I have a 3 year old dell latitude d830 and everytime i turn it on the screen goes pink with a variety of thin colourful vertical lines through it. This is as far as it goes, i cannot get it to go to the regular start up screen or any other.
I know the battery is currently fried so i have to keep it plugged in for it to work, could that have anything to do with this? or is it another matter?
Thank you.

Maybe u should try remove the whole battery and then plug the charger directly, if your pc turns on with the same issue, then it's not the battery.

Try to plug your laptop to an external monitor. if the display is normal on the external display then your screen is bad.
Check to see that there is no other sign of abnormality, such as after-POST beep or the activity LEDs.
I hope it should be this.