Do digital camera sensors go weird if they're not used?

I know that my old hp m517 gives me squigily line in ALL the photos that i would take with it. It has been used weekly for the past 3 years.

Only when the user is broken; or at least that is true for me.

I don’t think that that happens just because of non-use, but I would take it into a camera store and have it looked at. Sounds like a mirror could be broken.

@TitsMcGhee there are no mirrors in P&S cameras which sounds like what he’s referring to.

@johanspun is that when you’re just looking at the LCD screen, or is it after you take a picture, and if you put the picture on your computer is it still messed up looking?

if all three are true then yes it could be that something has oddly gone wrong with your sensor, but personally i haven’t seen that happen .. really at all, and i mean even fairly recently i used my dad’s first digital camera (32mb smart media ftw lol), back from 2001 and i mean it’s.. just fine still

@XCNuse Yeah, all three are true. I did my only little brand of troubleshooting and it’s gotta be the sensor. Giving it some bright light seems to have improved it but I’m still getting distortion of both the geometry and colour.

@XCNuse: Ah, see when I hear Nikon of some sort, I’m assuming it’s an slr with w proper lens and whatnot.

@TitsMcGhee It’s not quite SLR but its a bit more fancy than your standard point and shoot. A fair chunk of money went into it, hence me going that extra mile to try make it work.

i mean that’s just strange, could it have been somewhere where it put up with extreme temperatures hot or cold?

I mean insane temps could possible do some damage, or at least wouldn’t surprise me if it did..

@XCNuse I think the worst it might have had was a garage in winter but I’m in England so I don’t think it would count as insane…

lol i have no idea then, maybe it did just “go bad” then haha