat problems but resolved successfully) until you check if the connector in question is the culprit.