HDX 18t Screen Flicker

[M1styrX]

I have a new (August '09) HDX 18t X18T-1200 CTO Premium Notebook PC.  When first powered on, the screen flickers quite a bit ... almost like fluorescent bulbs warming up.  However, it never completely goes away.  Example is putting a desktop background oriented portrait vice landscape when the rest of the background is black, the top of the screen flickers noticeably.

The screen also flickers noticeably whenever relatively dark images are displayed.  I think my monitor might be faulty.

-M1styrX

HDX 18t

nVidia GT130M

8 GB ram

Win 7 x64 

[sforbes42]

There have been several threads on this issue. I have one as well and experience the same thing. It has been a month or so since I checked through the forums for updates. You might want to search around.

I have a break between semesters  now, so I can finally call up HP and start to address the issue.

[wbradney]

Same problem here -- going through the process of trying to get it fixed now.

The problem is especially noticeable with dark content. I made my Windows desktop all black and I can reproduce it almost at will now. It's exacerbated by "wiggling" the angle of the display very slightly, which suggests to me a connection/cabling or soldering problem. It gets very much worse when the laptop is running hot, like while playing graphically intensive 3D games. Occasionally, when "hot", whole areas of the screen just seem to drop out, and on a couple of occasions I've seen the screen seem to "meltdown" with pixellation briefly before restoring the correct image.

HP support has suggested a driver update -- didn't help. I've also now restored the machine to its factory settings (Vista), and it's still doing it.

Sometimes I can even reproduce the flicker in the BIOS screen, so it's clearly a hardware problem, not software.

[wbradney]

After a couple of chat sessions with HP, they sent me a pre-paid box to ship the laptop to them for repair. I now have it back and the flicker seems to be fixed so far. Eight days for this is a good turnaround in my view.

[M1styrX]

They didn't send you a new laptop did they?  I don't want all the trouble of re-installing everything.