Flickering on startup

[Patient_Zero]

Afternoon, folks.

These past few days, I've been experiencing an issue that has me somewhat baffled. When I boot my computer up first thing in the morning, my screen flickers. It's a strobing effect of sorts. I can still see the screen. The picture is fine, aside from the flickering. No colours are out of place or anything of the sort. This problem occurs during POST, all the way through to the windows login screen, and then suddenly stops. I can reboot several times and not reproduce this problem. It only occurs when the computer has been off for a period of time, say, a few hours.

Obviously, it's not a driver error or it wouldn't be occurring during the initial boot up. The video card itself(XFX GTS 250) is about a month and a half old and has never experienced this problem up until four days ago. Now, it's a morning routine waiting for the flickering to stop before I can login.

Suffice it to say, I'm a little dumbfounded here. I've seen many hardware failures, but none like this. Assuming the problem is with the video card at all, do you think it could be a temperature issue? Room temperature in here is fairly mild. The card itself never runs any hotter than 40 degrees Celsius when I'm running typical windows apps. And this problem never occurs while I'm running windows apps or playing games. It's only during the initial 40 seconds or so of the first boot up of the day.

Has anyone had a problem like this before? Any ideas of what could be wrong?

 

[coozie7]

Try checking the video cables, it sounds as if the card and monitor are not in synch at startup.
Is this a flat panel or CRT monitor, if the latter, it could be the monitor on its way out.

 

[Patient_Zero]

I've swapped the cables. That's not the issue. I'm not sure about the monitor, though. In the past, when I've encountered a failing video card or monitor, the problems are usually intermittent or they happen once and poof! it's dead. If it was the monitor, I would expect the issue to be intermittent. This problem only happens during startup after a long period of the computer being shut off. Both the monitor and the card work beautifully during normal operation.

I just find it very odd how this problem is very specific. As I said, most progressive failures I've encountered started with intermittent problems that occurred under random conditions.

Some extra info: The monitor is a Samsung 226bw(original 'S' version), and it is connected with a DVI cable.

 

[Guest]

Hey, folks. I have a XFX HD 4890 XT. When I installed it at first time, I could not see any startup flickering problem. But because of freeze problem of internet video streaming movie, I have changed 3D refresh rate override to " same as desktop" instead of " disable" at Catalyst control center to fix freeze problem, but it won't work. So, I set 3D refresh rate to factory defualt which is disable, since that time, I started to have a startup flikering problem. Called XFX tech support, but they do know the problem, but no solution. So, I changed 3D refresh rate override value to 60Hz which is my Samsung 2333sw monitor, and then the startup flickering problem was gone & normal. But I am still don't understand why this problem is happened even though I reset & reinstall driver. So, try to do what I did as follows;

1. Go to Catalyst Control Center
2. Go to Display Option menu
3. go to " 3D Refresh rate Override option
4. Change the value from Disable to whatever your monitor refresh value ( mostly 60Hz )
6. Click Apply & OK
7. Restart the computer.

Now, you will not see the startup flickering and other flickering issues. If you still see the flickering problem, and then it will be the OS issue. So, you should reinstall OS again, and then you will not see the flickering problem of XFX HD 4800 series video Card. I hope it helps you to solve the problem

 

[KanjNarayan]

I have exactly same problem as "patient_zero" described except that I am using a laptop with LCD plug and play monitor. There's no graphic card and the display adapter is- Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family.
Also I'd add that this flickering used to occur last winter especially when temperature would be less than 10 degree C. Last summer there was no problem. Now this winter is almost gone but my screen still flickers. Could this really have to do with weather?

 

[iamvoodoo]

I have same problem, but my card is NVIDIA so I can't use catalyst center. Help?

 

[iamvoodoo]

..

 

[ancient11]

MOD please close this thread.

iamvoodoo, if you need help please create a new thread..

Maybe im a little slow on the uptake---but why???
Are we so rule conscience that we forget the real reason that a forum exists? I am not saying their shouldn't be rules however sometimes the only thing exceeding the ignorance of some of the rules is the arrogance of the person presenting them.

Having all of the discussion about flickering desktops in as few threads as possible makes it a lot easier on people seeking help later.

 

[OvrClkr]

Maybe im a little slow on the uptake---but why???
Are we so rule conscience that we forget the real reason that a forum exists? I am not saying their shouldn't be rules however sometimes the only thing exceeding the ignorance of some of the rules is the arrogance of the person presenting them.

Having all of the discussion about flickering desktops in as few threads as possible makes it a lot easier on people seeking help later.

You need to understand something, this thread is over 8 months old, so it's considered a dead thread. If you are interested in this topic then feel free to open up your own thread