X61s stuck at unpleasant 50Hz

[olifiers]

Hi there,

I've seen a few posts here about the X61s LCD display only allowing 50Hz, and I want to confirm if there's no way of changing this to 60/70Hz. It's really straining my eyes -- you can see how much if flickers if you use peripheral vision (looking away from the screen while having it at the corner of your sight).

I'm about to start fiddling with it using PowerStrip an the likes, but before doing so I want to be sure there isn't a more elegant way of setting the refresh rate above 50Hz.

Cheers! =]

[tamasrepus]

LCDs don't flicker (at least not the way you're describing). Are you sure whatever you think you are seeing is not mental?

If you're gaming, this is going to cap you at 50 FPS with vertical sync enabled. That's the only real-world consequence that comes to mind off the top of my head.

[olifiers]

I'm positive it flickers -- and I'm not getting mad, as the first to complain about it was my wife!

Seriously, I'm not using it for gaming at the moment, especially because the Intel X3100 chipset is not the best around for it. The flicker is on regular windowed aplications, the brighter the worse (as expected).

I admit I'm quite more sensitive to flickering than most people, I can tell a monitor is on 60Hz straight away and usually set up all my gear to 75Hz+. The X61s is really driving me mad with the 50Hz.

Anyone with tips to raise the frequence of the display? Otherwise I'll play with some 3rd party tools and let you know afterwards.

[Xtal]

LCDs are persistent so the pixels stay on at all times, unlike CRTs. Due to the nature of LCD screens, adjusting the refresh rate in Windows does nothing to improve flicker.

If you really are seeing flicker it might be due to the CCFL (cold cathode flourescent light) which provides the backlight for the LCD.

The frequency of the CCFL is controlled by the power circuitry in the computer which means it can't be changed. Perhaps your CCFL is faulty and should be replaced.

I can also detect flickering easily in my peripheral vision but my screen doesn't flicker at all.

[noetus]

Hmm, I have used Powerstrip to set the (vertical) refresh rate on a custom MacBook Pro panel (WUXGA) all the way from 60hZ down to 19Hz, and I can confirm that there is definitely flicker at the lower refresh rates - at around 20Hz it is quite unbearable, and the low refresh makes moving windows around, etc, very slow and annoying.

Yes you CAN set refresh rates on an LCD panel.

And you can set back porch, front porch, sync rate, and all those other timings on LCD panels, as well. Just take a look at PowerStrip.