screen flickering on XPS M1730 on battery power

I just received my XPS M1730 notebook when I am playing a dvd on battery power the screen flickers all the time that I can't watch the movie as soon as I plug it back in it is fine. I called Dell they are sending a battery out, has anyone had this problem?

 

Did you try changing the refresh rate on the laptop?

 

I can vaguely recall reading where someone had this problem using one movie viewer, but not a different one.

 

I had somewhat of a similar issue, I was on battery and my screen would just blank out, sometimes it would come back, most of the time is stayed black until I rebooted the comp. Idk

 

I was using media direct from dell I couldn't get windows media player working, so I will reinstall media direct. Dell is sending me another battery as the one that is in the system isn't sitting in tight so that could also be the problem.

 

I'm having the exact same issue when going through the Media Direct partition of the computer. When I play the DVD in XP, all is well. When I have the power adapter attached on the Media Direct side, it's fine. As soon as I remove the adapter, the screen flickers. Unless I minimize the window, then it's fine.

I even tried to disable SLI to see if that had something to do with it, but that didn't matter. And, FWIW, the most recent BIOS (A09) doesn't fix it.

Please keep this forum posted on any results. Thanks!

 

^^^^^^^^^

What's the battery setting on? Maybe try "Balanced" for a while or even "High Performance".

72oo

 

With that setting being controlled on the main OS side, would that have any effect on the Media Direct side of things?

I could see this having a result on the OS side, but I'm not so sure if it carries over to Media Direct.

It's worth a shot though. I'll give it a try and post my findings. Thanks!

--EDIT--
Changing the battery settings did not work. Bummer. Any other ideas? Maybe using a modified driver from laptopvideo2go.com? Also, just to clarify, I have the GeForce 8700M GT video card, driver version 6.14.11.5661.

 

Anyone have any other suggestions? If not, I'm 86ing that partition and changing the Media Direct button to boot Ubuntu.

 

This is not a battery issue.

Banctec replaced my motherboard, the 8700gpu and battery!
That did not solve DVD flickering when on battery.

Dell Tech Support agreed to replace my 1730.
But that is 14 bus days away.

My Banctec tech advised their local office has recently seen
several 1730s with this issue. And they cannot fix the issue!

 

Chip - its that crap 1 year old Dell driver. Go and download the 175.32 driver from NVIDIA and let us know if it corrects the issue. http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_notebook_175.32_whql.html

 

Nope, that didn't fix it either.

 

For those of you following this thread, please see the thread "XPS M1730 New Purchase" for current info on the issue.

 

Hi.

The problem is caused due to "Power Miser". Access NVIDIA control Panel and Go to the power miser settings. Turn it off. Now you can watch videos full screen without flickering. (Make sure you are in the Advanced Section of the NVIDIA Control Panel)

 

Currently have the same issue. 6 months old M1730. Turning power miser OFF does not solve the issue

 

Agent at technical service told me it was a "software" issue, caused by me not installing the notebook software driver as the first driver. She then asked in which order the drivers had been installed, which was correct for the remainder : chipset, GPU, ageia, and then the others.

She told me to reinstall mediadirect and O/S starting with the notebook software driver FIRST.

One less inspiring comment was that even though I install the drivers in the correct order, I might have to PAY to install the O/S with a DELL Rep on the phone so that the warranty be honoured.

This is bugging me because I have seen in this thread other people having their motherboard, GPU and battery replaced...

Will keep you posted of my reinstallation result (ongoing...)

 

Re-installation is now complete. Screen is still flickering, even in mediadirect mode (outside of o/s). By the way, in windows, it flickers only in full screen mode. Also, if a full screen mediadirect window is running, even reduced, the desktop flickers too. As soon as the window is closed, everything gets back to normal.

I guess I'll now have to convince DELL that it is a hardware issue rather than software...

Any cues would be very appreciated...

Thank you

 

Hi all

With the DELL rep, we have finally been able to isolate the problem. Using MSCONFIG, we found that the problem is not happening when the graphics driver is not loaded (under the services tab). Therefore, DELL determined the GPU was faulty and will be replaced under the warranty. The agent has been very very helpful and left a note for the installer to test the precise conditions (battery, full screen DVD) after the part is replaced to ensure everything else is fine.

Will keep you posted on the work done when I get my computer back.

 

****, bad GPU.
8700M GT or 8800M GTX?

 

I have the 8700M GT SLI. Actually, she thinks that the GPU is faulty. To me, it could as well be the motherboard. Let's just hope they test the system thoroughly before sending it back to me...

 

Hi

Got my computer back earlier this week. This is the result: DELL replaced my GPU and Hard disk. They reinstalled the wrong OS (Vista instead of XP Pro). Under Vista, screen was not flickering, but DVD was choppy. Reinstalled XP and guess what? Screen flickers... I had told tech to add specific testing conditions, which were obviously not taken care of

I've been talking with tech support again in regards with the same issue and they have told me to disable the "Nvidia Display Driver Service" from msconfig so that the problem does not occur. It actually works fine with those settings, except that msconfig is for "temporary" startup. I ended up downloading starter from codestuff.mirrorz.com and it seems to disable it completely.

It is hard for me to believe that nvsvc.exe is installed at the same time as the video drivers are; it is configured to lauch automatically at every startup and yet, it would supposedly be useless.

Anyhow, I tested 3dmark06 with and without it loading and came out with similar results, 8134 with it and 8128 without it (my system :T8300 Core 2 [email protected], 2 gb ram, 8700M GT SLI). Also, the configuration utility remains accessible, as well as the little icon next to the clock in lower-right corner.

Would anybody know if this service has any use at all ? The exact filename is nvsvc.exe

Thank you

Also, I found under another thread, XPS M1730 owners - problems with machine running on battery, that this problem is caused by a built-in battery protection to prevent high performance and high drain. It would not be user customizable.

 

Interesting. I've a Toshiba Satellite P200 that flickers ONLY when running on Battery power. A couple times, the screen went blank and went into hibernation. But usually, it will flicker or shake a bit.
Any ideas as to what is happening? Should I expect a sudden burst of flames coming out of this laptop?

 

I have an xps m1730 - and here is the fix I got from Dell that took away the flicker when on battery power

for vista - http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_x86_notebook_175.32_whql.html

for xp - http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_notebook_175.32_whql.html

These are the models the fix is suppose to work for:
* Alienware Area-51 m9750 (GeForce 8700M SLI)
* Alienware Area-51 m9750 (GeForce Go 7950GTX SLI)
* Dell XPS M1730 (GeForce 8800M GTX SLI)
* Dell XPS M1730 (GeForce 8800M GTS SLI)
* Dell XPS M1730 (GeForce 8700M GT SLI)
* Dell XPS M1710 (GeForce Go 7900 GTX)
* Dell XPS M1710 (GeForce Go 7950 GTX)
* Dell XPS M1710 (GeForce Go 7900 GS)

 

DaveM, this suggestion (fix) will be ok for someone that uses that particular driver. I have no video card in this laptop (Toshiba P200) so this will not apply to me.

We narrowed my particular problem down to software, which could be a driver of sorts, so I reformatted my drive and the problem somehow did a disappearing act. Thus at this point, no more problems.

Thanks for coming in on this though. Much appreciated.

 

I never was able to reproduce this problem on the 8800m GTX config (m1730) using any driver. As far as I know, this was an issue with the 8700 GPU. Another reason to have them upgrade you. If the issue is still present, insist on an upgrade. As for using the 175.32 driver to resolve it, hmmmm. If it works then great - but I would be highly pissed to be stuck with that old driver.

You may want to give the current NVIDIA notebook release driver a try:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_drivers.html

 

Yes Batboy, but what has this to do with a hard drive spinning up so fast, that it flipped right out through the side of the desktop?