Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37GN Coloured text on menus etc.(Solved)

[DBO]

Hi I have just installed Linux Mint 18 64 bit with Mate desktop on an old Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37GN laptop but it has a strange issue with the text in menus and labels on desktop showing in various colors, some letters will be red, others yellow, blue, the occasional one in grey and some seem to be white on a white background. It makes it difficult to read, although if you mouse over to highlight them they show as the normal black color.
Libre office menus are affected, but text typed into a document is OK.

I think this is the relevant graphics information.

*-pci
description: Host bridge
product: Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 100
bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
configuration: driver=agpgart-intel
resources: irq:0
*-display:0
description: VGA compatible controller
product: Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
resources: irq:16 memory:fc200000-fc27ffff ioport:1800(size=8) memory:d0000000-dfffffff memory:fc300000-fc33ffff
*-display:1 UNCLAIMED
description: Display controller
product: Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 2.1
bus info: pci@0000:00:02.1
version: 03
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: memory:fc280000-fc2fffff

Hopefully the screen shot will show the issue.
Hopefully someone will have an answer.

Screenshot at 2017-08-27 19-38-54-s.png

[catweazel]

It's difficult to see the image but it looks like the cable that feeds the screen might be on the blink. Have you tried tapping the screen? Perhaps you might try plugging an external monitor in.

[DBO]

I have connected an external monitor and it looks the same.
I don't recall seeing the effect on Windows Vista.
May have to try a few different distros to see if there are others that like this hardware.
I chose Mint after a year or two of trying to get used to Ubuntu's Unity desktop, and couldn't so run Mint 18 or LMDE 2 on my computers without and major hitches. It will be a few days before I have time to distro hop so if you have any ideas.......
Thanks Dave

[catweazel]

The idea is that it looks like a hardware issue.

[DBO]

I got that, But as it did not show on Windows Vista and does not show on an external monitor and now that I have found the LMDE2 flash drive, have found it does not show on that I guess it is safe to assume that it is not a hardware issue OK?

Thanks anyway.

[DBO]

Fixed by installing LMDE2 instead.