Screen flicker with new T61

All right... at long last, I've been united with my T61. Overall, it's been a good first 24 hours. I reinstalled Vista via the Base Software Administrator and RnR. Eliminated some Vista junk.

But I'm getting screen flickering when the User Access Control dialogs pop up, as well as other random times, particularly when there's a change -- like switching to Alt-Tab program switch, etc.

I know issues like this have popped up b/c of the Nvidia card (I have the Quadro NVS 140M running on Vista Home Premium), but I've got the latest driver offered on Lenovo's website (7.15.11.129). Can anyone shed some light?

 

I had the same experience with an HP and the GMA950. The only thing I can suggest is to try to get them to repair it or return it.

 

Screen flicker like that is a bad sign. When I've had it once before, it was eventually followed by a complete LCD failure at a most inconvenient time.

 

i should make myself clear, though; it 'feels' very much like a graphics card driver issue, rather than a hardware failure. Is anyone else out there running a similar config without brief (less than a second, for sure) black screens during Vista 'transitions'?

7662CTO CTO THINKPAD T61 WITH NVIDIA GRAPHICS - 1 YD
42V8191 INTEL CORE 2 DUO PRCESST7500
42V8011 VBB MS WIN VISTA HOME PREMIUM
42V9565 SBB MSWIN VHP32 US ENGLISH
42X1671 SBB 14.1"WXGA+TFT,W/ CAMERA
42X0906 SBB NVIDIA QUADRO NVS 140M MEDIACARD
41W2060 VBB 1GB PC2-5300 667MHZ 1DIMM
42V8195 SBB KEYBOARD US ENGLISH
42V9329 SBB UN(TRACKPOINT+TCHPD)
42V8704 SBB 60 GB HDD,7200RPM
42V8193 SBB INTEL TURBO MEMORY 1GB
42V8713 SBB DVD ROM8XMAX,UBAYSLIM
42X0805 SBB PC CARDSLOT EX CARDSLOT
42R9191 SBB THINKPAD 11N #1
62P6054 VBB INTEGR.BLUETOOTH PAN
42V9338 SBB 6 CELL LI-ION BATERRY
39T6442 SBB COUNTRY PACK NORTH AMERICA
27R1769 SBB PSTN CABLE
42V9391 SBB LANG.PACK US ENGLISH
42V9428 SBB PACKAGING US
42V9650 SBB 14.1WXGA+W/OWWAN,W/CABT11N
39T6440 SBB 56K V.92 DESIGNED MODEM
42V8646 SBB CL.PLATE T61WLANANDBLTOOTH
42V9665 SBB FCC, LABEL
42V9667 SBB GEO LABEL US, WLAN,BT
41W2300 SBB LOGO PLATE
42V9631 SBB INT WLAN ANT 14.1" 11ABGN
42V9658 SBB MT 7662 SYSTEM LABEL
42X0929 SBB MECH MISC PARTS
42V7972 SBB MS LABEL (VISTA PREMIUM)
42T7135 SBB INTEL LABEL CORE-2
42X0914 SBB NO SIM MODEL
42X1352 SBB PC CARDSLOT EXPRESCARDSLOT
42V9634 SBB STAND LCD C/B:14.1"W/ CAM
42X0915 SBB WLAN MISC PARTS
42X0912 SBB WWAN MISC PARTS
42X0922 SBB NVID QUADRO NVS XXXX W/AMT
42X1482 SBB BLUETOOTH W/ ANTENNA
42X1702 SBB BLUETOOTH SCREW
42V8063 SBB MS WAU ENGLISH NA-U MODELS
42V9341 SBB 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SODIMM
41C9170 LENOVO THINKPLUS EXTENDED SERVICE AGREEMENT - 3 YEARS - PICK-UP AND RETURN

 

Are you on battery when that happens ?


because some profiles lower the refresh rate...


--

 

I was just about to make a post regarding the same thing, when I stumbled across yours!

My T61 is identical to yours, except with a T7300. Same problem, maybe once a day or so, for no apparent reason, my screen flickers briefly. I don't think it's a problem with the hardware inside, as it happens at completely random times. It's not related to touching the LCD panel. It happens when it's plugged in and on battery. The computer itself doesn't hickup, so it's not Windows.

You said it happens when "transitioning" in Vista. Seems to be completely random for me, but when it happens again, i'll take note of what I was doing and post again.

The fact that you are running Vista worries me slightly, as I'm running XP pro... Seems odd that the same problem would occur.

So far this has been a very minor thing... I just assumed it would go away with a driver update.

I guess this post wasn't really much help... just letting you know you're not alone

 

Be sure to add this to the "t 61 specific problems" poll!

I've had two lcd's flicker out on me before. The first, a vaio, would flicker out completely, and I started having graphics crashes. Vaio support walked me through some bios stuff and updates, but it eventually died completely. Had to send it in and they said it needed a new motherboard. Done.

The second, a z 60 m, started flickering out a third of the display at a time, but just the lcd itself going out apparently, because still usable via external monitor.


Sorry to hear it on a brand new notebook. Good luck.

 

One of the things that makes me think it's a driver issue is all the trouble Nvidia had with Vista earlier in the spring.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/vista_driver_news_022207.html

See the first few bullets under 'NVIDIA Vista Graphics Driver Issues'. But, of course, support on NVidia's site points me to Lenovo, since I'm running a mobile GPU. Any chance Lenovo has not yet caught up to NVidia?

Anyways, I'm calling support today to try to sort this out. Other than this, the machine is running splendidly.

 

It just occured to me - when I have an external monitor hooked up, they BOTH flicker. Hmmm...

This suggests it's not a problem with the lcd screen... more likely motherboard / video card related.

Now i'm getting worried. At first I just assumed it was a driver problem that would be resolved. Now i'm wondering if it's the begining of the end for my computer and that Lenovo will be getting my new baby back for a month while they repair

 

Two new updates, just in case anyone's dealing with the same issues...

Found this thread, which might be relevant since this person experiences the same problem with the Go GeForce 7600/7400 (on which the NVS 140M is based, I think):

http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t34934.html

I also gave tech support a call around noon today. The tech seemed very confident that I was experiencing a driver issue that would (eventually) be corrected through a BIOS and/or GPU driver update. He reported seeing the same issue on a machine with the Intel integrated graphics chip.

So... who knows? For now, I'm satisfied waiting for the update, since the quirk has no real effect on productivity. Peace out!

 

I actually have the same issue; but it only happens when the UAC pops up. At no other time has it flickered

 

Could it be because the thinkpad power manager sets the screen refresh rate to 50hz? Try setting it to 60 to see if that helps.

Jeff

 

The screen is supposed to flicker when the UAC dialogs pop up initially and then again when the dialog goes away. It does something with the display output to make sure the dialog is not being spoofed or able to be controlled from another app.

 

I have UAC turned off, and I still see the blanking when power up or waking up.

I think it's the Thinkvantage stuff, most likely the Power Manager. I have no proof, and no solution yet. :-(

It should be noted that this behavior isn't really a "flicker" or "flickering" as such (ie. nothing to do with screen refresh rate or otherwise a flaw in the monitor), but rather something that software is doing to redraw the screen at a specific time and only doing it once per login session.

 

In my case, this issue is now SOLVED! I enabled the HIGH screen brightness in BIOS (vs. NORMAL), and the flicker/blank/flash upon bootup or wakeup no longer happens.

Here's another thread about the same thing, but I won't reply in there:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=151085&page=2&highlight=flicker

I'm still using Power Manager, and still have UAC disabled.

EDIT: this only solves it for waking up from sleep, the "flash" still happens after a cold boot. Not a big deal, since I seldom reboot.

 

I've been experiencing very similar problems on a T60 (T7200 with an ATI FIRE GL V5250 256MB graphics card) - however, I've only been noticing the flicker on the laptop monitor not the external. Also the problem appears when driving any external monitor (I've tried two monitors and a projector using different cables for each). I was originally thinking it was problem with the monitor or cable causing problems with the graphics card but now I don't think that's the case.

As far as the driver issue goes, I find it interesting that folks were having similar problems with the nVidia cards given that I'm using an ATI Fire GL.

Also, I've noticed that the flicker, at least in my case, appears to be an enlarged image of what whatever was on the screen. I'll get flash of text or images that look likely they're scaled about two or three times their normal size. It only lasts for a fraction of a second, and does not appear to be related to anything mechanical (i.e. hinge cables, or bad connections from the external monitor).

hope this helps...
Kevin

 

screen flicker solution: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=160521&highlight=flicker

 

This solution with the Transient Multimon Manager does not appear to to address full range of causes - I'm running my laptop with XP so Transient Multimon Manager doesn't appear to apply to my situation. Perhaps, though, the IBM monitor config tools are doing something similar - I've had no end of problems with the IBM software and in most cases have removed it.

 

Same here on an X61s running Vista. As well as the momentary "flicker" (for want of a better word), the mouse gets re-centered on the desktop. Odd, and sometimes annoying.

 

I'm experiencing screen flicker on my new T61 also (running vista).

It seems to happen when I switch display profiles. I have the advanced mini dock with 2 displays connected. My Thinkpad has the intel X3100 integrated gfx. The gfx hardware only supports 2 displays, so the LCD on the laptop is blank when I have the external displays active. I have the fn-f7 set to toggle between the 2x external displays and the internal LCD. It only seems to happen immediately following the switch to the laptop's own LCD following the use of the displays on the dock. I can stop the flickering by suspending and then resuming windows. I thought that probably the display driver needed to reload or reset. All this time I was pretty sure it was a driver thing, but after reading this thread, now I'm not so sure. I haven't had it happen yet with an external display connected, like one previous poster indicated.

-- update:
Looking into more of the previous posts, I should clarify that this flickering is not a momentary flash to black that happens when switching video modes, or logging in, etc. It is a sort of nonuniform brightness variation that doesn't go away until I put the laptop to sleep. There may be other things that would get it to stop, but I haven't been able to reproduce the flicker on purpose to test it out.

 

I've posted previously about flicker issues with my T60p under XP SP2. However, I thought I would add that my problems with displays appear to have worsened. Now, when using the IBM Monitor Profile tools I'm unable to connect external monitors to my laptop - the tool reports that my external monitor cannot be used due to problems with the refresh rate.

What's odd is that the same monitor profile worked in the past - all of a sudden it's no longer working.

However, if I connect to the monitor using the Windows control panel it works fine (albeit with a flicker).

I'm quite concerned that there are serious problems with the IBM software and/or my graphics card. The fact that the problems are worsening is quite disconcerting. I'm curious if anyone with similar problems has had luck sending their machine off for warranty service?

kpw