Brand new Predator G9-593 flickering screen

edbarnett

Hi everyone,

 

I've checked previous topics on this forum, but haven't been able to solve my issue.

 

From the very first time I used it (March 2017), my Predator 15 laptop has suffered with seemingly random fits of screen flickering. They seem to happen with no set pattern, and I'm a little confused. It more often than not will have screen flicker when on battery, but today has been flickering non-stop whether on batter, off batter, during gameplay or when doing low level word processing tasks.

 

Can anyone help, as this is a real frustration for such an expensive laptop.

 

Thanks in advance.

edbarnett

In the aim of completing the story here, I need to inform everyone of how UTTERLY useless Acer have been. I would NEVER recommend this company to anyone. Their customer service is on par with HP's, and that's not something to be proud of.

 

Although this "screen flicker" fault was a minor complaint, I thought, having spent £1,700 on a brand new laptop, I should take the time to return the product for analysis and repair.

 

Booking the repair was easy enough, but communicating with the contact centre (based in the back end of nowhere) following the return was the single most painful experience of my life. They had no way of contacting the service center (in the UK) to give me an update on the product, and at regular intervals would tell me "we're waiting for parts", "the parts are in", "no, we're still waiting for parts", "the laptop is fixed", "no, it's been escalated for repair" etc. etc. etc. And that was only from me chasing them amost every single day. God knows what would have happened if they'd been left to their on devices. Their contact centre is the single biggest waste of time and money - and that's for ME. Heaven only knows how much of a waste of money it is for THEM.

 

Anyway, that's the first half. Having reached my wits' end with the contact centre, and with them refusing to pass me useful contact details of someone UK based who could handle my complaint properly, I FINALLY found a number online to call Acer UK to complain. From this point onwards, the people were far better informed, but appeared to care equally as little about the inconvenience this whole fiasco had caused me, offering no form of compensation or goodwill gesture for THEIR faulty product.

 

Their response to my complaint was painfully generic, but at least I could speak to someone who had information on my repair to hand. 15 working days later, I finally knew what had happened and was going on. The main board was replaced. Twice. And now "it's fixed". The laptop arrived back a few days later.

 

Sadly... sadly... sadly... as soon as I turned it on, I turned the laptop on and it flickered immediately. The problem hadn't been fixed, and I ask myself what level of imbecile you have to be to work at Acer? They only had to turn the laptop ON to see that the problem hadn't been fixed. If Acer happened to know their elbow from their arsehole, they may have noticed their repair work had failed.

 

Anyway, not wanting to be without my ONLY laptop for another 15 days - bearing in my I run my own business - I decided to give Acer the option to send a replacement or stick any future business from me where the sun doesn't shine. They chose the latter.

 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a VERY good reason why you shouldn't use Acer. They won't win any more business from me ever again. Awful service, severe lack of empathy and compassion, terrible systems and process. A shameful excuse of a "modern" IT company. SAVE YOURSELF THE MONEY AND THE FRUSTRATION!

 

If you've got the same product and you've landed on this page to find a fix, I'm sorry for your loss.

Rares95

From what I've read around the internet, Acer uses PWM to control the brightness of the screen.

Only at 100% luminosity or with Health Guard on you can prevent PWM. Try one of those. If not maybe reinstalling the graphics drivers. If you have Windows 10 Creators don't install the latest 381.65 drivers as they will prevent windows from booting.

edbarnett

Just to put this into layman's terms, you were right.

 

The Acer Predator laptops use some sort of screen technology that means the screen flickers when you try to reduce the brightness. I didn't realise, but my screen brightness was set to 90%. I've now made it 100% brightness, and the issue has gone. A bit of a shame, as it's nice to be able to dim the display at times, but never mind.

 

Thanks for your help.

Rares95

It's odd, because you shouldn't notice the PWM. Maybe you should RMA it or something...if not you can use something like PangoBright to dim the luminosity

edbarnett

In the aim of completing the story here, I need to inform everyone of how UTTERLY useless Acer have been. I would NEVER recommend this company to anyone. Their customer service is on par with HP's, and that's not something to be proud of.

 

Although this "screen flicker" fault was a minor complaint, I thought, having spent £1,700 on a brand new laptop, I should take the time to return the product for analysis and repair.

 

Booking the repair was easy enough, but communicating with the contact centre (based in the back end of nowhere) following the return was the single most painful experience of my life. They had no way of contacting the service center (in the UK) to give me an update on the product, and at regular intervals would tell me "we're waiting for parts", "the parts are in", "no, we're still waiting for parts", "the laptop is fixed", "no, it's been escalated for repair" etc. etc. etc. And that was only from me chasing them amost every single day. God knows what would have happened if they'd been left to their on devices. Their contact centre is the single biggest waste of time and money - and that's for ME. Heaven only knows how much of a waste of money it is for THEM.

 

Anyway, that's the first half. Having reached my wits' end with the contact centre, and with them refusing to pass me useful contact details of someone UK based who could handle my complaint properly, I FINALLY found a number online to call Acer UK to complain. From this point onwards, the people were far better informed, but appeared to care equally as little about the inconvenience this whole fiasco had caused me, offering no form of compensation or goodwill gesture for THEIR faulty product.

 

Their response to my complaint was painfully generic, but at least I could speak to someone who had information on my repair to hand. 15 working days later, I finally knew what had happened and was going on. The main board was replaced. Twice. And now "it's fixed". The laptop arrived back a few days later.

 

Sadly... sadly... sadly... as soon as I turned it on, I turned the laptop on and it flickered immediately. The problem hadn't been fixed, and I ask myself what level of ***** you have to be to work at Acer? They only had to turn the laptop ON to see that the problem hadn't been fixed. If Acer happened to know their elbow from their arsehole, they may have noticed their repair work had failed.

 

Anyway, not wanting to be without my ONLY laptop for another 15 days - bearing in my I run my own business - I decided to give Acer the option to send a replacement or stick any future business from me where the sun doesn't shine. They chose the latter.

 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a VERY good reason why you shouldn't use Acer. They won't win any more business from me ever again. Awful service, severe lack of empathy and compassion, terrible systems and process. A shameful excuse of a "modern" IT company. SAVE YOURSELF THE MONEY AND THE FRUSTRATION!

 

If you've got the same product and you've landed on this page to find a fix, I'm sorry for your loss.

angomy

The thing is not everyone actually notices PWM, supposedly only a small percentage of computer users will actually notice PWM below a certain flicker (and certainly not many at the 10k+ that the G9-593 panel is at).  That's why almost all laptop manufacturers will use displays that have PWM especially in their cheaper models, and the majority of desktop monitors also use PWM.

 

If you're sensitive to PWM that's something you will unfortunately need to look up in the future for your other laptops --- the majority of non-high-end laptops have PWM under 100% brightness.  Laptopmedia has a list of panels that do not have PWM: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-pwm-ranking-rated-by-negative-impact-on-eyesight/

 

It personally doesn't bother me (in fact my two external monitors both have worse PWM) but I know a couple of people who get headaches or eyestrain or are just very sensitive to the flickering no matter how high it goes.  It may not be visible to the naked eye but it always registers in the brain and that causes some people to have visual problems.

edbarnett

A sample of the flickering might help... I'm pretty sure this is visible by everyone.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cn9nlf467axln9h/Video%2017-07-2017%2C%2009%2054%2034.mov?dl=0

angomy

OK that's definitely not PWM.  I bet it's a loose or faulty display connector to your panel, surprised that all they're doing is replacing the motherboard  

edbarnett

Thanks for checking (and replying). I appreciate the time.

 

Yes. Well, my experience of Acer leads me to believe that the blind lead the blind in their business...! Steer clear, everyone.

sxlk

edbarnett said:

A sample of the flickering might help... I'm pretty sure this is visible by everyone.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cn9nlf467axln9h/Video%2017-07-2017%2C%2009%2054%2034.mov?dl=0

Hey! Finally, you fixed it? how?