Latitude E6410 NVS 3100M Screen Flicker

Same issue.  It must be related to updating BIOS above A08.  I have experimented with reverting the nVidia drivers back and forth, even using the Beta versions.  I haven't tried to flash BIOS from A13 back to A08.  Not sure how to go backwards --- do I simply flash A08 over A13?

I ended up on BIOS A12 after using tech support who thrashed around without a clue, reloaded without taking latest BIOS and it has been fine for a month. Dell knows about this issue.

Happily took my Bios up to A12, above (A13)seems to be where the problem is at.

Phone tech support (3 year warranty) and push them, need a new BIOS chip to get it back if you have gone to A13. Not sure if you can flash back, think the auto.exe forbids going back

Mine has now been stable for a month

Odd, you are the first person I am aware with an old BIOS having this issue.

Re the NVidia, this sounds more like a hardware/cleaning issue than the software unless you are playing mental games.

One thing about the Dell's over the years, I always hope the graphics card cracks up before the 3 year warranty runs out, and they generally do. How old is your unit?

My laptop is just one and a half years old and I've had these two issues: crash when coming back from sleep which seemed to be related to GPU temperature (not 100% sure though) and the flicker sometimes which seems to appear only when the display is turned on after power manager turned it off (also reproduced once after the mentioned crash). I brought nVidia for the laptop only to try out Cuda. Never did and now I regret a little that I brought nVidia since the laptop is hotter with this card and I almost never use it's features.

Adding a 'me too' for this problem.  The flicker after the LCD gets power again is insane.  People come from across the room to mock me about it.

Running BIOS A12.  Chip is nVidia NVS 3100M, with driver 9.18.13.593.

Will try not having power saving mode turn the screen off, but that's a poor solution. I'm on battery frequently and want the machine to work properly.

E6410 bios v A13 Win7 Pro Sp1 64bit.  Had terrible flicker problem coming out of sleep or hibernation after A09 video update.  Flicker rate seemed to correlate to high harddisk activity on LED, but  a reboot would resolve every time. Tried disabling BIOS setting for ambient light sensor, no change.  Changed BIOS drive controller setting from RAID to ACHI, no change.

Based on one of your posts,  requested a link to Dell's Archive for Nvidia NVS 3100M video driver A08 which contains vendor driver version 8.17.12.5922  from Dell Tech Support Chat staff, which provided a Dell download: nVidia_multi-device_A08_R285549.exe.   

Thru device manager did uninstall of display adapter and Nvidia HD audio devices with box check to uninstall software for both.  Ran R285549 just to extract download, but cancelled automatic software install.  Rebooted.  Cancelled automatic hardware installs.  Then from Device Manager, did manual software updates one at a time, browsing to the location of extracted download, for display adapter and all HD Audio components.

All flicker issues seem to have resolved just from this manual roll back of driver Dell A09 8.17.12.9679 to Dell A08 8.17.12.5922

Don't think my specific method of clean uninstall A09 and manual install A08 is required, as long as you get a clean uninstall and reinstall A08 properly your own way.

Hope this adds to the overall solution and not confusion.

As the thread suggest, roll back bios

Did you roll back the bios and get this sorted?

My fix has now been working a few months Since I originally posted.

No reason it shouldn't work on 32bit because everything in the thread and our fixes points to a bios update that effects the way the motherboard interacts with power management so 32 or 64 should be the same.

Keep us updated please, it's nice to know they can come to us for tech support. Dell that is :)

FXWRXSYS  ... Is your fix still working? Do you think it will work for 32 Bit versions of the driver? thank you for posting the solution.

I have BIOS version A06 and the problem still occurs. It seems, however, that if you disable the "turn off screen" option from power management, the problem doesn't happen anymore even with the latest nVidia driver (at least on BIOS A06).

What BIOS should I rollback to? Do I need a new chip? I am running A13?

Other people are suggesting that the BIOS is not causing the problem. Other people are suggesting that the problem is w/ the video driver. What do you think?

Thanks.

--Carl

I think the problem is the combination of the BIOS and the driver. My combination is working for quite some time but I cannot suggest to roll back to BIOS A06 from A13 ... I don't even know if it is possible. I think Dell should fix this somehow with a driver and/or BIOS update. Others has suggested that it is a hardware problem. Also Dell support suggested that I take the laptop to a service. You may want to try that ...

Err yuh, this whole thread has centred on A13 being the problem, neither would I recommend A6 as iterations through to and including 12 are fine.

The video driver is fine, the issue lies with how A13 interacts with the mobo upon power resume, which seems To be 'underpowered' for want of a better term which causes the Display issues. The video driver works fine as long as it doesn't power down in A13