That’s the highest Scoville rating I’ve seen on a USB stick

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I assumed display damage because every time I’ve seen these artifacts it’s been due to a damaged display matrix, but i agree that if it’s intermittent and isn’t some kind of unusual defect in the display, the ribbon coming partially loose sounds most likely, followed by cable damage (e.g., pinched by lid hinge).

Ribbons are usually pretty secure, especially from factory if tape hasn’t been removed before, but with enough heat (e.g. left in car outside) and jostling, the tape can loosen, and cable’s weight plus jostling can be enough for ribbon to pull itself out.

To quickly check without opening case i would try lifting the machine in two hands and driving it gently but firmly into your right palm (which would jostle the ribbon toward/into its terminal). If it’s loose, i would expect to see the display respond in some way after at most a few tries, if the ribbon cable is loose. If not, it’s still worth opening and re-seating ribbon to be sure, but jostling it a bit should immediately worsen or improve the visual artifacts, confirming the diagnosis.

No worries. In case this is your first display replacement, few quick tips…

1. Helps to skim video teardowns like this
2. Take photos of internals of electronics when you open them up so you can reference them later after reassembly.
3. Keep track of screws. Trick: unscrew but leave them loose in the holes of the case tray with pieces of tape over each of them. Then you can remove tray without concern.
4. Bare display edges are especially fragile and often have coatings that scratch easy. Trick: leave protective film on, just put a few pieces of folded tape on edges so you can pull off after install.
5. Your display connects to the mainboard with two connectors wrapped in gaphers tape the right side:
6. Display ribbon terminal (tall one far left) is more fragile than camera/lid sensors (wide one far right). Trick: use guitar pick or credit card to lift clamp right to left, never knife
7. Ribbon itself often has physical tabs or printed white/color blocks indicating seat depth. This makes it far easier to verify its secure before closing case.

Good luck!

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Oh, that sounds like a recent laptop, and ASUS laptops have high interoperability. I’m sure there are at least 3rd-party generics available.

Edit: like this for example https://ebay.com/itm/364157672993

But in seriousness, as a rule it’s not possible to unfuck a display matrix, only replace. The easiest temp solution is an external. The easiest long term solution, if the manufacturer is no longer selling the part, is saving alerts for parts-only listings of that laptop on sites like eBay.

Online? Looks like there are plenty of lines on there already.

Thanks, OP

Yeah other commenter was incorrect. They’re sold with only a basic collection of first-party apps (even the carrier locked devices, so far).

To get one with third-party apps pre-installed requires special provisioning meant for employee work phones. (If you come across one of these in the wild, ask the seller to reset in front of you. If the bloatware remains, odds are the device was recently stolen.)