Laptop screen flickers- infrequent and for a split second

I am using Toshiba Satellite M 70 notebook, purchased about more than one year back and really like it( Pentium M70, 512MB Ram, 40 GB HD). So far it has been without major issues.

The only problem now I face is that some times the screen flickers for a second or a fraction of second. It happens randomly, once or twice in a day and the flicker is more prmonant in lower part of screen . Seems a minor issue but it irritates me as I think it,s too early for a laptop to show such an issue and it might progress with time. What u think of it? Is it an issue with the graphics chip( it has Mobile Intel 915 GM), Motherboard or any other hardware? Does not seem to be a software issue to me.

BTW I have seen such flicker in two of the Acer latops with my friends but in their case it was more frequent and very prominant, especially on one of those Acers, all the screen will flicker and shake for a second/ or a fraction of a second, a very very unpleasant feeling.

My problem is that I can,t even show it to a tech as I don,t know how I can reproduce this flicker to show him, it happens randomly and infrequently.

Any ideas about this? Thanks

 

Borrow someone's camcorder. When you see the flicker, stop the camcorder and note the frame # (or however it tracks). Then show this to your tech!

-rich

 

Good idea! But I need to record for hours.

 

Just set it up and when the disk fills up just start over! (You'll need the AC adapter so you won't drain the battery!)

-rich

 

Connect an external monitor, if the problem exists on external as well, that would eliminate your LCD, Inverter and Backlight from the failure list. A 'backlight' failure will still leave a faint image to see in the LCD and there should be several, as they are built into the edges as super-thin fluorescent tubes.

My ten year old Dell still looks as great as new, my 34 month old Dell's LCD failed 33 months into a three year warranty.

Only leading symptom had been a 'gold-tint' seen on boot-up and then it went black, without warning, full 'dim' on brightness and it would work for a few minutes on boot-up. After a report on Dell Support Website, was given a choice of send it in, or Dell would send me a new screen.

Dell overnighted an LCD 'kit' that had a New Cable along with the screen which has the Invertor attached to the lower edge, took less than an hour to swap the components.

 

Thanks pilotort, it, a good idea. Someone has suggested that it seems an invertoer issue that should be changed.

Seems currently the build quality of laptops is poor as compared to the past.