I’m suffering from screen flickering on Linux on an external screen. The only thing I can narrow it down to is the power cable causing interference as when the laptop is on and the just the screen is on, it’s fine. When the laptop is on battery power, then the screen is fine.
However, connect the two and you get flicker I’ve tried to separate as much as possible but the power lead is the same end as the VGA outlet:sigh: Are there any other methods I could use to help reduce/get rid of the flicker?
Don’t know much about this sort of stuff but a cheap fix might be a torroid twice round the power and/or monitor leads.
If you can’t get the plugs off try this
This is a VGA cable from your laptop to the external screen I’m guessing? If it’s the external screen that is flickering the first thing I would check is the screen refresh rate in display settings. It might be that the output is incompatible with the external screen (say, 75hz instead of 60hz). Other than that, connect the monitor to a desktop PC with the same cable, if it flickers, try a different VGA cable. Most VGA cables have a suppressor on them (that lump at the end of the cable) and it’s possible yours might be breaking down Chris.
Thanks for the tips. However, it works fine when there are no power supplies anywhere near the laptop so the refresh rate I imagine is fine. The cable was fine on my desktop about a month ago (ok, so I could try it again).
Both the power cable and the VGA cable have the lumps, are these torroid’s as Balrog mentioned already?
hmm when you have the charger plugged in as well as the screen are they plugged into the same outlet? if not try, if you can, i different outlet, sometimes things like this can be caused by certain devices running from the same power source.
I’ll give that a try but it’ll be hard - I have one socket nearby that’s got a surge protector on with 8 sockets (5 are used) for the PC but it’s worth playing about and seeing if that helps.
I’ve been assuming that the screen is an LCD but maybe it’s an old CRT. If so how close is the lappy power brick to it and do the power leads run close to it.
Might be worth temporarily replacing the surge block with a standard one.
My work laptop does different things when its on battery power, different brightness setting for the built in display and stuff like that.
Are there any advanced settings for power managment regarding displays ?
I’ve tried to separate as much as possible but the power lead is the same end as the VGA outlet:sigh: Are there any other methods I could use to help reduce/get rid of the flicker?