Predator 17 G9-793 screen flickering/flashing/blinking black unpredictably

WillyWongka
WillyWongka Member Posts: 8 New User
edited March 2023 in 2017 Archives

The whole screen would flash for a tiny fraction of a second to black, seemingly without any particular trigger I can point to. It will flicker during normal web browsing, watching a movie, or even playing a game. The odd thing is that it seems to happen several times in a small period of time (several minutes, sasy), and then stop happening for several hours after. I could be wrong though, because I haven't been using it long enough to tell for sure.

 

I've looked at posts from before to find ways which I could resolve the issue. It's not an application problem because task manager also flashes. First I tried clean uninstalling (with and without DDU) and installing the graphics drivers. Then I updated the BIOS to 1.09. Then I factory reset Windows. Then I updated every driver available for the laptop on the Acer support site. Then I tried turning off G-sync (which, side note, I am still also somewhat confusesd about the support of G-sync on this laptop, but that's besides the point). Then I tried the Nvidia Inspector program and set the fixed refresh rate to 75hz. The only thing that some succeeded to do was to give me the placebo effect of having 'fixed' it only for the problem to manifest a few hours later. (I had great hopes for the fixing refresh rate fix, as it delayed the problem's reappearance for a good period of time - several hours. I was very disappointed when I found myself wronged.) Essentially, I tried everything I could possibly do. In the end, none of these worked. Currently the blinking/flashing/flickering seems to happen from a few times every minute to once every few minutes.

 

I've had this laptop for about two weeks now, and the issue became clearly apparent on day two. It may have flickered a few times on day one, but not enough for me to have taken note of it. I've already emailed Acer support about it. They've already booked a repair for me but I am posting this in case I can fix the issue without sending it in. (This is largely becasue I still don't strongly believe that it is a hardware issue, and I am afriad that they might not be able to find the source of the problem and end up having my time wasted.) Any help would be massively appreciated. Thank you very much.

 

i7 6700HQ, 16GB Ram, 128GB SSD+1TB HDD, GTX 1070

Best Answer

  • WillyWongka
    WillyWongka Member Posts: 8 New User
    Answer ✓

    Just a follow up:

     

    The laptop had a faulty motherboard. It got replaced now and the problem's gone.

     

    The technician however did an absolute crap job of putting the heatsink back on, using crap thermal paste and not even screwing it tight. The temperatures reached over 90 degrees Celsius just on idling. I've remedied that now and it idles in the mid 30s.

Answers

  • WillyWongka
    WillyWongka Member Posts: 8 New User
    Answer ✓

    Just a follow up:

     

    The laptop had a faulty motherboard. It got replaced now and the problem's gone.

     

    The technician however did an absolute ***** job of putting the heatsink back on, using ***** thermal paste and not even screwing it tight. The temperatures reached over 90 degrees Celsius just on idling. I've remedied that now and it idles in the mid 30s.

  • AVJim
    AVJim Member Posts: 110 Enthusiast WiFi Icon

    Good feedback and I think some others on here are experiencing similar symptoms so maybe this is a more widespread issue.  I am curious did you do a complete repaste on the heatsinks or just tighten them up a little...

     

    Acer if I could run the company for one day I would get some decent thermal paste and train my builders on how to properly apply it!!!  

     

    Come on Man!!!

     

    Good luck with your laptop my friend!

  • WillyWongka
    WillyWongka Member Posts: 8 New User

    I did indeed repaste the heatsink (with Arctic Silver 5) and tightened the screws up.

     

    You know how thermal paste is almost always a gray-ish colour? Theirs was gold-ish; it probably wasn't even what you could technically call thermal paste; they cheap out on the wrong things. It shouldn't take more than a few seconds to tell the technicians how to apply it and doesn't take more than that to screw screws properly.

     

    I shouldn't have any more problems with my laptop, at least not in the short term. Thank you!

  • AVJim
    AVJim Member Posts: 110 Enthusiast WiFi Icon

    Yes I know exactly what you mean about the gold color paste...I've seen that stuff ship with a lot of cheapo heatsinks for mobos and stuff. 

     

    Glad to know you were able to straighten it out man.