Screen flickers randomly

[dedsdidgdn]

My screen seems to flicker from time to time. At times it is barely noticeable but sometimes it is very distracting. Certain colors appear to change hue, thus looking like a flicker. It does not appear to be the entire screen flickering, and it is MUCH more noticeable when looking at the wallpaper image of Windows.

[dedsdidgdn]

The problem appears to be triggered by anything displaying colors on the screen. The flicker does not occur on a white screen. If I put a white page on 1 half of the screen and the Windows wallpaper being displayed on the other half, the wallpaper side is the only one producing this flickering effect.

Please help with this issue as my 30-day return window is closing!

[Riddle_Decipher]

@dedsdidgdn

Welcome to HP Forums, 

This is a great place to get support, find answers and tips, 

Thank you for posting your query, I'll be more than glad to help you out 🙂 

As I understand the screen flickers when different colors are being displayed,

Don't worry as I'll be glad to help, however, to provide an accurate resolution, I need a few more details: 

If you haven't, Please try an alternate monitor to understand if this is either a hardware or a software failure, 

if the issue does not appear on the alternate monitor, you may need to replace the display assembly on your computer, 

if the issue appears on the alternate monitor/TV as well, re-install the graphics card drivers & update it from the official HP Website: Click here 

  

If you don’t have an alternate monitor, I recommend checking if the issue appears on the BIOS screen (restart the computer and tap on F10 to access BIOS) 

This would confirm if it's either a hardware failure or an issue with the graphics card drivers so we may reinstall and update the drivers to fix the issue as mentioned above. 

  

If the issue persists on BIOS as well, please try with a TV to identify if it's the LCD or the motherboard/video card failure, 

  

If the issue occurred after an accident (such as dropping it on the floor, liquid spilled on it, etc.) there could be a hardware failure and in such cases, you may need to get the computer repaired via HP (there could be a charge involved if the PC isn't covered by the accidental damage protection plan) 

  

Reply with the result of the above-mentioned steps, for further assistance. 

[dedsdidgdn]

After lots of trouble getting the HDMI to detect my Panasonic plasma TV last week, I did watch a couple movies on it and did not see any flickering at all on that display. I just opened a movie right now on my laptop and it did not flicker. Also, while the flickering was still going on just 10 minutes ago when I was working with different applications, I cannot reproduce it now. I even triggered the laptop's auto-rotate screen function and rotated back to see if it would trigger it again but could not reproduce the issue. I am so confused because the flickering will likely start happening again at some random time.

I have not dropped the laptop, nor has it been damaged in any way. I also use a ventilated base to use my laptop on and keep it cool.

Based on your instructions, I will next try to reinstall display drivers whenever the issue does reproduce again.

--- On a side note: The first time I plugged in my TV display via HDMI, my laptop would recognize a TV but not send any audio/video signal to the TV. I switched the cable and it worked fine on 2 different occasions. With this same cable, I just tested for a flicker, but the laptop did not detect any TV so I could not complete a flicker test right now. I have NEVER had such an issue with any of my HDMI device not detecting my TV. So here is yet another problem to fix! ----

Please advice in regards to my HDMI issue as well as it may be related and I like to think that HDMI has always and will always be plug-and-play.

Thanks in advance!

[Riddle_Decipher]

@dedsdidgdn

Thank you for responding,

It's great to have you back 😉

If the flickering is intermittent or random,

I recommend you check with an alternate HDMI cable to check if the issue persists,

If it does, update the BIOS, graphics card drivers and the chipset drivers using the HP website: Click here to find it

If it doesn't flicker with the alternate cable, simply replace the cable to resolve the issue.

Let me know how that works out, keep me in the loop and Good luck! 😉

[dedsdidgdn]

---

---

As I stated, there was no flickering on the TV when HDMI did work. Now, neither of my HDMI cable work with my laptop although they both work with other devices without a hitch.

The flickering I have noticed is when my laptop is not using an external display. I haven't witnessed it since my last response to you, however I made no relevant changes to the system for this to occur - so I expect the issue to reoccur at some point.

As for drivers, I updated all of them a couple of days. Since then, the flickering continued and now the laptop will not recognize my TV via HDMI.

When the flickering comes back, I will manually uninstall the video drivers and reinstall. That will hopefully fix the puzzling HDMI issue as well.

[Riddle_Decipher]

@dedsdidgdn

Thank you for replying with this overwhelming and detailed response 😉 

I appreciate your time and efforts,

The description of the issue further points out towards a hardware malfunction,

However, to be precise I recommend running an extensive system test using the HP Hardware Diagnostics tool: Click here for instructions.

Let me know how that works out, keep me in the loop and Good luck! 😉

[dedsdidgdn]

I believe to have solved the issue without having to reinstall any drivers. My presumption was correct that this had something to do with some feature of Windows and not hardware.

Turns out that the problem stops immediately when I switch from HP Recommended or Power Saver modes under Power Options. By setting the power profile to Performance, I no longer see any flicker.

I will continue to monitor this issue and see if this is the only solution.

Please let me know why it is behaving this way.

[Riddle_Decipher]

@dedsdidgdn

Thank you for responding,

It's great to have you back 😉

If you've already completed the extensive system test and it passed, you've changed the power options and the issue doesn't persist anymore, It may not be "power-management" at all.

If the flicker appears when on performance alone it may simply be a failing battery!

Please test the battery using the same hardware diagnostics tool and get back to me with the results.

[dedsdidgdn]

Hello again,

I performed all 3 BIOS system tests: quick, fast, and extensive. All of them reported zero errors.

The HP Battery check utility also checks out at 100% performance.

Windows is still set to Performance setting and the issue has not reoccured as of yet.