HP Pavilion g6 screen backlight flickers

[pavlikva]

Hi,

my laptop screen backlight goes off, when I rest my hand on the left side of the touchpad. The darkening of the screen can be also reproduced when a small pressure is applied on the case just above the ethernet port or above the headphones port.

When the screen goes dark, I can see that everything is running normal, if I shine on it with a lamp or strong light. The resulting effect seems to be the same as if I would have lowered the brightness to minimum.

When I don't press the area described above, the screen is just fine. I am sure this problem is not software or OS related. I googled it a lot and my guess is lose connection on the inverter?

One last thing - idk if related - sometimes, when I boot up the laptop, the backlight is turned off and I have to adjust it by pressing F3.

Thanks for suggestions.

Vaclav

[Malygris1]

Hi @pavlikva 

Welcome to the HP Support Forums!

I understand that you are having some issues with your display. I am happy to help with this.

Please post the full product number of your notebook. See the following if you need help in finding that.
How Do I Find My Model Number or Product Number?

With that I can get the correct service manual, which may allow you to check if something is out of place, or loose.

[pavlikva]

Hello Malygris1

the product number is

B1N47EA#UUW

(HP Pavilion g6 - 2010so).

Thanks.

[pavlikva]

Do you have the service manual? Or is there any more info you need? Can you actually help me with this?

Thanks.

[Malygris1]

@pavlikva 

Here is a copy of the service manual for the series of notebooks. I hope it helps.

HP Pavilion g6 Notebook PC - Maintenance and Service Guide

[pavlikva]

@Malygris1

I read the manual but there is no obvious component in the area which would cause the brightness problem.

Could it be somethong on the motherboard?

Thanks.

[pavlikva]

Anybody there?

[pavlikva · Accepted solution]

Nevermind,

I found the solution myself. The laptop was not properly isolated between the top part of case (where keyboard and touchpad are) and the motherboard part of the case - especially above the VGA port and the ethernet port. This caused a conductivity problem and probably also the brightness issue when pressing the case down on its left side. I solved it by placing small pieces of isolation tape under the keyboard and above the two ports.

[efbasham]

I'm on my second spectre x360 now - In 2015 I had the 13" 8G QHD and really liked it once the quirks were ironed out with the intel graphics driver, a problem which affected any power user no matter who made their ultrabook.  This time I went with the 15" UHD; it has a problem with screen flickering when cold which eventually goes awy.  It is worst during the first hour after powering on the unit, doesn't matter if it's started the windows O/S or the bios setup screen, so it's most definitely hardware related.  I would call it a rapid (3-4 x per second) change of brightness roughly from 100% to ~80% and back to 100% all over the display, as if the backlight hardware itself is unstable.

In the old days, I would have guessed the inverter or CCFL tube was going out, but this machine is only 2 days old and already has the problem, plus it has a modern LED backlight.  I'm guessing it's the FETs that drive the LEDs going bad really early in their life.  Problems like this should be caught in manufacturing quality control and never shipped to the customer.  They may be missing this because it only happens during the first ~1/2 hour of running from power on, when the system is cold.  If manufacturing test heats up the system running diagnostics before they check the display, it would not be caught.

Since the Spectre X360 is new for 2017, (mine is ID'ed as X5P15AV or 15-bl0XX 15-bl000 depending on customization for that model) I'm looking for other people with the same issue.  I've also had a few cases where the trackpad goes to sleep for ~5 seconds (mouse cursor even disappears) - then it wakes back up.  Unfortunately, the touchscreen dies at the same time.  That's likely a driver issue.  I've only had the machine 2 days - removed candy crush and installed firefox.

MrRobot's response about how good the display is unfortunately shows how little HP support reads the details of message posts.  If someone is asking about flicker, replying with a prewritten response on how many colors their display can replicate isn't the answer.  It doesn't add value to the conversation.  I found this post searching for display flicker, though my problem is a manufacturing defect, not a design defect.

If other people are having / suspecting class problems with this brand new machine, please reach out either here, or by email.  My address just for this system is laptop at uwave dot com, or I check the forums infrequently. 

I'm also looking to meet other people with info on running an egpu via thunderbolt 3 on the Spectre x360.  My goal is to have a desktop "dock" with one box containing Nvidia graphics card (likely 1080) & desktop 4K monitor, an external disk, external keyboard/mouse, external wired network, and external usb hub.  I want the dock I buy to power/charge the Spectre over the same cable, so one plug and its docked.  If there are other thunderbolt fans planning the same setup - I'm all ears and happy to work together on it!  Akitio / Razer look to be two aveues worth exploration for this.  Again - email is best.  Before anyone says it's not possible, there are some videos on youtube showing "custom" (external power supply) setups with the Spectre and its usb-c / thunderbolt port.

I'll post more when the flickering LCD goes away!

efbasham