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Display flickering/blinking (looks like a low refresh rate) [Thinkpad X220]


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Hello,

 

I installed El Capitan according to the guide at http://x220.mcdonnelltech.com on my Thinkpad x220. While the system runs mostly fine so far, I have the problem that the display exhibits a subtle but noticeable blinking/flickering. One example where this is clearly visible is the screenshot at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Twm-screenshot-20050401.png. The title bar of the xterm window (more specifically, the dotted bar right of the "xterm" label) flickers on my X220 LCD on Mac OS X. There's no flickering when displaying the same screenshot on Linux.

 

I thought this could be somehow related to the refresh rate. I tried the "cscreen" utility (http://www.pyehouse.com/cscreen/), which shows a refresh rate of 0. When trying to change it, nothing happens (no apparent change in behaviour, cscreen still shows "0")

 

It also seems I'm not alone with this problem. The author of the aforementioned x220 guide could reproduce the behaviour on his x220. User "janohan" at He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named seems to have a similar problem (topic "Blinking screen elements - low refresh rate?").

 

Any ideas what could be the cause for this behaviour? Has anybody else have a display flickering problem like that on their hackintosh? Any hints greatly appreciated :)

 

I suspect this must be somehow related to the graphics driver? Is there any other component besides the graphics driver which could be responsible for this behaviour? Could this be the backlight? (in what extent does the operating system control the backlight?)

 

 

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According to the thread you just linked on tonymacx86, it's a known problem on OS X with certain monitors. Unfortunately, the only way to fix it is to use a different laptop.

 

By the way, you can say tonymacx86.

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