LCD Backlight flicker

Started noticing that my LCD started flickering a few minutes ago, anyone know if there's something wrong with the display? The flicker appears everywhere, specially noticeable when having a bright background, but is also visible on dark background.

I've first noticed it in WinXP so I turned off the turned off the computer for a few minutes and booted it back up. Saw the flicker on the BIOS screen and choose to boot into Vista, and it is happening here too.

Bought the laptop about 2 months ago and this is the first time I've seen the problem. I got the laptop with 2 year warranty.

Also this is not the best time for the screen to fail as I do all my school work on the laptop, I do some programming on the laptop using Visual C++ (all for school) and I wont install it on my desktop because it screwed it up the computer forcing a reformat.

How long would this take to fix at ASUS? Even a couple of days without my laptop will get me major problems with school.

The laptop in question is a A6JC (Q003H);
specs:
Core Duo T2300
GeForce Go 7300 TurboCache
512 MB Nanya DDR2-533 (original) + 512 MB Kingston ValueR DDR2-533
80 GB HDD

I have gotten a few bluescreens while doing somewhat GFX intensive stuff, did a test with memtest and got 0 errors after a few hours of testing.
I have read that incompatible modules can cause these kinds of errors, I haven't tried with 1 module yet, due to bluescreens are so rare and 512MB isn't enough for my work.


Please help me!

 

Hmm, my A6km used to flicker slightally undercertain conditions (screen brightness and white backgrounds).

Not sure about the errors, try with one RAM stick, but I'd have to wait for someone with a similar experience to comment.


Insane

 

Got my V1J a few days ago. No problems before yesterday, when I added another 1gb stick. Oh and I had not once loaded anything heavy on the laptop before today, when the flickering started.

Yesterday I noticed that when I set the screen brightness to minimum, the left side of the screen gets noticeably darker than the other. I think this did not happen the first day I was trying this out. Not sure if occurred before or after adding the mem stick, didn't seem relevant at the time.

(edit)
An hour ago I switched to max screen brightness, had really only used 50%-80% brightness for the first days. A visible flickering occurs now every time I set it to max, in random intervals. It disappears when I dim it a step.

Any thoughts, ideas...?

 

Hmm, I guess I named my post badly - should have called it Backlight Flicker Instead of Screen Flicker.

Memorize what brightness level flickers for you.

Then try 2 things and let me know if they help you. They helped me.

1. Turn off ATI PowerPlay then shut down and start back up again

If it still happens (after changing brightness levels it will happen for a minute or 2 but if it still persists then try this) - cycle through the brightness settings. Set your screen to lowest brightness and reboot. Then to max brightness and reboot. Then set it to 1 click less than max brightness and reboot. Leave it on each of these settings for 5 minutes before rebooting again.

All I ask is you please reply here if it helps or doesn't help at all.

Thnx,
Cat

P.S. One side being brighter than the other on minimum is normal and there are a couple of posts on this, it just depends on where the backlight is.

 

Hi Cat,

Thanks for your input. I did a search and expressed my panic in the first suitable thread. I'll do some more reading about it tonight, since i'm apparently not alone!

About your advice: i've just changed to Omega drivers since i was unable to install Catalyst 6.9 due to some INF error which halted the install every time. Point being, i didn't find PowerPlay Flicker persists. I'll try the cycle trick...

 

Omega drivers are highly modded ATI ones. They should have PowerPlay (atleast the version I was using on my M9 a few months ago did and I'm pretty sure it was there as well my Z96JS).

Go to Catalyst Control Center and go to Powerplay from there (in Advanced View). The version of Omega that I had did install CC and it worked fine except for the flickering. I saw no performance or power gain so I switched back to the stock drivers when I got my new unit afer my old one was RMAed.

Cat

P.S. You're not alone - don't worry. I don't know why though, but this is by far the most ignored thing I've ever seen on the forums. People see the post and just don't read it or respond to it and I have no idea why. Perhaps they are worried if they looked they'd notice something, I don't know. I thank everyone who did reply but there have been very, very few and none at all on any other forum I posted to. Every other issue gets attention, this one though....I just don't know....

 

Hmmm... It might be that the screen has to 'work itself in'? Have you seen the flicker end after some time? On any laptop? Sounds like a possibility. And certainly doesn't feel like a software problem, thinks i.

But i'll check the powerplay, and the other trick/method, and get back. It's unfortunately a bit hard to test since the problem seems to come and go with no logic.

About the ignorance, another subject that one would think many were interested in is S/PDIF (digital sound out). Yet it's just not there, nor are there tutorials/articles on the subject (or i've just missed them and fumbled the search).

 

Ya, true it definitely is annoying and doesn't have any underlying logic to it that I've seen.

Any luck with the tests?

Thnx,
Cat

 

I've been getting similar symptoms on my almost three week-old very similarly-configured F3Jc. The screen does flicker once in a blue moon but that doesn't bother me. What bothers is that the day before yesterday the machine just locked up instantaneously, twice. Yesterday, while copying a ~300MB .avi to a SD card and started watching it at the same time, gave me a genuine BSOD and the machine restarted shortly afterwards.
In both cases, there was considerable multitasking and memory usage. The used DDR2 is original 512MB Nanya DDR2-667 and a Hynix-branded 512MB DDR2-533 stick.
Personally I suspect poor compatiblity, although it had been working perfectly fine until just now. Any ideas? I have considered selling both modules and getting a single 1GB DDR2-667 stick.

 

I have a Corsair 667mhz 1 GB stick and I've had that happen 5 or 6 times, with the system just locking for about 5-15 seconds. It always comes back and I don't get error messages, but I almost got dropped from a multiplayer online game (AOK:TC) the other day because of it.

I've never gotten a BSOD though. The lockups occured though at least twice while I was copying .avi files to my SD card (120 mb reduced so I can fit more and play smoother on rx1950 PDA).

Cat