Weird issue with screen flickering on the 15'' P650HS-G (Defiance III ... maybe?)

[aleval]

Hi all,
I've got a bit of a headscratcher of a problem with my P650HS-G - namely, I noticed that the laptop's screen panel begins flickering / turning off during Windows 10 boot up when using any Intel graphics driver newer than 25.20.100.6373 from 12.2018 (which I noticed when I doing a clean install on a new NVMe drive). Aside
Just to preempt the standard questions:
- I've done clean installs, including going back to older revisions of Windows 10 and invariably any driver newer than ^ causes screen flickering
- Running the laptop under other OS's (namely Mint and Fedora) doesn't cause the screen issues
- Running the laptop under performance mode (aka only using the GTX 1070) - doesn't cause the screen issues (including with the latest studio driver)
- When using external screens with this laptop, I haven't noticed any artefacts/issues whatsoever (with the lid/laptop panel on or off)
- In case it's relevant - the laptop is using the original 60Hz LG046F IPS panel that's as pristine as the day it arrived (Yeah, I don't know how it survived unblemished this long either!)
- Potentially the issue may be traced back to a successful BIOS update awhile ago (using the PCS-supplied 1.05.11 / 14.12/2017 package), which is the only alteration I can really think of in this bugger
Sooooo, has anyone got any ideas ... or should I just accept this quirk, disable Intel graphics updates and call it a day?

 

[barlew]

If you saw my previous post ignore it I jumped the gun.
Just to clarify have you been able to test this with previous versions of the Intel display driver and does it work?

 

[aleval]

If you saw my previous post ignore it I jumped the gun.
Just to clarify have you been able to test this with previous versions of the Intel display driver and does it work?

I'm even currently typing this on it - if I use the 25.20.100.6373 driver (or older) - it works fine, both on the old install (using a known "good" image) and the clean new install (Windows 10 20H2). If I let either Windows or the Intel driver update utility update the drivers, however- the screen invariably starts flickering (starting from the bottom of the screen) and will get progressively worse until the screen goes black (though the system itself is working and "outputs" video if I remote into it or hook up an external screen) or I have enough and revert to the older driver.
Initially I thought it may be a hardware fault, but I'd assume that it ought to be present regardless of OS and driver version, but it seems to be only under Windows + the newer driver

 

[barlew]

I'm even currently typing this on it - if I use the 25.20.100.6373 driver (or older) - it works fine, both on the old install (using a known "good" image) and the clean new install (Windows 10 20H2). If I let either Windows or the Intel driver update utility update the drivers, however- the screen invariably starts flickering (starting from the bottom of the screen) and will get progressively worse until the screen goes black (though the system itself is working and "outputs" video if I remote into it or hook up an external screen) or I have enough and revert to the older driver.
Initially I thought it may be a hardware fault, but I'd assume that it ought to be present regardless of OS and driver version, but it seems to be only under Windows + the newer driver

Could you post the specs of the hardware please?

How long ago did you buy it?

 

[aleval]

It was so long ago that I forgot which Defiance Mk it was

Chassis & Display	Defiance Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (LG046F Panel)
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo) HM170 Chipset
Graphics Card	NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1070 - 8.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1, G-SYNC

Ordered in October '17 (time flies, lol)
Clevo chassis type - P650HS-G