Screen Freezing then flickering

[MBtheMedic]

This computer is 36 hours old!  After purchasing I did all the Windows and HP updates. All of the sudden the screen locked up. The computer wouldn’t do anything. I did a hard reset. The computer booted up, but the  windows I had open before were flashing on the screen—sort of like they were stuck, for lack of a better word, in the background. It almost looks like the whole screen is vibrating. Anyway, I opened the task manager, hoping I could close the previous programs, but there is nothing running. I have a seizure disorder, and I can’t use my computer like this.  Please help me. 

[Riddle_Decipher]

@MBtheMedic Don't worry, we got your back, here's what you need to do, to identify the issue and resolve it accordingly:

• If not done already, check if it works fine on the BIOS screen to identify if it's either a hardware or a software issue:
  • If it works fine on the BIOS (Accessed while tapping F10 during a restart) it's a software issue & I suggest creating a new user account to check if that works better, for starters)
  • However, if it doesn't work within the BIOS either, I'm afraid it's a hardware malfunction.

While you respond to that, I have a few more steps that should help: 

Perform a power reset (no data loss) using these steps: Click here, proceed to next step if this works

Attempt to run a test from the HP hardware diagnostic tool, using this link: Click here for details.

If the issue appears on the diagnostics, it could again, determine a hardware failure,

If they don't appear on bios & the hardware tests passed: please update the BIOS & Chip-set drivers from the HP website using this link: Click here

if the issue persists, reinstall windows using the recovery partition or the recovery media to fix the issue,
use this link for details on performing the recovery: Click here

P.S: Welcome to HP Community 😉

Let me know how that pans out,

If you feel I was helpful, simply click on Accept as Solution to help the community grow,

That said, I will have someone follow-up on this to ensure you've been helped,

Just in case you don't get back to us, 

have a good day, ahead.

[MBtheMedic]

Hello friend! Sorry for the delayed response. After I made this post, I shut the computer down for a while (overnight). The issue resolved itself....but then happened again a few days later. I got ready to start the steps you gave, but the issue stopped on its own.

Today, the issue started again. This time I was able to work through the steps. Here is the progress thus far:

(1) started in bios with no change

(2) power reset with no change

(3) HP fast test - no failure codes

(4) HP extensive test - no failure codes

(5) updated bios and chipset drivers - no change

I just got ready to do the windows reset, and the issue stopped again. I'm not convinced the issue is resolved, but it is not happening at this moment. I am afraid this is a hardware problem because it's intermittent, but I'm no expert. 

An additional note, this computer runs really hot. Not sure if this could be related?

Let me know what you think, and thanks for all your help!

[MyScreenameHi]

Very similar issue. Here is how it goes down

1)Screen freezes and mouse and shortcuts are unresponsive. The contrast functions keys however DO work.

2)In order to regain functionality , I close the laptop lid and reopen

3)when lid opens the screen is flickering. Once it was flickering so bad you can see the Time in the bottom left corner that shows from the lock screen.

I have ran many diagnostics and they all passed.
I recovered the computer (reinstalled windows using  HP Support ) twice and the issue is still there.
You can observe the screen flickering even in the BIOs.

I have attached a screenshot of what I saw on my screen the first time it happened. This was probably less than the 10th time I had used my laptop since I received it new in May. At this point, the screen was frozen.