x120e Flickering

[MidnightSun]

Ever since I updated to BIOS 1.11, I've intermittently had the screen-flickering-lines issue (interestingly, haven't had it before then). I've been trying narrow down a predictable way to reproduce the issue, but so far I've sort of failed.

Usually, the issue comes up after the X120e is left idle for some time, with maximized applications open. The flickering seems to occur only in maximized applications, and stops once the window is restored. However, if it is maximized again, the flickering continues.

The flickering also seems to decrease with time--when it starts, there are initially many lines and near-continuous flickering. Then, the rate decreases until it seems to go away on its own accord.

A reboot fixes the issue.

[destring]

I can confirm, after going through 2 X120e laptops, updating the bios, not adding any additional RAM, etc... the issue still exists.

[KGr_ss]

I had a momentary screen flickering issue.

It was very specific though... Whenever I brought up the hotkey overlay (like brightness control or volume) the right hand side of the screen flickered while the overlay was up.  But this only happened on a few webpages... when I opened a new tab or went to a different tab, the issue disappeared.  Issue reappeared though when I switched the browser back to the page that exhibited the flickering.  Browser was IE9, and now I can't recreate the flickering.

Feels very random.

[clicq]

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destring wrote:

I can confirm, after going through 2 X120e laptops, updating the bios, not adding any additional RAM, etc... the issue still exists.

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Thanks for the update. This makes me think it's some driver/firmware issue and not hardware .

For those that have the flickering issue, could you try running something GPU intensive (like playing a flash video) to see if it makes the flickering stop when it's occurring?

[destring]

I agree it must be a driver/bios issue. I have yet to experience the issue with linux on the laptop running from a usb drive, or at the bios screen. But the issue occurs at what appears to be completely random within Windows (I use 7Pro w/ SP1 64bit). It can occur just sitting at my desktop, browing the web with Chromium, watching a video with vLC player. Please give us some sort of update to fix this ohh might Lenovo Engineering Dept.

[JameZ]

@All,

Appreciate if those who are having this flickering issue could check on the checklist which I've posted in page 5. Then let me know if you have done all of them.

@destring,

You mentioned that you have 2x 120e without additional RAM, are those RAM Lenovo preloaded? Also have you tried reseating the RAM?

//JameZ

[destring]

Yes

[MidnightSun]

Thanks for checking in, James.

1.- Yes: as I mentioned, the issue only occurred after updating to 1.11, although that could possibly be coincidental.

2.- Yes:  I removed the 2GB stick of DDR3 1066MHz RAM I installed (Lenovo-branded; Samsung chips), but encountered the flickering issue again the day after.

3.- Yes: I reseated both sticks after the experiment in #2.

4.- Yes: I have all W7 updates including SP1, and have pretty much all the latest Lenovo drivers as well.

[JameZ]

Appreciate the confirmation guys. Am checking with engineering on this again.

//JameZ

[JameZ]

@All.

Please check our support link http://www.lenovo.com/support on the X120e drivers. There are some new drivers which has been updated on the web however still not on TVSU yet.

Also do update video card driver to the following.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-77141

//JameZ