What is this Vertical bar of Inverted Colours on my Screen?

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MacBook Air 13" Mid 2012

1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache

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John Peden @johnpeden7179

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Posted: Jan 22, 2019

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What is this Vertical bar of Inverted Colours on my Screen?

I was cleaning my Macbook Air at the weekend and think I might have damaged the screen. A vertical bar of inverted colours appeared on the left-hand side (the right was fine initially) but then both sides of the screen displayed as shown in the image.

After about an hour of doing nothing, the bar on the left-hand side returned to normal but the right-hand side bar has been there since.

I’ve tried:

Pressing around the screen (does nothing)
Cleaning it again (gently and with no cleaning fluid)
Connecting it to an external monitor (output is fine which suggests the GPU is fine)

Any ideas what has happened? It’s a 6-year-old machine but I’ve never had any issues with it until the weekend.

Does the screen need to be replaced?

Answered! View the answer I have this problem too

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arbaman @arbaman

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Posted: Jan 22, 2019

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I hope no water/cleaning detergent dripped into the frame as under there on the bottom side you got the full array of screen panel components and if that’s the case, screen might be fried. Try reseating the connector after unplugging the battery just not to let that untried.

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1 Comment:

Afraid so...just strange that it broke on one side and then reversed later on.

Jan 22, 2019 by John Peden

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Afraid so...just strange that it broke on one side and then reversed later on. — John Peden

Dan @danj Rep: 479.4k Self employed contract worker 35 329 971 · Answer 1 · 2019-01-22T06:54:52-07:00

Dan @danj

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I suspect you used a spray cleaner on your screen and the liquid dripped under the bezel wetting the LVDS connector. Now you have a resistive short as the cleaner has dried but left a film of corrosion across the connection.

At this point you’ll need to try to clean the connections. To even get to the connector you’ll need to take the display fully off following this guide MacBook Air 13" Mid 2012 Display Assembly Replacement with the display off slide the clutch cover off to expose the bottom of the display. Locate the LVDS cable connector carefully remove the cable so you can clean the connector.