Screen flickers/turns black when placed at certain angle - Asus Q501LA-BSI5T19

Hello,

I've just received a manufacturer refurbished Asus Q501LA-BSI5T19 laptop that I ordered from Amazon. The laptop is excellent in almost every way, except for this issue I'm having with the display.

When it was starting up for the first time and configuring Windows 8.1, I noticed that the screen was flickering a lot, in the sense that the brightness/color hue seemed to jump from normal to very high back and forth frequently. I was worried about this, but once Windows was done configuring everything it needed to, the screen stopped flickering and everything seemed normal. However, I've noticed that moving the screen back and forth around the 90-degree position seems to produce the same flickering that I thought went away, and sometimes leaving the screen at just the right angle will cause it to flicker indefinitely, until it is moved backward or forward enough to make it stop.

I've been doing some research online and have found people talking about loose inverter cables, though I'm not well-versed in laptop hardware and therefore cannot be sure of the relevance of this possibility to my particular situation. What does the community think about this? Should I just send this into Amazon and request a replacement, or is this something that I can easily fix myself by wiggling an internal cable back into place or something along those lines? Please share any thoughts that you may have, and thanks for your help!

Happy holidays!

 

That's an easy one. Your laptop is so new it doesn't have inverter anymore

Problem is the LCD cable that also powers LCD backlight. One the wires is broken and connects/disconnects when you move the display. The cable itself is rather cheap but replacing it requires taking apart both display and base of the laptop. While I would replace it myself I cannot recommend it if you haven't done something like it before, especially if there is possibility to repair/replace the whole laptop.

 

If it's loose then moving it can cause issues too, fixing that requires some disassembly still though.

 

Thank you for your replies! I ended up sending the laptop back to Amazon for a full refund, with the intention of purchasing the same model (refurbished again) from a different seller. Hopefully the new laptop will not have the same issue (and hopefully will not have any other major issues, either). I normally stay away from refurbs, but the reviews were so positive that I decided to give it a go anyway. Hopefully the second time's the charm.

 

Hopefully the new one treats you well! Asus does generally produce well built laptops. It sounds like the cable was the issue in the unit you sent back.