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XPS One 2710 Screen Flicker
My XPS One 2710 has worked great for over a year. This week it has started to flicker on exactly one half of the screen on the right side. The flicker is quite violent and makes that side unusable. I have updated all drivers and have performed diagnostics which showed no failures. My BIOS is A09. I think that is the best one for a machine running Win 7. Any ideas?
chingdaotze
3 Posts
1
August 26th, 2015 00:00
Thanks for posting. A friend asked me to take a look at her XPS 2710 and that was indeed the problem. Symptoms were exactly as described in previous posts. I took off the plastic cover and metal shield and blew an industrial fan into the back of the machine to test. The machine was stable for two hours, which was significantly longer than it usually lasted. Satisfied with my testing, I got creative with my Dremel:
Using a 140mm fan template, a spare Fractal R2, a 140mm fan grill, and a 3-pin fan to USB converter I cut a hole in the plastic cover and mounted the hardware (the 3-pin converter is necessary because messing with the CPU and GPU fan headers will cause the BIOS to throw a fan speed error). Then I reassembled the entire thing without the metal shield underneath. Three hours of runtime and no issues. Before it would start spazzing after ~20 minutes. $30 in parts to fix a $2000 machine. Not bad. Thanks again, everyone who posted!
mvis2012
9 Posts
2
May 22nd, 2016 14:00
I upgraded my fan to a stronger one and also put 2 fans, one for blowing cool air (to the DDR3) and one for sucking out hot air (GPU). The slim fan I previously installed was not good enough - the flicker showed when Windows failed to go to sleep. The new fan is Thermaltake Mobilefan II and has adjustable speed. The speed knob can be re-arranged to go with how you mount the fan (air in vs out). I had to remove the metal cover that covers the MB as there is not much space between that and the plastic back. The screw on the fan would hit the metal cover. The fan has 47.28CFM and each is about $15 at Fry's but is about $11 at Amazon.
https://app.box.com/s/ukf0kgp4z91thx2y1lrth7ez31gqe6hw
https://app.box.com/s/lmou7eo5h5198omh4ff08bxc4a8re6ks
mvis2012
9 Posts
1
May 22nd, 2016 15:00
Caroleena,
It is Rhino USB to Fan Adapter cable. Here is the link. Do note that I just upgraded my fan to the Thermaltake Mobilefan II - this product includes the USB to Fan adapter and has stronger airflow.
http://www.frys.com/product/8409198
kirkd
4 Operator
4 Operator
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5.2K Posts
0
December 11th, 2013 09:00
Try re-installing the video driver. Use the latest version. If this doesn't help, the video circuity has probably failed.
make ya blink
3 Posts
0
May 24th, 2014 21:00
My XPS 2710 is also experiencing the same problem. The computer is less then 2 years old.
What does it mean the "video circuity has probably failed"? What do I need to do to fix it. Is it a hardware or software problem?
At first, it only happened when I was on the internet at full screen. After updating drivers it seem to happen when I open any programs. Desk top is fine, no flicker.
when I do F12 during boot up and run diagnostics I get the same right side only severe screen flicker with black lines.
make ya blink
3 Posts
1
June 3rd, 2014 15:00
Just had a computer tech over to run a diagnostic. Problem is solved. It turns out that my computer was over heating. Pulled the back off and fans were working fine, hardly any dust. There is a major design flaw in this model. The only way I could stop the flickering is to expose the back side to the air and set up a regular table fan to keep the hardware cool. Yeah, I'm pretty bummed for two reasons, lousy customer service (still have not received a response to my earlier request) and now my beautiful computer is sitting on my desk with her back side exposed. This is a BIG BUMMER. Now I remember why all my other computers are anything but a Dell.
Shame on you Dell for selling me a very expensive, inferior computer and having a service staff who can barley peak English. You have lost another customer - For Good.
If anyone is considering buying a Dell, you might as well take the cash and toss it off a bridge. You'd get more enjoyment seeing your money go to waste.
TCappel
2 Posts
0
June 12th, 2014 23:00
TrojanVic
2 Posts
1
July 15th, 2014 11:00
I have the exact problem with my XPS One 2710: right half of the screen will flicker 5-10 minutes after the PC was powered on. It gets progressively worst until the it will affect even the left half of the screen, rendering it completely unusable. The problem began to develop 13 months after we purchased the company, so it was just out of warranty. I also suspect that this is a heat-related issue, since the problem get progressively worst even if the machine is just sitting idle. So may be the heat builds up with the case and it causes the video H/W to fail. However, when it first boots up, it was fine, so I don't think it is a S/W driver problem.
I am going to try to take the back off to increase the heat dissipation to see if that does the trick and report back.
TCappel
2 Posts
0
July 20th, 2014 15:00
TrojanVic
2 Posts
0
July 21st, 2014 08:00
It helped (in the sense that it takes longer time for the screen problem to show up), but it did not fix the problem (after a while the right half of the screen begins to flicker). I wonder if I should change the motherboard since the video card is soldered in.
mvis2012
9 Posts
0
August 1st, 2015 13:00
I have the same problem last December. Dell sent a total of 4 techs and could not resolve it. They even sent a replacement LCD - you'd think Dell would send a good LCD but they sent me an LCD that has been laying in some garbage bin. The LCD they sent is very dusty inside, i.e. cannot be cleaned unless you dismantle the panel itself. The final thing was they let me ship back the unit. They replaced MB, reinstalled Windows, etc. Seemed to resolve it but it lasted only 6mos. Now I'm getting the same exact problem.
I agree that it looks like a heating problem as it lasts longer if I use my ceiling fan - my PC is directly below the fan. I'm now typing this while the backside is exposed. I even sprayed cold freeze on to it.
This is clearly a design flaw. My next PC will probably not be Dell.
UPDATE:
The problem is due to overheating of the RAM. They are hotter than the CPU - CPU has fans, the memories NO. I opened the case, removed the perforated metal covering the RAM and put a USB fan directly blowing the memories. What a difference! They are now as cool as a dead body. I let it play music the entire night and no problem.
To test the theory, I put back case as factory install. I see the flicker in just a few minutes and I can feel hot air if I touch the case directly behind the RAM. RAM's center is about 6in from top end, 2.5in from left end (if facing the LCD panel).
I bought a slim profile fan at Fry's but the case won't close. This is bad as it means I have to drill holes in the plastic case so I can blow cool air from the outside.
mvis2012
9 Posts
1
August 26th, 2015 08:00
The fan supply inside is controlled so it will turn off most of the time and thus was not effective. My Dell One27 would drive crazy with flickers after only a few minutes of ON time.
I have been using the external fan for around 2 weeks now and no problem so far. I don't even turn off the computer at night and it still works ok in the morning, The USB at the back seems to be always ON so that's even better.
Here's my AiO with the fan mounted at the back.
https://app.box.com/s/xz7konjqj14csolzia9vywqa3l3glpgy
https://app.box.com/s/ybbt6uipcu6npkhluy9r080m7lbh8mi5
https://app.box.com/s/rjwat70yh751755volku8e43lliwaruu
Veavao
6 Posts
0
August 31st, 2015 00:00
Hi. I just wanted to find out if your problem is no longer present. I took your advice and installed a cooling fan to blow air on the RAM and it has stopped my screen from flickering like it use to. I thought my problems were over but I noticed the flicker returned when I would expand a window with a lot of white to full screen.
chingdaotze
3 Posts
0
August 31st, 2015 00:00
Yepp, more than 24 hours straight and no issues for me. I specifically opened a (mostly) white page in Internet Explorer to test. Other than the fan-and-hole mod the only other things I tried were replacing the thermal paste on the CPU with Arctic Silver 5, and flushing the heat sink radiator with water to clear the dust. I also ordered heat sinks for the RAM, but I never installed them because the problem seemed to be fixed.
Here's a thought: What if one of the RAM sticks is bad? Can you try running the PC only populating one slot at a time and test? Maybe swap out one stick at a time to see if just one of the sticks is giving you trouble. Or maybe one stick is blocking airflow to the other stick. Sorry I can't come up with better suggestions. Good luck!
mvis2012
9 Posts
1
August 31st, 2015 02:00
Make sure you can feel the air at the other side when the fan blows. Initially, the holes I put in were small (as you can see all the holes were like outer holes, i.e smaller). This did not solve the problem and I had to make the holes bigger (see the inner holes) until I can feel the air on the other side.
I know what you are talking about re the "lot of whites on the screen causing the flicker". I saw that same behavior on my Dell XPS One 2710.
In case you need the 5V-to-12V converter, see the photo of the one I bought from Fry's. Connect the USB end to the USB of the PC, then connect the fan to the other end.
https://app.box.com/s/s7jbap9d18pdr038esws4cfs866vkx0u