New Dell Vostro V131

Thanks for the tip. It seems very strange that there would be no thermal protection system to deal with this situation. I remember somebody talking about this happening with their new Vaio Z and the screen getting damaged in the process.

Yeah, it seems like Dell is a little less flexible when it comes to outlet stuff. It would have been nice if they give you something for your trouble. I would have been *#*#*# angry if my new laptop died right when a major paper was due.

 

I was pretty upset but didn't really voice it on the phone. They said they would give me a new refurb one, but I asked for a refund and thats what they gave me. I really hate to be a jerk on the phone... Those indian people have enough to deal with really...

 

After clean install (W7 Ultimate) I couldn´t find drivers to show brightness/volume bar on display. I have installed all drivers from Dell website and everything is working as it should expect mentioned display bar issue. Any ideas what I should do next?

 

Problem solved, reinstalled QuickSet and it helped.

 

All, just got my v131n today, and I installed a new SSD with a fresh x64 copy of Win7 Home Premium. Whenever the unit is on battery and the brightness is half or less it "flickers" or "flashes"... If it's plugged - no problem, or if on battery with the brightness on full - no problem. Has anyone else experienced this?

 

Make sure you download the intel graphics driver from dell and not from intel. Dell's drivers have different brightness stepping than Intel's which causes flickering. Also, make sure you set your display refresh rate to 60hz instead of 40hz. Right click on desktop and choose Graphics Properties, then change it through the intel graphics menu.

If you still have an issue, I would then think it's a bad screen. Just call dell and they'll send someone to replace the parts. Should be easy. Keep us posted.

 

Refresh by default is 60Hz and I did use Dell's graphics driver's. Weird that it goes away when plugged in... I googled this issues and there are others... people claim they are getting around it by setting power option to High Performance... which I can see for my Sandy Bridge -E box, but kinda defeats the purpose on an ultraportable laptop with supposidly high battery life. Would anyone else be able to set their power option back to "Balanced" - run on battery and set their screen brightness about half way - stand back from the laptop and just watch the display for a few minutes and see if it flickers...

On another note does anyone have the part number for the v131 backlit keyboard. Mine came with fingerprint reader but no backlight on the keyboard. I popped the existing one out and the port for the backlight is on the MB.

****Little update - wiped SSD and reinstalled fresh Win7 - with no drivers installed no screen problems. As soon as I install either Intel "branded" graphics or Dell graphics the screen flicker happens. Again this is only on battery with brightness halfway.

 

I got one more thing to try:

* Right click on the Battery Icon on your system tray and choose Dell Battery Meter.
* Uncheck Enable Dell Intelligent Display and then hit OK.

Now I wasnt sure what you meant when you said flickering, but now that you mentioned that it only happens when it's not plugged in, I think it's the Dell Intelligent Display. It senses the tone of what you're looking at and dynamically dims it or brightens it back up as a way to save battery even further. I was under the impression you meant flickering such as a bad florescent lamp.

 

Not sure what is going on... by default that "option" isn't installed... once you installl Dell's Quickset it appears. So I did that and by deafult that option isn't on, checking it it continues, or unchecked... uggg!!! Thanks for your suggestions...

 

I just had one heck of a time getting the service panel off to access the Hdd. I must say, that was impossible to do without leaving a few marks around the bay. Once its off though, easy to work on.