Laptop screen flashing white

Question

I bought my little sister an Asus x551 laptop from microcenter. It was not even a week old when she called me about a problem it was having. The screen was flashing white occasionally. Since I live 100 miles away, I connected to her computer with teamviewer, which I had set up on my family's computers for just this situation.

While connected and talking to her on the phone, I observed her screen flashing white while I was connected to it. I confirmed with her that she was seeing the flashing too at the same time. There was also a couple of times where the teamviewer connection was ended, and I had to reconnect.

What would cause this fault? After I bought the computer, I replaced the crappy 5400 rpm HDD with a cheap ssd for a speed boost, so I may have screwed something up while cracking it open. I don't think I damaged anything while I was in there though.

Besides, if it was a hardware fault messing up the display, why would I see it through teamviewer? I tried to get a screen recording of it, but I had removed the screen capture software from my computer earlier that day (I was copying my stuff over to a new one).

My next thought was heat. She uses it on her lap without a cooling pad and told me when she's done using it she closes the lid and places it on the carpeted floor. However I've had a laptop that overheated before and when it had a heat problem it just shut it down without warning. That's not what happened in this case.

It was a dirt cheap computer so I don't expect to be free from problems but I've never even heard of this issue before. What could be causing it?

EDIT: My sister visited me the weekend I posted this, and we were unable to replicate the problem in my presence. Still going off the overheating angle, mom bought her a tray to set it on her lap. We have not seen the problem since. I'm not sure which answer to accept since neither of them seemed to solve the problem, although I appreciate them both.

Answer 1

As a computer repair technician of 5 years I can't say that Teamviewer would be a good diagnostic tool. Software of hardware, your probably going to see the same thing without the ability to diagnose physical attributes (ie: external monitor, external OS, etc...) So to answer your first question, regardless of software/hardware, you're equally as likely to see the same symptoms.

That being said upgrading to an SSD would SIGNIFICANTLY decrease the possibility of over heating. However, the model of computer in question is new enough, high tech enough that overheating isn't an issue. Similar models I've worked on don't even have cooling fans. Also, you're correct. In a nutshell, I don't think your previous laptop overheating has any relevance to this newer, particular model of computer.

IF you had messed something up while upgrading I'm inclined to believe it would either work or not work at all. (you either broke a ribbon cable or you didn't) The fact that it boots and you can see any display at all leaves me to believe that you did fine.

All this being said, I believe the issue is hardware problem BUT not as result of user neglect. I understand this is a problem in an of itself since you're hundreds of miles away but what I can recommend is the following:

Try to see if the issue is still prevalent when connected to an external monitor (determines whether the Video Card/Hardware is in question or not). If the issue DOESN'T arise then you've limited it to the native LCD screen (unlikely given the symptoms) but if the flickering still continues on the external display then you absolutely have an internal GPU issue.

From here, if still undetermined, I suggest diagnosing the RAM. (check out Memtest) By means of double checking that the RAM has a solid connection. Perhaps it/they are loose after the SSD upgrade?

Update me with any future details and I'll be glad to offer my 2 cents.

Answer 2

If you are seeing the flickering over a remote control session, then I would start with video drivers. You should be able to download them from Asus' website. Try this link for getting the drivers Asus Drivers. This link is for the x551ca. There are other sub models so you may want to verify that its not the ma or mav variant.