Question Slight flickering/color shift on Dell laptop ?

[hyperistic]

Hey all,

Laptop model: Dell Latitude 7420
1080p touch display
Intel Iris Xe graphics
Windows 11 24H2

I’ve been running into a weird issue on my laptop. All drivers are up to date, and using the latest Intel Graphics Command Center software.

What’s happening:
I’m getting slight flickering or a subtle color shift, but only on certain dark colors, not all dark shades. It’s most noticeable when an app is showing a blur effect in the background.

What I’ve tried so far:

• Uninstalled drivers with DDU and reinstalled the latest Intel drivers
• Tried older graphics driver versions too
• Disabled Panel Self Refresh and Display Power Saving Technology
• Disabled adaptive brightness
• My display supports HDR for video streaming only, so I also tried disabling that

No luck so far.

This doesn’t feel like a hardware issue (fingers crossed) and I’m leaning toward it being some kind of software/driver quirk. Has anyone else seen this? Any tips on tracking down the cause?

Watch this video to get a better idea.
https://streamable.com/3x0qex

 

[COLGeek]

Power the system on and access the BIOS. Does this behavior happen there?

You can also boot the system (from a USB drive) with a Live Linux distro. Does it happen with a different OS?

 

[hyperistic]

Power the system on and access the BIOS. Does this behavior happen there?

The Bios has white background/theme, it only appears on some specific dark backgrounds

 

[COLGeek]

The Bios has white background/theme, it only appears on some specific dark backgrounds

I added this before your reply.

You can also boot the system (from a USB drive) with a Live Linux distro. Does it happen with a different OS?

 

[hyperistic]

Power the system on and access the BIOS. Does this behavior happen there?

You can also boot the system (from a USB drive) with a Live Linux distro. Does it happen with a different OS?

I Will check and let you know

 

[hyperistic]

I added this before your reply.

You can also boot the system (from a USB drive) with a Live Linux distro. Does it happen with a different OS?

It's happening on linux too🥲

 

[COLGeek]

It's happening on linux too🥲

That confirms a hardware issue then. Is this system still under warranty?

 

[hyperistic]

That confirms a hardware issue then. Is this system still under warranty?

Warranty is long gone.
Could it be the ribbon cable not well seated, that's the only thing I can think of now.
Hoping its not the issue with the display itself

 

[COLGeek]

Warranty is long gone.
Could it be the ribbon cable not well seated, that's the only thing I can think of now.
Hoping its not the issue with the display itself

Sure, a ribbon cable could contribute to this. Has this system been dissembled before?

And, it could be a defective display. Does this happen on all on a connected external display?

 

[hyperistic]

Sure, a ribbon cable could contribute to this. Has this system been dissembled before?

And, it could be a defective display. Does this happen on all on a connected external display?

I recently bought it second-hand from a local shop here. It could have been disassembled before. I don't know its history.

For the external display part, I'll try connecting to external display to confirm.