Clevo P150SM / Sager NP8265 LCD question

I posted in the Clevo reseller feedback forum about this laptop, but I still have a couple of questions about it. So far all the other Sagers I owned (two NP8130 and one NP8150) had the 95% gamut screens. Beautiful, vibrant colours, and absolutely no flicker at the lowest brightness.

The NP8265 I recently purchased has the regular screen, I think 60-70% gamut. It's a big difference in colour reproduction, but as I am not doing any graphics design work anymore, it doesn't bother me too much. However, there is one more thing I noticed. At the very minimum brightness, the backlight flickers every few seconds. One notch higher on the scale and the flickering disappears.

I have the NP8265 and the NP8150 side by side, and the flicker definitely occurs on one but not the other. Is it normal? I have noticed this low brightness flicker on other laptops in the past, but never on Sagers. I should specify that by flicker I mean the backlight dims very slightly for a split second.

As a side note, since I had to completely disassemble the NP8265 to replace the webcam and webcam wire ( link), I extracted the broken screws and replaced the missing ones. And I ensured everything is routed correctly, there is no visible damage, etc. Also the laptop stays extremely cool with gaming, prime95 and even furmark. No crashes or artifacts either.

Thanks.

 

Bueler? All I'm asking if this is normal...

 

It might just be that screen, there is more than one backlight "zone" in it. So one zone might just have an issue at that low of a brightness (basically the backlight flashes really quickly but way to fast for you to notice), and it might just be having a little issue when turned down really low. So it might just be flickering due to that. Also make sure you have the latest BIOS/EC as they do sometimes change backlight duty cycle in a BIOS/EC update. So it may have been "fixed" already.

If its really bad then you can talk to where you got it from but if it doesn't bother you too much wouldn't worry too much about it

 

Thanks for the reply.

What really threw me off was that the flicker was inconsistent. At the same lowest brightness, when the laptop first boots there is no flicker. Then something happens (and I am trying to figure out the pattern) and it starts flickering. Then it may again disappear after a while. For instance, as I am typing this the screen flickers, and it just started after playing Skyrim. Prior to writing this message, I had booted the laptop up, browsed reddit and NBR, allowed the screen saver to kick in and then the screen to turn off, then I played a bit of Skyrim without any noticeable flicker. I suppose the issue wouldn't bother me at all if at least it were continuous.

I am running the latest drivers from Sager, Nvidia. I also upgraded to the latest BIOS 1.03.05, EC 1.03.01 after I noticed the flicker, and it did not correct the behavior.

 

It could be the monitor part itself.

http://carny.hubpages.com/hub/led-backlight-flicker

Something called Pulse Width Modulation. Basically it has to do with the brightness of the display and how it goes about representing lower brightness levels.

 

Yup thats exactly what is the technical process of it all, and some just don't do it quite as well as others

 

I read that article yesterday, and the pen test definitely shows the LED timing especially at low brightness. But I think on my laptop there may be another poaaible explanation. I will test it out again tonight, however my impression is that the flicker starts one the gtx gets activated and shuts down. There may be a driver issue.

As I said above, this screen does not bother me too much. The upgrade over my old NP8150 is just too massive, and the price was too good.

My main concern was whether this flicker is a hardware defect or not. And it appears to be ok in that respect.