Gateway 7805u screen problem: horizontal lines

Hello,
I received the refurbed laptop a few days ago from Tiger Direct and have been having progressively more distressing problems with the screen. On the first day, I noticed small "flickers" on the screen. They looked almost like sparks moving across the screen.

In the days since the problem has become more and more common. I noticed that these "sparks" are tiny horizontal lines that usually move in a pattern from the bottom of the screen to the top (kind of like a less serious version of this, but I worry it make progress to it http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=334705 ). Today these horizontal lines caused two crashes requiring a hard reset, but upon rebooting the computer, it worked perfectly fine.

My question is what is causing this? My temps are consistently below 50. I have tried installing different nvidia drivers to no avail and am beginning to wonder if this is a hardware related issue?
If anyone else has had this issue any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

I have same issue. It has nothing to do with temps.

I have tried 3 different drivers all official releases.

There is no pattern to it either. I can play last remnant (a video game) for 10 hours straight no issues with CPU maxed and GPU maxed out adn temps high and no issues at all. But happens when I use windows media player or windows center. DVD or blue ray movies non disk and randomly the screen will go blank then come back on. This is one issue which I think is related to the flicker thing your getting which I get as well which is when I am randomly searching the web or watching a youtube video or google video or something. I think it is 100% to do with GPU but have done tons of different drivers as well as undervolting or underclocking as well as overclocking the GPU with no changes to this flicker and the blank out screen. Some people posted to take apart the laptop and unplug the screen and plug it back in. But this will not solve the issue if your using a external monitor through certified HDMI flat cable top of the line. I have tried 3 other cables as well all do it. So just to make clear this happens on external and built in screen. I have tried 2 Tvs and 1 monitor as well all top of the line for external all do it.

So I have come with this conclusion so far with all my testing it is either GPU bad OR which I am highly leaning towards and will test soon is the charging unit. It gets extremely hot and has static charge noise. I usually never get the static lines on screen at start up or even close to start up usually it is few hours into the laptop on which by this time is pushing the unit big time. I am going to try the targus one and see how that goes as I need another charger for home and office pain to keep lugging one around. There is a thread on how the laptop needs more power then standard unit can give. So what I am thinking is it is reaching a max power and discharging and causing GPU to crap out until it fully discharges from overpowering. Again this may be way off but that is what tests are learning towards and from reading over all the threads on here.

If anyone has anything else to try let me know. I have tried undervolting CPU and have a laptop cooler and temps are really low so has nothing to do with temps or a transition from temps with GPU fan kicking on full blast and all that talk on other threads.

I have bios .17 (came with the referb that way) just for anyone's input with ALL updated drivers and chip sets etc. 7805u.

It has been doing this since day #1 and been trying to solve it ever since.

 

Yeah I noticed my adapter hisses too. Not very loudly, but its there nonetheless. I'd be interested to see if switching the power adapter fixes it.

 

i have the same problem to. alot of people seem to have the same problem so i dont think its a butt load of faulty GPU's or at least i hope not. im leaning towards the monitor cable having to be reseated. im to scared to do it though.

 

But remember I am getting it with external monitors as well so the cable fix stated in another thread may only fix some part of the issue but not the ultimate root of what is going on.

 

Might be the display adapter. what ever and where ever that is.GPU? im not a tech guy :/

From choder in that thread

 

I did the cable plug in and out just now so will see if it changes anything. This may actually fix it if you think about it if there is a loose connection or something wrong the blank screen I am getting on external monitor could be caused by it glitching out thinking to go back to laptop screen.

Although my plug was solid plugged in and untouched or tampered with but unplugged it and plugged it back in anyways.

I still will get another PSU as well. I want to rule everything out as a faulty GPU is never fun.

EDITED: I just did some stress tests and it still happens the lines stuff. So I am really leaning towards power supply as the first 10 min stress test non undervolted CPU had no issues. I then ran another 10 minutes and it started to do it with it CPU undervolted. You may say it is the undervolting but I highly beg to differ as I will run the test again normal non undervolted and it will do it. What happened is I now have reached the max potential and the PSU has heated up with the first test. So anytime after this once everything maxes out again it will do it.

Again just me testing stuff will report back once I get new PSU.

 

The only problem i have with my refurb laptop is the keyboard, its not really a problem it just seems dented in parts and lifted in others.

 

I noticed the toggle lock for the battery was set on open today. I toggled it to lock and so far it seems to be doing alright. I've been playing Assassin's Creed for about 2 hours and no lines yet. fingers crossed.

 

If this happens on battery as well then it is most likely not the brick. Best way to test this is with the battery at 100%. When you are getting the flickers while just browsing the web etc then unplug the brick and see if it goes away.

The theory here is the battery supplies 100% of the amperage required to the GPU as needed while running battery alone. Now this might still be an issue even under battery if you run at too high a power profile..........

 

I want to make this note to be very clear for my ultimate conclusion on brick at this time.

When you start getting the static TAP do not hit or if you want hit but I lightly tapped the brick on the top with my finger and it freezes my laptop. I have tested this 4 times now and all with same result.

So next time your having the glitches reach for the brick and tap it I mean slightest tap with about 3 pounds of pressure or similar (again you can hit the top with hand if you want) will cause the laptop to freeze up.

 

So has anyone tried changing the power supply? Any luck?

 

a update on whats going on, on mine.

Had 2 hard shut downs while playing COD. One giving me a the blue dump screen yesterday. Now COD Mod war online doesnt work and the screen just flickered at i was typeing this. Im pretty sure its the CPU even if i have oC'ed it. it has been doing the stactic type crap since i got it. im 100% its a faulty cpu

 

I have the same issue. But what is interesting I`m experiencing this problem on certain drivers. For example if i install the newest drivers for 9800gts i see the lines and flickering. If I install the older drivers there is no problem then. Don`t know what this depend on. But it makes me a little bit furious. I cannot play games having older drivers. Don`t know if gpu is damaged or not. Any ideas?