Fixed my screen flicker... - Page 12

Thats good to know, but ours will do it with nothing plugged in and just running on the battery. Crappy wiring desing in ours.

just got my notebook back. turned it on and its not flickering at the moment.

Well thats good. Ive had mine back for a couple weeks now and still no flicker has showed up I am very happy.

I just pushed those pins together as explained on Compman55's site and so far so good. I get a flicker every once in awhile but very un noticeable.

Huzzah! Followed http://emachines.fizi.ca 's screen flicker fix, and my baby is as good as new! I can once again love my laptop!

I followed Compman55's guide as well, although with some modifications. See my post here:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?p=1751301

What a difference a non-flickering screen makes! Works pretty well so far, no flickers yet. Cross your fingers!

*yanks his external LCD out of the VGA port and puts his 7405gx on his lap with a smile*

I have a Gateway MX7515 that I bought in October. I noticed this flicker in January I believe. It's not constant and isn't driving me crazy yet, but I can see where it eventually will. After looking at the pics my machine looks externally identical.except a Gateway logo instead of EMachine. Is my model the same inside?

Yup, they're the same. Gateway bought eMachines and put their logo on their laptops. Good luck; let us know how it turns out!

My screen was flickering like crazy too. BB fixed the cracked hinge and replaced the LCD to try to fix the flickering. After a month, the flickering came back. The cause was a defective lid switch. This switch is usually off but it turns on intermittently causing the screen to turn dark as if you were closing the lid. What I did was cut off the two wires, red and black, and now no flickers. And also, if the power option is set to go to stand by when the lid is closed, it would behave like your laptop is shutting down also. The switch is located on the right hinge(facing the lcd) and is activated by a lobed cam when the lid is closed.

Hope this helps.

Hmm. This wouldn't help me any because I never touch the switch when opening my screen up. I do however notice the flicker goes away when I remove and reinsert the inverter wires on both sides. When I put it all back together it stays flicker free for about a week. Huh? Perhaps it is a combination of the two in some cases?

Thats why you need to recrimp, and use glue so they don't loosen back up.

Yeah. On it. Just Picked up a glue gun. I need new hinges also! Anyone? anyone?

I bought a 7426GX back in june of 2005 and had to swap the keyboard out from it back in february of this year. Other then that; the GX is working great.

My problems started when i bought the MX7525. I got it. wouldn't boot up. Normally I just wipe them and reinstall anyways without all their crap but I had a bad feeling so i swapped it. Got that one and there was a dark spot over my system clock. It wasn't extremely noticable but very annoying when the entire screens light colored and it gets dark down in one corner. So I swapped it a second time and the third one had a similar but not so apparent dark spot down there. Whatever; I love the laptops despite them being eMachines they are quite sturdy and number crunching machines. I always swap out with 7200rpm hitachi drives for a bit of a better performance.

My new MX7525 is starting to flicker on the screen a bit. I looked over the guide and may attempt it if it gets worse. I have had to take these things apart before when Gateway swapped my keyboard on the GX. It is rather simple once you can get the screws out from the bottom and the bezel where the power and volume controls can be a bit tricky.

Hopefully I can fix this flicker though cause i read someones response about wanting to kill kittens when it started to flicker and i can totally relate to that. Overall these machines are very good and for the price they have decent hardware. Get a 7200RPM DRIVE!

Great thread!!!!!!

I bought a 7426GX almost one year ago... after my camping trip this past weekend the thing started to flicker... I only had a 90 day warranty so I need to fix it myself. I read through the entire thread and must say it narrowed things down rather quickly. I would like to add that from all of the info gathered here I went right for the problem area. I pressed on both sides of the screen at the location where the inverter is and that stops the flicker and increases the brightness too!!! When I let go it sometimes stays and sometimes flickers. Time to take it appart. Thanks for all the great info.

On a side note does anyone have a problem with usb devices sometimes not working? + the dvd writer in mine is crappy at best.

Fixed it...

Rather than tearing the whole thing appart:

I unscrewed the 6 screws holding the front of the screen together... did the card trick to get everything appart. Popped the hinges appart and flopped the thing gently over (everything is still together at the hinge) being carefull not to crack anthing. next I popped out the inverter and took the two plugs off... then at the male ends I took a pin (needle kind, thick sturdy gauge) and went in and slightly bent the pins, and i caution slightly!... on the 2 prong in went from || to / \ and on the six prong(i think it was 6) it went from |||||| to \\\/// just not such big angles... I put everything back together... and no more flicker, plus i got a couple of extra brightness setting which i must have lost since new. So I kind of cheated on the fix because I'm lazy and didn't want to tear appart more of the laptop than I had too, but everything works great now!

Yeah, I think 99% of the flicker problems boil down to the connector coming unseated over time. My hot glue solution worked for me, your pin bending worked for you, and I'm sure there will be other solutions involving tape, solder, and who knows what else. Shame on Gateway for not doing anything about this. My next laptop will be a Mac lol.

What USB devices are you having problems with? I believe that the rear ports do not get as much power as the side ports. For example, I can run my card reader with the extension base through the side ports, but it doesn't work on the rear ports.

As far as power goes it seems that my ports are ok. But the problem I have is the thing stops recognizing the devices properly. Example: My mp3 player and camera... everything works great until one day it decides that nothing is formatted, even though it is. A reinstall of windows clears this up but if i try to unistall and reinstall just the usb drivers it doesn't fix it... really annoying.

yeah I had screen flicker and bright/dimness and it was a loose harness I got the tutorial on fixing it somewere here in notebook forums it worked great once I glued the harness in place.... but it is starting to do it again maybe I should crock this babay open again.

wow great thread . I came on here looking for a gateway service manual, instead found this thread which is the same issue I'm having, and what I wanted to fix.