Laptop video issue... flickers like crazy when the driver is installed.

[DennyD]

I sold an HP ze 4210 laptop with a fresh clean install of XP Pro on it and she said it worked perfectly for at least 2 weeks. Then the screen would flicker off and on, sometimes staying off for a few seconds or longer. Never did it at all in safe mode or vga mode.

Seemed like the driver was toast. Uninstalled the driver and the card, then reinstalled it all over again. Worked fine for a while and then began doing the same thing.

I went out and reformatted the machine, deleting all partitions. It did not flicker once at all during the install. Even after getting into a new XP Home install it was flicker free. It went nuts once I installed the driver from the Windows update site.

Uninistalled that driver and went to ATI to get thier driver and it does the same thing.

Basically, it works perfectly in VGA mode or safe mode, but when you use the driver the screen flickers. I've seen it; it flickers too much to use it at all.

Any ideas?
Thanks!
Dennis

[Mr Nobody]

You should stick with the laptop manufacturer's driver. Laptops are finicky and a lot of the video is customized for the particular machine. You cannot get away with using the generic ATI Catalyst in some cases.

Out of curiousity, what is the video chip on the laptop? Radeon Mobile?

[tmpz]

Ati recommends getting drivers from the laptop manufacturer.

Maybe you need drivers for the laptop lcd screen. It does seems like a driver issue.

Or, reinstall and don't update the driver.