The Big SZ Series Screen Issues Poll

Hi,

there are a lot of users experiencing problems with their SZ Screen or graphics. Basically the issue is that the screen would ocassionally flicker and turn black. The System is operating normally, however the screen remains black, backlight is still on. The only option to resolve this issue is to turn it into standby and turn it back on, after this the system is operating normally again.

Who as experienced this issue, what have you tried to resolve?

Here is a list of things i noticed, please copy and bold the issues you have noted too.

1) Fresh OS install
2) Only happens on battery power
3) Also experience screen flickers, like the image shifts or the backlight level changes
4) Any reboot fixes it (full, hibernate or sleep)
5) Backlight stays on, image dissappears leaving a black lit screen
6) Power setting not the issue - not set to sleep, hibernte etc Screen set to turn off after x minutes but it doesnt happen when left, could be half way through internet browsing
7) Laptop contiues to run. i.e. movies sound contuines, music continues, and shortcut button actions have launched after sleep and power on.
8) Seems to happen more the lower the battery gets, but im not talking 1% remaining or anything.
9) Always run in integrated graphics mode. Havent tried discreet graphics yet, which would determine if the issue is on the motherboard graphics?
10) Quite intermittent. Will ALWAYS flicker on battery but not always turn off - maybe once every other charge. Worst was 7 times on one charge on the train (vibration related?)
11) Usually used resting on the arm of a leather sofa, at about 45 degrees angle towards seating position (lol)
12) Seems to occur more often with WLAN on.
13) Occurs more often during watching videos.

Im not sure, but i tried it with the nvidia card once, however i can remember it did the same things also....

Then i did the following things:
a) Disabled SSDP Discovery Service (just search the forums)
b) Installed original sony drivers that were out of the box, because i cant remember it happening with the original sony install.
c) turned of hybrid standby mode

since this i noticed aditionally:

13) Occurs less often.
14) Screen not always turns black but grey or green

Please help finding the cause for this very annoying problem!!!

 

Wow it's surprising that someone else has had this problem, ever since I replaced my SZ's motherboard it's been doing this when on battery using the GMA950.

It appears to occur more when the laptop is drawing more power, and the fix I found for it was to keep a video (using media player etc, must use overlay) paused in the background which stops it from happening completely but I think it draws slightly more power.

 

Hi, thats interseting! In the meantime i might have found another fix that works very well for me. As it seemed to me i havent had these problems prior to me clean vista installation, i reinstalled the original intel video driver that came on the cds that came with my sz4. Since than this issue did not occur again.

However when i tried to upgrade my driver to the newest available from the sony support page the issue started to occur again. As i dont mind having the (probably old but working) original sony driver im installed the one from the cds again and am happy with it.