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trouble shooting blinking screen on note book

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by defragme

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I have a client with a Hp Compaq nx9420 note book running Xp Pro with SP3. Last week the screen started blinking out of the blue. It's a quick blink just like the blink of an eye but it's working on her nerves and I can't figure it out. The last thing I did on her system was install a Webcam (Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 Pack) but have been installing them on multiple systems with out anyone else having this problem. One interesting thing I noticed was a caught a quick glimpse of the hour glass after each flash\blink. So far I've tried Checking the AC power, added an external monitor and it also blinked along with the note book screen, uninstalled the Webcam software, updated the graphic drivers, updated the BIOS. The only thing I can think of next is to physically check out the video board. I'm new and have never done this but I do have the manual from HP and am only going to see if something came loose. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

6 replies

by tmalo627

But maybe try to see what type of screen saver she has set. Maybe there was a 3rd party software one that was removed incorrectly. Just a thought.

If not check the Scheduled Tasks in the Control Panel to see if that is trying to trip something that isn't installed properly.

by dr.engnr

Try a malware scan and check if an event is generated when it blinks.

by ---tk---

If you have two nx9420's switching the HDD's and see which PC is effected by the blinking. b/c it almost sounds like a hardware/heat problem... but it could be driver related.

Or you could throw in a Linux live distro, run it for a while, and see if it starts to blink... if it doesn't blink like windows then I would lean towards a driver problem. if it does blink I would lean towards hardware.

Best of luck!

by jswentworth

My laptop does that occasionally when the power cable works a bit loose from the power brick. It can be plugged in fine at the wall and at the laptop, but loose at the brick causing it to switch between battery and AC and making the screen blink. A complete check of the laptops power chain might be worth a few minutes of your time.

by defragme

I think the flashing was due to heat, long story short is that the system was still under warranty so I replaced the video board, and while doing so I needed to pull out the fan and heatsink, the heatsink end was covered in lint and blocking the vents, I blew everything out, replaced the board, fan and heatsink, tested out the sytem for about 10 minutes (in my room which is ice cold)and everything was fine, no flashing. But, less than a half an hour later the client called and said the screen was flashing again, worse than ever. I went over to get the notebook and as I went to pick it up it was burning hot, instantly I remebered that I never plugged the fans power back in to the mother board. I opened it up and plugged the fan back in and the flashing has not returned. I'm wondering now if the original cause was heat from the lint filled vents. But anyway thank you all for responding to my post, as a newby to this business I can use all the help I can get.

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