Is my Thinkpad's screen broken or is it me?

Question

So I've bought Thinkpad Edge 14. A fine machine in many areas, BUT!

I hate its display. The things flickers! It's like having a CRT with too low frequency. If I wave my hand in front of it, I see the same strobo effect as with CRTs. What's going on?

Also, if I display a black screen (like the end of PPT presentation), when I return to desktop, the colors are washed out, as if my gamma settings were way off.

It gives me headaches. My eyes hurt. Is it just my display or do displays on this things generally suck?

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Update: The thing is brand new and under warranty, so I'm not opening it. I'd just like to know if this is "by design" or is hardware really faulty.

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Update: The more I investigate the matter, the more it seems it's simply "by design". The thing uses LED display, and wikipedia describes the problem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlight#Flicker_due_to_backlight_dimming

It's VERY noticeable on Edge, I guess it uses way too low frequency, at least for my eyes. And that's not the only problem with Edge's display, for some reason individual pixels are visible on the screen. Many users report this issue.

So, my advice, stay away from the Edge if you appreciate your eyes.

Answer 1

The voltage regulator for the CCFLs behind the display is misbehaving. This causes the CCFLs to flicker. What exactly is wrong and how to fix it another story though. There's probably an inverter board for the display, and you can probably pick up a replacement cheap on eBay. I'd start there, but there's no guarantees.

Answer 2

This is not normal. Call warranty support (800-426-7378 in the US) and tell them it's flickering - it's probably either the inverter card or actual connector cable (or the controller card if this is an LED panel, they don't have inverters).