D610 - PowerPoint Presentations Flicker

Question

I have a Latitude D610  P4 - 2.0 ghz with 512mb ram, Radeon video card, running WinXP-Pro-SP2 (Tested on WinXP SP1 OS as well).   Our reps run MS Powerpoint presentations on all 20 D610s we have in our stock. The presentations have embedded video consisting of client testimonials, etc in various slides of our 35 - 40 slide presentations. Whenever the embedded video slides are prompted for display, the laptop's screen does no less than two or three of the following: 1.) video/screen jaggedly flickers 2.) entire screen turns a shade of green and 3.) stalls the laptop to a screeching halt up to the point we have to end the presentation process in the Task Manager.   We have  D600s that do not have this issue. I'm in IT and build the computers from the ground up (ie, OS and device driver installs). But our Multimedia Specialist in another department, builds the Powerpoint presentations and downloads the presentation files onto the laptops after I've compled the D610s build.   Does anyone know if this is a known issue with D610s and MSOffice or is there a conflict with Radeon video cards and playing embedded video that is correctible with driver updates applied to the Radeon card? I've encountered this anamoly in both XP Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2.   Thanks in advance for your response.

jpw79803 · Answer

I have a similar problem with a Latitude D610, configured with Windows XP and Office 2003, with ALL the latest patches and service packs.

PowerPoint presentations flicker for at least thirty seconds or so when changing slides, or when resizing the PowerPoint window. Changing from Truecolor to the Medium 16-bit setting shortens to flicker time to about ten seconds, but does not eliminate the problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

gerryR · Answer

Probably too late (I was just browsing for problems related to my ordered D610) but we had similar problems with linked movies in powerpoint and upgrading windows media player to the latest version (10) seemed to solve the problem.  (we were getting green screen and crashes too)   hope this helps gerryR

Locke1 · Answer

I also have the same problem on a D610 with Radeon X300 graphics card.  I have not tried to run vido within powerpoint, but have encountered th same problem when attempting to play video in windows media player, adobe photoshop and other programs such as google earth which will flicker infinitely.  These problems seem to somehow be related to the power supply.  When I am running on ac power they rarely occur, but they consistently occur under battery power.  I have updated to all the latest video drivers but that has not solved the problem, in some ways it seems to be worse.

BTCE · Answer

The trigger appears to be using the FN+F8 key to activate the projector. For some reason, the key sequence causes certain applications to go into 'continuous zoom-in' mode. Adobe Acrobat, MS Powerpoint, and Internet Explorer get stuck into continuous zoom-in. The symptom is screen flicker in Powerpoint, zoom to 6400% when you load a PDF and touch it in Acrobat Reader, or 'Largest Font' in MS Internet Explorer. Applications, such as 3D Architect, must not be using the DLL that the other ones use since 3D Architect is not affected by the zoom-in issue. Once the trigger is pulled, the only way to clear the problem is to reboot the machine.   The only way to avoid the problem is to not use FN+F8. I have a few suggestions:   option 1. 1. Map a video profile to ALT-F11 (or whatever key you want) to enable the secondary monitor port. 2. Connect the machine to the projector, turn on the projector and let it start syncing. 3. Select ALT-F11 to 'turn on' the port so the projector can sync up.   option 2. 1. Plug in the projector whenever you need it. 2. Turn the projector on. 3. Go to Control Panel>Display>Settings>Advanced>Monitors and enable the external monitor port manually (press the 'red' button on the monitor icon). If you time it right, it should sync up. If not, then you may have to press the 'sync' button on the projector to have it retry.   option 3. Try a docking station. I have not tried this yet, but it seems that it should work as the external monitor is consistently syncing up when the machine is docked.     Byron BTC Enterprises, Inc.

ggorman · Answer

This thread has a potential solution. I have the same problem and will test it next time I'm around a projector.
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=latit_video&message.id=21991&query.id=175718#M21991

Disable Intellitype.

Greg

Locked Topics – Laptops General

D610 - PowerPoint Presentations Flicker

Was this post helpful?