New Inspiron B130 Random Screen Flicker Twitch

Question

I just bought an Inspiron B130 - and it seems very randomly and every once in awhile, my screen twitches or flickers. It doesnt do it constantly, but it does do it and since this unit is not even 30 days old, I am wondering what should I do?

I tried moving the screen back and forth and it does not "twitch or flick" when doing so.

I have tried doing different power schemes, from "portable laptop, to home/office, and even always on. Did not fix the problem.

I ran Dell Diagnostics on the display, it found no problems.

This is really beginning to worry me, because I do not want to be stuck with a machine that will have flicker problems in two months down the road because I did not address them within the first 30 days of purchase.

This is a brand new laptop and it shuld not have screen flicker problems, yet it does.

It has done it while I am just sitting with no programs open and it has done it while running an online game.

My mp3s play choppy too, anyone have any idea what is going on?

cmspaz · Answer

My E1505 does the flicker thing too, and I haven't thought much of it. Sure, it can be a sign of a faulty or dieing LCD panel, but as long as it dies within warranty, I'm not going to worry about it.

And in thinking about it, my screen only flickers while I have my second monitor attached. You don't by chance use two monitors, do you? It also didn't start until recently for me, so I'm thinking that something I've changed caused it, but I've been too apethetic toward it to actually try to figure it out.

I don't know what could be going on with your mp3 playback, though. Audio choppiness is generally caused by hardware bottlenecks, be it an overworked cpu or audio card, but I HIGHLY doubt that on any machine newer than 1998. I can run iTunes on my old desktop (which doesn't meet the iTunes RAM and CPU reqs) without any audio issues. Your problems is probably software related. What have you (un)installed lately?

Message Edited by cmspaz on 07-05-200608:58 PM

chaistt · Answer

Hi, if your screen is flickering like that i would get it repaired/ or whole unit replaced. It will only get worse as it could be the backlight going. I had a TFT monitor do that on me from brand new and got that replaced as it got really bad. As for the choppy music try updating the drivers.

mmorpg · Answer

I spent about an hour with a very nice lady from Dell. Walked me through some thing, as it did not fix the problem, I am still monitoring it and making slight adjustments.

Was informed it at least is not a hardware issue and is most likely a software issue.

I am beginning to think it is the bloated Mcafee processes running in the background. I just uninstalled Mcafee totally. Don't need the firewall or spam killer anyway.

Hopefully this will stop the 30 or so mcafee processes running in the background that hog resources.

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New Inspiron B130 Random Screen Flicker Twitch

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