Screen Flicker

Screen flicker like a fluro light dieing, happens at various parts around the screen, the LCD is still displaying fine its just that the backlight acts as if its dieing in places.

On around 30-60% brightness this happens constantly on my ASUS laptop. It also happened to the tech's own computer of the same model, and he asked me if I've seen or heard of it myself on any other models so I thought I'd post here to ask. Does anyone else have this issue? It looks fine at 100% brightness but if you go much lower than that it can get quite bad, depending on the level.

Thanks,
TC

 

yes i have to same problem as well.. 80% seems to play up alot for me.. and at times u can see blue/green dots all over and sometimes hot pink dots... is there a way to fix this?
is it under warranty?

 

Oh well, I got a call today that they had a new screen ready for my Z96JS because my old one had a dead pixel. I thought maybe the new screen would not flicker, but its the same as the old one in that regard. Sucks.

Checking with the tech again now.

Cat

 

Heh, funny that you should say that.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=71420

I returned mine. I currently have a T2400, an Intel 3945 ABG WiFi card, 1 GB of Kingston 667MHz RAM, and a 100GB SATA 5400rpm HDD which are sitting here doing nothing.

I dunno who was the designer of that laptop barebones, but all I have to say after seeing people with problems and when I used it tolerating problem after problem is that it's utter crap. My old ASUS Z63A blows it away in quality, which is a sad thing, since this is supposed to be ASUS. I could've mistook this thing for a Quanta OEM or a Compal OEM that you'd find in some of those el-cheapo no-name laptops (ie: plain, square, cheap-looking). Maybe they made concessions when they designed the S96/Z96 series, but this is far from the ASUS quality I'm used to.

I mean, I was willing to tolerate the issue with the X1600, I was willing to tolerate the issue with the screwy LAN/BT not working with anything but ASUS drivers (hell, the light was off when the WiFi was really on! WTH), I was willing to tolerate the fact that the battery brick runs super-hot, but the flickering really pissed me off. I only noticed it when running on batteries for a while. Then it because a lot more glaringly obvious when I turned down the brightness to save batteries.

 

Thanks for the reply - I hadn't seen that thread, I tried to search through but I guess I missed it.

As those Dutch people in the thread mentioned, I got the screen replaced. Twice now, Once to a new screen (With 2 dead pixels+), then back to the first one (With 1 dead pixel), then to this new one (with 1 dead pixel - but it's just above the bottom left of the screen where the task bar icons are, so I don't notice it really at all. I figured I'd keep this one, and I was so hoping it wouldn't have the issue....oh well.

All had the issue - they replaced my mobo b4 with another one, because the other guy had the issue I'm 90% sure (he brought it in the same day as me). I wish I could ask if it fixed the issue. I'm thinking I'll leave it for a week and see if it'll get better. I'm very power concious and i have it set to turn off after 3 minutes of inactivity no matter what - I've turned that off now I'll leave it overnight on and most of tomorrow.

My old laptop was a barebones as well, an ECS G732 (stats in sig) that's run great for 3 years - true its loud, heavy and it boots 20 seconds faster then this one - but I didn't have any problems like this. I've heard such great things about ASUS support and even paid extra over the intel support on most of the components - sucks to have this stuff come up.

I'm pretty sure I could get a new one if I want to, this is only 16 days old now, but I've managed to get a screen with only 1 dead pixel and in a spot I don't much care about...I'm thinking not to tempt fate again and risk getting something worse.

Cat

 

I didn't even have a dead pixel. The flickering was going to drive me nuts. All reviews I've seen peg the battery life at roughly 2 hours at full brightness, but you can squeeze another hour out of it if you can lower it. Plus I never use an LCD at the full brightness anyway since it's really harsh on the eyes.

It's funny, since one of the ASUS guys even had that on his... I guess it's a bit late to correct that since they're already mass-produced... I'm hoping the Ensembles don't have that, since I plan on getting a V1J if the price is right.

 

I went back to the shop, and got a replacement unit. I've had it since Friday, and it still flickers. It's maybe 10% better at the mode that was worst on my previous unit but it may be worse on other settings. The serial # on it was older than what I had before, and the guy at the shop told me it'd never been used before but the heatsink looked used and it even had an imprint of the ATI GPU on the foil. The tech there told me I shouldn't put any sort of thermal grease on the heatsink or chip or GPU because it wouldn't help and might damage it (not what I've heard from anywhere else or where I bought it - I think he just didn't want to be bothered applying it or didn't have any there....).

Anyway, he kept trying to tell me if I wanted something perfect I should go for the high end Ensemble units - but I like the Z96Js, being able to upgrade it easily, the weight, distribution, noise, all these things are excellent. I like the unit - I just don't want the screen to flicker at the lower brightness settings.

The guy at ASUS Tech Support Line is much better for supporting it, but he only has the 1 Z96J which he says also has the flickering but not as much as my 2 units. That's why it would be very useful for anyone out there with a Z96J/S96J and 2 minutes of spare time if you could please dial down your brightness 9 notches, or all the way and then bring it up a couple and see if your LCD backlight flickers after a few seconds to a minute on this mode. If it is a problem with the entire line, or a certain set of LCDs (I've tried 4 so far) it would be easier for a BIOS fix or workaround or even a hardware fix to be done/created to solve the issue. You might not notice it now, but in the lifespan of the product it will probably bug you at least a few times and now's the best time to get support and a fix when it is still new and on the shelves.

Thanks a lot,
Cat

 

Darn, even the replacement unit does it badly. I found the worst mode for it is 2 of the big bars from off (2/5 brighness).

Am I the only one with the issue? I read somewhere that only FPS and other gamers can see the issue. I do not play FPS games, but it is pretty serious to me and I think others must be able to see it to. Now is the best time to get support for it, like Toshiba got in big trouble and had to sign a Settlement with people with flickering notebooks to replace/repair them until they didn't flicker. I really like my Z96J but I've tried 4 different monitors and 2 different laptops. I am not sure if it's just me or the entire line - please help

 

My monitor is a CMO1523.