Asus G74 screen flicker (dark backgrounds and low brightness)

[380mcn]

Hello everybody.
I have an asus g74 and it seems that the screen flickers with a dark background.
If i put the maximum brightness it won't be visible but as it goes down to the minimum the screen starts to flickers. It is a little annoying since i paid 1600eur (2200$).
I have seen other 3 with the same problem. The place where i got it told me it was the inverter. Is yours the same?:confused:

Regarding this issue i don't have any complaint so far (1week of use)

Best wishes

(i don't know the model in question but mine is the one with the i7 2870, 16gb ram, 2hd 500gb, gtx560m 3gb ddr5, no 3D, full hd)

[ny2lond]

LCD panels are pretty hard to break. Increasing the refresh rate won't hurt it in any way (i got mine to a stable 115 HZ and nothing happened - don't do the same, mine was just for testing). If there are anomalies, the test will send an "unsuccessful test" error. The worst that happened to me was for the screen to go blank showing lines, like in a broken LCD. All i did was to get out the battery unplug the laptop and restart it.
LCD panels have certain ranges of resolutions and refresh rates that are supported. Plus, this is what ASUS responded to me:

"Dear valued customer,

Thank you for contacting ASUS Customer Service.

Thank you for your advise, If other customers have the same problems, I will share your solution to fix the flickering problem in G74SX model. Thanks again."


@DrBeltway: The issue appears to happen only on Chi Mei (CMO1726).

[Tear_a_Bee]

I tried the 67hz solution but it didn't work for me. I still get flickering on this site: http://www.3dtotal.com/index_page.php?id=8#.T7z1_EUnxkw

[DrBeltway]

To rule out the obvious, you did go back after making the custom resolution, select it and hit apply and OK, right? I forgot when I tried it the first time. :rolleyes:

Which LCD panel do you have? (Device Mgr, Monitors, Double click "generic PnP...", click details tab and look under Hardware IDs in drop-down box)

As ny2lond pointed out, the flickering issue seems to be unique to Chi Mei (CMO1726) panels, but maybe you either have another panel using different backlight frequency OR Chi Mei could have made your LCD with slightly different component.

Either way, it looks like you'll have to do as ny2lond did and experiment, trying different refresh rates and testing after each one to find the ideal rate for your particular panel.

Thanks again to ny2lond's testing, we know the CMO1726 panels should have no trouble with custom refresh rates up to 115Hz. Just guessing, but I think the right rate shouldn't be too far away from 67Hz.

Good luck and please post what you come up with.

[Arvizu360]

This works! great 🙂

[muzhik]

works, fixed the flickering... thanks

[DaManWitDaPlan]

DrBeltway wrote:
Which LCD panel do you have? (Device Mgr, Monitors, Double click "generic PnP...", click details tab and look under Hardware IDs in drop-down box)

I'm having the same problem on a G75VW, and the solution didn't work for me at 67 or 75 hz... Still those horizontal lines.

I have a CMO1720 monitor, as found in the device manager.

I'm currently just testing a bunch of refresh rates. I have the latest verde driver installed. Any ideas?

[ny2lond]

DaManWitDaPlan wrote:
I'm having the same problem on a G75VW, and the solution didn't work for me at 67 or 75 hz... Still those horizontal lines.

I have a CMO1720 monitor, as found in the device manager.

I'm currently just testing a bunch of refresh rates. I have the latest verde driver installed. Any ideas?

I changed my G74 for a G75 (the RMA ****ed mine up when it was in the 1st time, so i had to wait 2&1/2 weeks without my main workstation), so i can try and help you.
First of, install the beta drivers from Geforce site: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/46429.

If this doesn't fix your problem, I need more details about your horizontal lines problem, so I can try replicate the situation. What driver do you use, BIOS (hit F2 on bios start-up screen), and if it's choppy image in fast movement video or just the 1-2 pixels wide problem.

Note:
What i did see is that in fluorescent lightning conditions the flickering is seen better. I tweaked mine again to 67 Hz and it worked flawlessly. (ASUS, why do you still use the dubious Chi Mei screens)

[DaManWitDaPlan]

ny2lond wrote:
I changed my G74 for a G75 (the RMA ****ed mine up when it was in the 1st time, so i had to wait 2&1/2 weeks without my main workstation), so i can try and help you.
First of, install the beta drivers from Geforce site: http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/46429.

If this doesn't fix your problem, I need more details about your horizontal lines problem, so I can try replicate the situation. What driver do you use, BIOS (hit F2 on bios start-up screen), and if it's choppy image in fast movement video or just the 1-2 pixels wide problem.

Note:
What i did see is that in fluorescent lightning conditions the flickering is seen better. I tweaked mine again to 67 Hz and it worked flawlessly. (ASUS, why do you still use the dubious Chi Mei screens)

Hi! I'm happy to see someone willing to help... lol

I do have the latest verde driver installed, 304.79. I also have a custom resolution set at 67 Hz (also tested 60 and 75). I never really noticed any flickering problem, just those 2 pixel high lines. Also, not sure what you mean by choppy images with video... I mean, I've noticed some screen-tearing with certain games, but that's normal for most computers lol. Although, I must say, a couple of days ago I was playing Team Fortress 2 and I noticed that the dark-grayish-brown background of the TF2 MVM menu was flickering just a little bit. HOWEVER, I can deal with that. That's not the issue I want to fix right now. My #1 concern are these damn lines that I can't ignore...

Here's my thread, which details the problem (and which 2 others are complaining about as well): http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?20249-Weird-faint-screen-lines-over-everything-on-G75WV-BBK...

I'm busy at the moment on this pc but when I restart I'll let you know what ver. my bios is. Thanks!!

[DrBeltway]

I never saw horizontal lines myself, so I don't know if refresh rate changes would affect them. I would guess not, though. My issue was a very subtle flickering effect on certain backgrounds.

Apparently the lines have been fixed for some by downgrading NVidia drivers to version 285.79

More info in THIS thread.

If the older driver doesn't work, it might be worth it to try the latest BETA Verde driver.

In the end, if you don't want to stick with older video drivers and you're not opposed to RMA'ing the notebook, I would highly recommend it. First, however, if downgrading drivers helps, I would send NVidia some feedback on their driver forum with your notebook and monitor info. They tend to be pretty good about working with monitor makers and getting fixes out (eventually).

[ny2lond]

DrBeltway wrote:


In the end, if you don't want to stick with older video drivers and you're not opposed to RMA'ing the notebook, I would highly recommend it.

Trust me, you don't want to RMA. I had a fried/dead bios Mother Board (so they've told me). After i got it home, I had to RMA it again as the touch pad would't work (defected connector strip. Couldn't wait more than 2 weeks because of my work) and the keyboard wouldn't light up and worse, sometimes the keyboard would't respond - not even light up the CapsLock LED (i had to restart my laptop to make it work, in some cases).

A defective driver is no reason to RMA it. Also, the flicker part is easy to repair by yourself.

Cheers from Romania 😄