flashing video card bios

So you're saying that the video card bios cannot cause video problems?

There's no point in doing it; the problems, whatever they are, are not BIOS related.

The only problem would be a failed flash of the BIOS, which would destroy the card such that it won't operate at all.

The BIOS either works or it doesn't, eh? Ok, thanks.

Yeah. Did that first. And pulled the video card out and reseated it. No joy. What it does is, lines or line segments or symbols will appear on all or parts of the screen every now and then, and, after a bit of that the screen will go blank. If I power the computer down it will usually fix it, at least for a while. I also tried connecting to an external monitor while it was doing it's trick, to see if it was the display, but that seems to trigger a reset of the video board as it changes to dual screen mode, and that clears up the problem too.

If the problem doesn't appear externally, the video card is fine. Try reseating the ribbon cable inside the system. If that doesn't fix it and the cable appears undamaged, the LCD panel is what needs repair or replacement.

The thing is, when I connect an external monitor, the problem clears up on both the external monitor and the laptop screen. The video card seems to go through a reset when it recognizes the external monitor, which frustrates the experiment.

I have also reset the ribbon cable, after which things are ok for a time, but, just powering down the computer does that by itself, so I don't know if reseating the cable has anything to do with it.

Thanks for the help.

--Bill