Video Stutters

I have a brand new e1705 2GB RAM, ATI Radeon x1400 video and the video seems to stutter and have other problems. I talked to tech support who told me to update drivers (I already had) and then they told me there was nothing else they could do. I tried grabbing the latest ATI drivers from ATI's website, and the problems seemed a little more frequent. I don't know if it's a hardware problem or if the x1400 is just plain bad. Hopefully I'll figure it out soon.

A few more details on video problems:

I have a 2005FPW attached as a second monitor to the laptop. When I unlock my laptop both screens go back to showing their original contents, however after a second or two the 2005FPW will blink (black for a second or two), then the laptop screen blinks (for a second or two), then the 2005FPW will blink again. Things seem to settle after that, but at seemingly random times after that I'll see the picture on one of the two screens stutter or jump quickly and less occasionally the screen may get partially garbled for a very short time.

As soon as I finish up a little work that needs to get done I'll be back talking to Dell support about a replacement... this is getting really annoying. My old 8100 never had problems like this (of course it was getting a bit slow, but slow and reliable isn't all bad).

I am having the exact same problem. When I login to unlock my system, both displays flicker a few times before I am able to continue working. If anyone has found a fix or even a reason that this is happening, I would sure like to know about it.

Thanks
John

I have a 2005FPW attached as a second monitor to the laptop. When I unlock my laptop both screens go back to showing their original contents, however after a second or two the 2005FPW will blink (black for a second or two), then the laptop screen blinks (for a second or two), then the 2005FPW will blink again. Things seem to settle after that, but at seemingly random times after that I'll see the picture on one of the two screens stutter or jump quickly and less occasionally the screen may get partially garbled for a very short time.

As soon as I finish up a little work that needs to get done I'll be back talking to Dell support about a replacement... this is getting really annoying. My old 8100 never had problems like this (of course it was getting a bit slow, but slow and reliable isn't all bad).

The random screen flickering does only seem to occur when a second monitor is attached, hopefully most users of the e1705 with the x1400 don't do this or Dell will end up with many disappointed customers.

I spent *way* too much time trying to convince Dell support about this problem. In the end technical support basically ignored me. I was hung up on, and throughly annoyed. I talked to customer service and had them process a return for the computer.

At this time I believe Dell is ignoring the problem. One of their tech support people told me they don't even work with ATI on these types of problems (hopefully sadly mis-informed tech support person otherwise don't expect a fix). I tried ATI support, but they refuse to even support their video card because its purchased through Dell.

If you're hoping for a fix I wouldn't hold my breath. I ended up going back to Dell customer service and getting a full refund. I have been able to verify that this problem doesn't occur with the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7000 GS so if you use two monitors as much as I do you may want to consider that option, but for an extra $200 that's an awfully tough pill to swallow for something that *should* work and something Dell *should* support and already have a fix for (my opinion of course). I'm a long time Dell customer, but my experience with Dell and in particular (both from technical and from customer support) on this problem was about enough to leave Dell for good.