Brightness on lcd is flickering!

This just started happening, I keep my laptop on almost always. basically when your looking at the lcd, and not touching anything it will seem to just flicker for 10 seconds or so. At first I thought It was just myself inadvertently shaking the screen, but I now relies it does it on its own. It's like one of the back lights are failing. But then its back to normal for awhile before it does it again. I have tried everything, Installed the latest Nvidia driver from hp, even rolled it back, My display settings are at 100% for brightness. I would just shrug it off to the 60 mhz refresh rate, but it just started happening maybe a week ago. I have the Ultra bright view 17" WS on my dv9000t. Does this sound like a monitor prob or a video card problem?? Any suggestions I should try before calling HP? Thanks for all the help.. Tryton

Oh, and the laptop is plugged in all the time.. so it's not a battery issue I believe.

 

Do you have the display using DPMS to turn itself off after a period of inactivity (30 minutes for example)?

If not, your backlight is likely failing. Using 100% brightness isn't helping matters either. And FYI- there's no such thing as 'refresh rate flicker' on an LCD.

Current laptops (well, except for a small handful of VERY new models) use a white cold-cathode bulb for LCD backlighting. Like all light bulbs, it fails after x number of hours of usage. Just like the fluorescent lighting in an office building, the bulbs get dim (probably why you have yours on 100%) and flickery when they're on their way out.

You should be able to buy a replacement cold-cathode tube, possibly from HP, although I don't know how hard it will be to replace.

The new Macbook Pro's (and a VERY small handful of new pc laptops) use a new backlight technology. Instead of the cold-cathode tube, they now use white LED's. The LED backlighting is more reliable and much longer lasting. Unfortunately, it's so new that only a couple of laptops are using it. I imagine two years from now just about all laptops would be equipped with LED backlighting.

 

Yes, It turns itself off after 30min.. 20 for screen saver then 10 more and its off.
Well I bought the laptop oct 10th 2006, so it's still under warranty. do you think this is covered? and in the future, i shouldn't keep it at 100%?

 

2006 is quite new, the cold-cathode tubes last for a couple of years, at least. Sounds like a defect - I'd pursue a warranty claim with hp.

 

Ha, I've just sent my notebook to HP for the same problem, I guess you also experienced brightness reduction. I noticed that the brightness on my notebook is reduced greatly compared to other dv6000's.

This problem happened to me when I put my notebook on my laps. Also pushing on the screen and it would flick also. I guess the bulb in the LCD is out of place, or there is a loose wire connection.