Laptop display blinks after every 5-30 seconds

[starsplash]

So my client told me that he has a problem with his laptop ASUS Vivobook S301LA (Windows 8 64 bit, Intel HD Graphics 4000, Intel i3 4010U 1,7GHz, 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM)
He described me a scenario, when the screen would start blinking:
"I was watching a TV show on VoD [probably Flash then], and then the screen would blink with a 30 second interval."

Then the scenario, when it'd blink after every 5 seconds: "I had three Firefox windows on taskbar, one of them was playing a YouTube video. And then the screen blinked every 5 seconds."

Thought maybe it's a Flash issue, so I uninstalled it through TeamViewer. But the problem persisted. And what suggests that it isn't a Flash issue, is that the screen blinks even on the Windows' password-entering prompt, when you're booting.
I'm not sure where should I even start fixing the problem. I've googled for quite a while, tried the recommendations given by people, and nothing seems to be working.

 

[MrNeeds]

Hi starsplash, how old is the laptop, or have you no idea? I've had a look on the asus website and it looks like a driver update was released for the graphics card about 2 months ago, here is the link to the page Notebooks & Ultrabooks - ASUS VivoBook S301LA - ASUS

 

[starsplash]

Laptop is only a month old. By coincidence my other friend bought the same exact laptop from the same shop, and also around a month ago. He immediately changed to Windows 7 64 bit though, and he hasn't reported any problems (which is funny, because this laptop seems to have support for Windows 8 only - since ASUS' website does not have drivers for Windows 7).

You mentioned drivers update. On the website I chose Windows 8 as an OS, headed to VGA and the latest Intel Graphics Driver has a release date of 2013/07/24 and version V9.18.10.3204.01. I logged in to my friend's computer through TeamViewer and checked the laptop's graphics driver version in Device Manager, and it's identical to what the ASUS' website has to offer.

 

[starsplash]

Helpful person Journeyman Geek on Superuser.com (https://superuser.com/questions/819291/laptop-display-blinks-after-every-5-30-seconds) asked, if the blinking occurs, when I'm connected to the computer through TeamViewer - and the answer is that, no, I don't see any blinking, while my client is desperately tells me that his display keeps blinking. So if I don't see any blinking through TeamViewer, could it be that the issue is hardware-related?
Should he return the laptop, since he does have a 36 month warranty?

When I see him online again, I'll tell him to test his laptop with an external monitor, to see if the blinking still occurs. We'll see how that goes...

Cheers!

 

[MrNeeds]

Sounds like a hardware failure to me, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions just yet, teamviewer is a handy tool to find issues(underlying ones), it maybe that the driver reports to the screen incorrectly or if it's a hardware issue, a different monitor would definitely check if this is the case.

meanwhile, I checked the driver version and it's showing newest driver is 06/01/2014 (dd/mm/yyyy) with version V10.18.10.3355.02



direct link is http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/DriversForWin8.1/VGA/VGA_Intel_Win81_64_VER1018103355.zip

 

[starsplash]

"a different monitor would definitely check if this is the case."

I tried with an external monitor, and turns out that only laptop's display blinked, the external monitor didn't.

"meanwhile, I checked the driver version and it's showing newest driver is 06/01/2014 (dd/mm/yyyy) with version V10.18.10.3355.02"

If you check the link, you can clearly see that the driver is meant for Windows 8.1 (DriversForWin8.1), but my client's laptop has Windows 8:
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/DriversForWin8.1/VGA/VGA_Intel_Win81_64_VER1018103355.zip

 

[MrNeeds]

"a different monitor would definitely check if this is the case."

I tried with an external monitor, and turns out that only laptop's display blinked, the external monitor didn't.

"meanwhile, I checked the driver version and it's showing newest driver is 06/01/2014 (dd/mm/yyyy) with version V10.18.10.3355.02"

If you check the link, you can clearly see that the driver is meant for Windows 8.1 (DriversForWin8.1), but my client's laptop has Windows 8:
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/DriversForWin8.1/VGA/VGA_Intel_Win81_64_VER1018103355.zip

Windows 8.1 drivers will work with 8, it's just a service pack upgrade with some added features, the driver will still work but.... I would get the laptop back to the shop and get a replacement, this is a hardware issue, specifically with the panel that ships with the laptop. Have a word with the client and discuss backup options and let us know how things turn out.

 

[rvcjew]

Does the screen blink if the client moves the screen back and forth to other positions? Sounds like software as MrNeeds has said or bad invertor/loose-pinched cable.

 

[starsplash]

Windows 8.1 drivers will work with 8, it's just a service pack upgrade with some added features, the driver will still work but.... I would get the laptop back to the shop and get a replacement, this is a hardware issue, specifically with the panel that ships with the laptop. Have a word with the client and discuss backup options and let us know how things turn out.

I had a physical access to the laptop for a few days (he needs the laptop for school, which is in another town).
So I installed the new graphics drivers from your given link. And after that I tried hard to get the screen to blink, but without results. So I let my client to do his every day tasks - open a few browsers, few Flash live streams, a word processor, YouTube, etc. And, the screen just wouldn't blink. There seems to be no logic in the occurrence of blinking. He mentioned that sometimes all he has to do, is open a browser window and a word processor, and it'd start blinking.
I'm very pessimistic that the driver update helped, but we'll see. Hope it did though. I'll let you know of the situation during the next week.

Does the screen blink if the client moves the screen back and forth to other positions? Sounds like software as MrNeeds has said or bad invertor/loose-pinched cable.

So I tried different positions and this did not generate blinking. But the thing that I'll let my client try later is to move the lid to a different position and then execute his daily operations - maybe it's a specific position when the blinking starts.

 

[MrNeeds]

Windows 8.1 drivers will work with 8, it's just a service pack upgrade with some added features, the driver will still work but.... I would get the laptop back to the shop and get a replacement, this is a hardware issue, specifically with the panel that ships with the laptop. Have a word with the client and discuss backup options and let us know how things turn out.

I had a physical access to the laptop for a few days (he needs the laptop for school, which is in another town).
So I installed the new graphics drivers from your given link. And after that I tried hard to get the screen to blink, but without results. So I let my client to do his every day tasks - open a few browsers, few Flash live streams, a word processor, YouTube, etc. And, the screen just wouldn't blink. There seems to be no logic in the occurrence of blinking. He mentioned that sometimes all he has to do, is open a browser window and a word processor, and it'd start blinking.
I'm very pessimistic that the driver update helped, but we'll see. Hope it did though. I'll let you know of the situation during the next week.

It sounds very promising, however if it is fine then we're all good. Keep us updated.

 

[andrew129260]

If the blinking continues, I def think it is a gpu problem. Or possibly a loose wire. Laptop hardware issues are hard to diagnose as they are not as easy to work on like a desktop.