Thinkpads Forum

Win 10 pro. Have tried changing refresh rate,updated graphics drivers, deleted all apps added since
I bought it used on eBay 3 months ago. No help. Ran Linux on it same thing
so its not windows ? Can't send it back, $250 shipping from Jamaica.
What can this be ? Bad screen , cable ?
Many thanks- my first visit since 2010 !

My guess would be the screen. Ever seen a LED lightbulb just before it burns out? It flickers like crazy.

IIRC the LED backlight is arranged as rows of LED strips.

Each LED in a row is connected in series, so if one dies "open circuit", the entire row loses power. That's the dark band you see.

But some LEDs dies "short-circuit" which means the more current will flow across that row of LEDs (lower resistance = more current).

When a LED get hot, its resistance goes down, leading to more current, more heat, until it dies. One of the telltale signs of a dying LED is blinking.

You'll need to replace the entire LCD to fix your issue.

Bad news but many thanks. At least now I can put it to rest
and move on. I'm surprised because the machine itself looked
absolutely pristine like it just needed the box to be brand new.
Screens are too expensive for it to make sense to repair.

edit- this 2880 screen is $180 versus $53 for a 1920 res one - will
the lower res one work without changing cable etc ?

Hold on fella, a new screen might not fix this for you depending on what you have going on. This isn't a new problem for the W540 and W541 series - I believe there are some others this generation that are effected. I've had the flickering issues since the beginning and have noticed a few things around the circumstances of mine. Through testing, I found the blinking wasn't actually the screen image flickering but the backlight for the screen. The picture itself was unaffected but the light would flicker. ON BATTERY. After using the laptop and getting the battery below 30% ish, the flickering would intensify. I used a bright light to shine at the screen and noticed then the picture was still there while flashing. I have a T440p I use as well and after testing it on it's battery (which has less wear on it) the better battery would keep the flickering at bay for longer - but eventually would still happen. I now keep my W541 on the dock and no longer have any screen issues. I can take it off and use it around with no issue until the battery starts getting low and the flickering will begin. I believe the issue lies with the backlight controller and how it handles low voltage. I think you would experience less issues by using a better battery vs buying a new screen. My fear is that if yours has the backlight controller issue a new screen wouldn't necessarily solve it. I've had mine flickering pretty badly while testing but I've never had it effect the image quality or anything to do with the image long term.

Mine is a W541 with a i7 4920, the nvidia K2200 (or whichever one) 32gigs of ram, and 1080p screen, it's pretty power hungry. You might get better results with tamer hardware.