Fixed my screen flicker...

Congrats! let us know if it stays fixed

Sweet deal! You posted this with perfect timing, I just made a post last night about screen flicker problem (which I've never had before last night) on my 7405gx. I'll give this method a try tonight, thank you!

Well - got my RMA back.
So far so good.
The Arima/Emachine simple solution???
Change my MOBO

Wow this is one annoying, nightmarish ordeal. When my screen flickers I feel like strangling kittens or puppies or small children or etc.

I removed the screen panel from my 6805 for like the 20th time yesterday. After trying lots of little adjustments to the wires and putting pressure on the inverter with foam tape I decided to use some electrical tape to "tie" the two plugs into their sockets, and found that by pulling the left wire taught the screen wouldn't flicker. So I also used some electrical tape to hold the left wire as taught as possible (using elec tape loops in the hole in the screen casing where the wires leave the screen assembly), pulling slack from inside the laptop.

I THINK this has stopped my flickering. At least until the tape loosens up.

I don't understand this problem. It's like there's a loose connection somewhere, but it's anything but obvious or major. I've inspected every end of the wires going to the inverter and nothing is broken or frayed or shorting from what I can tell.

BTW, is it an inverter? Or is it some sort of crazy DC step-up thinger? I know that you can get a good zap off the things if you're not careful (i've experienced this on a GameGear lol)

ahhh! my screen has been flickering like crazy. sometimes it will stabilize, sometimes it just flickers and flickers. It seems to be doing it more often. I'm going to find a fix for this asap...*digs out electrical tape*

We need to nail down a procedure for fixing the screen flicker and make a guide with pictures. My flicker has been really bad today and it's bugging the heck out of me. Right now I have the top panel removed and the laptop is on. The screen flicker has disappeared. I think that pdasg is right ("It appeared that the panel above the key-board (one housing the power, audio buttons etc) was touching those wires when put in place."). Nothing on the top panel is touching the LCD wires and I have zero flicker, so that must be the problem.

I'm going to play with the panel and the wires and see if I can replicate the flicker problem and then isolate the cause and make a fix for it. I hope it's something as simple as using electrical tape to tape down a few of the wires. Wish me luck!

Thanks Kaido- because my 2 RMA's have not fixed the problem. The 3rd would put me over the edge.
Take pic's if you can

I think the flicker is a result of the LCD wire getting pinched.

I took off the top panel and inspected all the wiring. I'd take a picture but my camera is horrible with macro shots. I found the following on the Gateway 7405gx:

Top panel - one white ribbon connected to the motherboard
LCD, left side - one thick silver wire connected to the motherboard
LCD, right side - two thick silver wires connected to the motherboard
Hinge, right side - one thin red wire, one thin black wire

The right hinge is made of metal (on the inside, under the plastic hinge cover) and has a rounded triangle piece of metal on the end that hits a trigger switch that shuts off the screen. This is the piece of hardware that you can control your computer's reaction to (when the lid closes, do nothing, go on standby, shutdown, etc.). The thin red and black wires come from piece of electronics.

The left LCD hinge wire doesn't appear to have any problems.

The top panel's white ribbon wire isn't bothering anything. Also, it doesn't look like the green electrical plate on the panel is touching the two LCD wires on the right side. However, I'm not sure about that.

One of the two right-side LCD wires looked kinda crimped or pinched. I think either the plastic from the top panel or the electrical board from the top panel is smooshing it. If it's the plastic, then it's probably just pinching the wire which I guess makes the screen flicker. If it's the electrical board, maybe there's some weird electricity transfer that makes it flicker. If it's not one of those two, then maybe that section the of the laptop is overheating and causing problems.

pdasg pushed his wires back and his screen flicker stopped. I think that's a pretty good sign that the top panel is causing the problem, probably from pressure to the wires. I noticed the right-hand LCD wires are taped to the under-keyboard metal plate with a piece of cloth electrical tape of some kind. I don't have any of that, but I think I might try using a piece of regular electrical tape to hold the two LCD wires down after I shove them down. I think the screen flicker is simply the result of a poor design - the wires should have a more permanent solution than being free around the curve and then being taped above the motherboard. Oh well.

I have had zero screen flicker since removing the top plate. I'm hesitant to put it back on, lol. I'll make another post when I've either tried the electrical tape or found something that works.

shoot, I'm leaving the plate off for now. this is the first time all day my screen hasn't flickered

I was curious to see what kind of wire arrangement I could work up, so I removed the piece of black tape on the right-hand LCD wires. To my surprise, I discovered that there are not two but THREE silver LCD wires there. I had assumed that pdasg meant that there were two LCD wires then the lid-trigger wires, for a total of three. Nope, there really are three silver LCD wires, I was just confused. I'm pulling them out as I type this. I'll post again when I figure out a better way to arrange them.

I really wish they'd just stapled the wires to the plastic or something, then there wouldn't be this problem. I'll try to figure out an easy procedure for fixing this so that anyone can follow the directions and have it be permanent.

okay, here's a picture. I still can't find my graphics program disk, so Microsoft Paint is the photo editor of choice

The red arrow is pointing to the three LCD wires. To the right of the wires you can see a small green square with a screw in it, that's the lid trigger device. If you follow that you can see an insulated boot with the red and black wires coming out of it. Underneath all of those wires is a metal corridor for the wires to go in under the top plate. All of the wires fit fine in the corridor. The problem lies in the space before the wires go into the corridor -- the wires themselves are too fat to squeeze in without overlapping, thus getting pinched.



Maybe if I can shove the wires down and put some epoxy in there to hold it in place ^_^

Well, I had my dad hold a screwdriver to shove the wires in while I popped the top back on. Looks good so far. I'm going to let it sit for awhile and go have some dinner and see if it starts flickering later. I think that if you just play with the wires, rearrange them a bit, and shove them in good enough, they'll stay when you put the top panel back in.

Yup, it passed the screen open/close test. yay!

I think electrical tape is a good option, but I haven't figured out the best way to put it on. Some of the material in there is metal, some is plastic. I don't know how well the tape would hold on or for how long, but I will give it a try if I get any more flicker. It seems that shoving it in there works pretty well since it doesn't have anywhere else to go (at least I hope it's lodged in there and not just waiting to pop out if I close the screen too hard). Oh well, dumb design. If anyone else has a good idea on how to keep the wires down there really well, let's hear it! I want a good procedure for fixing this problem for good.

On a seperate note, the new Realtek drivers are really good! They added a lot of volume and quality to my 7405gx's speakers. I was just listening to 'Boulevard' by Green Day, what a difference!

Has anyone taken into consideration that the metal foil tape covering the monitor wires may be somehow arcing with the underside of the top panel metal?