Macbook air lines on screen

i have a macbook air Rev A with a faulty HDD, i was thinking of replacing it with a SSD but the day before yesterday i turned on, and there were some black horizontal lines on the screen about 1 inch long, causing distortion on any thing they passed through, this is on a strip about 1 inch from the edge down the right hand side of the screen. Today i turned on they have gone again, am i right in thinking that either the screen or graphics card are on the way out, as if this is the case replacing the HDD would be a waste of money. Any advice would be gratefully appreciated.

It does seem a bit iffy - if possible whip it into your nearest genius bar - they have an assortment of testing gear that should root out the problem.

As ian_c suggests take it to a Genius Bar if possible, for diagnostics. This will be free. However, repairs on a MBA will not.

It may be irrelevant, but Apple did release an EFI patch addressing screen problems on Airs. If you haven't installed it it may be worth a try.

http://9to5mac.com/2010/12/08/apple-patch-repairs-ma...

This is my second piece of aging apple hardware to start showing strange effects, also have an ipad 1 that is almost dead, so now it might be economical to take the seacat to southampton to the local apple store, thanks everyone for your input, the air is now 5 years old and was a refurb, so will see what happens, today again the screen is fine, although day and time seems to be flickering from time to time.

Getting 5 years out of a refurb is moderately impressive. I would double check the EFI patch has been applied (it would normally have been done with routine software updates, but worth a check).

I must admit I'd forgotten those early MBAs has spinny discs!