Image flickering in PowerPoint97 and Dell Inspiron 9200 laptop

[Dan]

Hi, I have this maddening issue with our Dell laptop screen flickering in
powerpoint ONLY when an external monitor Fn+F8 is triggered. When a slide is
played, no problem but only in the main application. Doesn't matter if it is
a blank presentation.

Can someone help with this as Dell cannot figure it out. Note that the
motherboard and video adapter are replaced, and so was the video drv updated.

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Those symptoms generally point to a system resource problem, perhaps with
the video RAM. (Just a guess, but let's run with it.)

How much regular RAM does the laptop have? Does the laptop's video card
used shared RAM for either or both video outputs? Does you system recognize
all the actual RAM that you have installed? How big is the swap file? Does
the Hard Drive indicator come on a lot of the time?

If 256Meg of RAM is split between Windows, PowerPoint, and 2 video drivers,
it just ain't nearly enough. Even 512 would be pushing the system pretty
hard.

As a reference, both the video cards in my main computer have 32 meg of RAM
just for themselves.


--
Bill Dilworth
A proud member of the Microsoft PPT MVP Team
Users helping fellow users.
http://billdilworth.mvps.org
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
yahoo2@ Please read the PowerPoint
yahoo. FAQ pages. They answer most
com of our questions.
www.pptfaq.com
..
..

 

[Dan]

Thks for your response.
It is a brand new Dell Inspiron 9200 laptop running XP Pro w/SP2. All
security updates installed. System RAM is 512MB and video is not shared at
128MB. It is not the file size because even a brand new blank presentation
will do that. Seems like a refresh rate problem because there is a thick
horizontal line that comes vertically down and start all over again from the
top. Using a new user profile does that too. Trying it out with Powerpoint
2003 also does that. Found out too that when Word2002 is used, it will
expand the view to 500% and we can't modify it. All these will go away once
I reboot the system. However, enabling an external device (don't have to
plugin anything physically) using Fn+F8 will bring back the problem.

 

[Sonia]

Have you downloaded the latest video driver dated 6/20/05 from the Dell website
http://support.dell.com/support/dow...=INS_PNT_P4_9200&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=6434?
(You might need to cut and paste that URL in your browser.)

New systems almost always ship with old video drivers because of the long life
cycle from factory to your lap.
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Echo S]

Man, that sounds awful. If the video card is causing weirdness with Word,
too, though, it seems to point to a systems thing as opposed to an Office
thing.

Have you tried changing hardware acceleration? See instrux at
How to set graphics hardware acceleration back
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00129.htm

 

[Dan]

Yes, I have downloaded the new driver and also adjusted the hardware
acceleration. I've basically tried everything except for returning this
laptop. Hopefully, someone can tell me what I have not tried.

 

[John O]

Yes, I have downloaded the new driver and also adjusted the hardware

acceleration. I've basically tried everything except for returning this
laptop. Hopefully, someone can tell me what I have not tried.

Go to the Dell Support forums for your machine. There are some pretty sharp
people there, including Dell employees. Maybe there's a quick fix, or maybe
you find out your system is busted. It's worth the time to check it out.

-John O

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Just as a thought...

What is the size set for on the two monitors?

Bill D.