Colour banding on IE7 "cannot display the webpage" page

I am asking if anyone else has noticed colour banding on the IE7 "cannot
display the webpage" page to figure out if this means something is wrong with
my new laptop.

The page IE7 shows for "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" has a
very faint colour gradient - so faint I have never noticed it before!

But on my new laptop, I noticed it straight away. When looking straight at
the screen I can see irregular light and dark bands. When viewed from
slightly below centre, the bands become shaded blue and purple with lighter
and darker bands and lines plus one 5 pixel yellowish line just below the
"More information" link.

On my desktop machine, I can just about see faint colour variations if I
look at the screen from below at a steep angle. With the same screen attached
to the laptop the bands are maybe a bit more noticeable than on the desktop,
but nothing like the laptop's own screen.

If you move the IE window up and down, the bands move with it, so it's not
bad lines on the LCD. Somehow the tiny variations in RGB are causing sharp
changes in the LCD. eg. From a screen grab RGB(247,248,250) is grey but
RGB(247,249,248) is noticeably lighter and yellowish.

 

Assuming you're running Online Armor firewall, see this related discussion
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=33918

 

Thanks for the pointer, but this is not a related problem. I am not using
that firewall. The gradient/banding is part of the background of the IE7
"cannot display the webpage" and stretches right across the bottom two-thirds
of the screen when IE is maximised.

 

Dunno then, but on the surface it sounds like a Display (e.g., graphics
driver) issue to me.

What's your Windows version (e.g., WinXP SP3; Vista SP1)?

What anti-virus application or security suite is installed? What
anti-spyware applications (other than Defender)? What third-party firewall
(if any)?

 

Graphics drivers have already been updated. I thought it must be a hardware
problem. And Dell have agreed to replace the laptop, so problem solved,
hopefully...

For anyone else who comes to read this with a similar problem...

It's Vista SP1, with McAfee. Since I posted, I did a screen grab of the IE7
"cannot display the webpage" page on my desktop computer, where the
background gradient is barely visible. When I look at this bitmap in Paint on
the laptop I see the same banding. This plus various other tests lead me to
believe that the problem is in the connection between the graphic card and
the LCD.

 

Did you install Vista SP1 via Windows Update or manually?

Were all components of "McAfee" running in the background when you installed
SP1?

 

The laptop was delivered with Vista HP 32Bit SP1 pre-installed. Video drivers
were updated according to Dell's instructions. I am now pretty sure it's a
hardware problem. I think Dell are too because they are going to replace the
laptop. So I don't need to troubleshoot any more. Thanks for your help.

 

YW, Martin. Please let us know if the behavior persists on your new laptop.