yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 7 General] spridell:
I just got the 3g version yesterday and so far i DO NOT see the flicker like I had on my wifi version.
[Nexus 7 General] DominatingSystem:
I have also the 3G version and my screen flicker a little bit.

send with my Nexus 7 3G
[Nexus 7 General] soccerwuedo5:
Screen flicker disappeared using Paranoid Android 2.52-2.54 and Franco Kernel; reappeared in 4.2 factory image for me.

It was somewhat nostalgic.

Sent from my Nexus 7
[Nexus 7 General] rmm200:
Fixed brightness works well for me Saves battery too - auto is really bright.
[Nexus 7 General] DominatingSystem:
Sry for ot but...

You also have display discoloration when you go along the edge?

send with my Nexus 7 3G
[Nexus 7 General] adamhlj:
I just tested out my 3G N7. FLICKER. STILL. PERSISTS!!. In fact its the worst flicker out of all the N7s I have had!!!

I just bought the Tegra PRISM toggle, and it still flickers. Grr.
[Nexus 7 General] compact_bijou:
Can confirm the screen flicker is terrible since 4.2 update.

Almost on the verge of returning the ****er :(
[Nexus 7 General] eastcoastsurfer:
I have just purchased a 32gb nexus 7. I started noticing the flicker, as described by others, in 4.2

Possible it could have been there before since I did not have the device long before I upgraded.

Indeed it seems to occur at lower brightness when wifi is spotty. It seems the level of charge in the battery also affects it, maybe around 30-40 charge percent is where it is worst.

It is not very noticeable at the brightness level I use. I can live with it.

However, my questions are:

is it going to get worse over time?

is it going to eventually fry the display, maybe after my warranty expires? :p
[Nexus 7 General] sadde:
Put some scotch tape over the WiFi antenna. I fixed mine doing it. There is a thread about this already.
[Nexus 7 General] vulpine:
My new nexus 7 bought 2 days ago also has this problem.

Its not annoying because I notice it only when I am using it in bed in complete darkness.

I read some one saying that this issue doesn't reoccur when you are on some custom ROM. Is it true??

if yes, one more reason to ROOT my nexus 7 asap. ;)
[Nexus 7 General] eastcoastsurfer:
I don't feel comfortable opening the device up. like I said, I can live with it. but I would like to know if it is damaging in the long run.
[Nexus 7 General] tytung2020:
Yes I have this random rotation for no reason, sometimes it's in the middle of an app, sometimes in idle.

I wonder if it's a sensor problem...
[Nexus 7 General] kRt_uK:
It looks to me an issue with the light sensor on automatic brightness for display settings.

So, disable the automatic brightness.

It works for me.

---------- Post added at 07:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:37 PM ----------

Perhaps it is too sensitive capturing its own reflected display light and adjusting the brightness based on it.

What you think???
[Nexus 7 General] turdbogls:
agreed. i only notice it on low light auto brightness settings. turning off auto-brightness seems to fix it....for me at least.
[Nexus 7 General] eastcoastsurfer:
for me, and a lot of other people, it seems, it occurs when auto-brightness is off .
[Nexus 7 General] adamhlj:
Yes, the screen flicker in question is when you turn auto brightness off and reduce the brightness all the way to the lowest setting. However, another thread on here suggested going into the advanced wifi settings and turning off the wifi optimization. This appears to have fixed the issue for me.
[Nexus 7 General] rmm200:
Unless you are just looking for flicker - how often do you use your tablet with brightness at the lowest setting?

This sounds a bit like "If I stand on one foot, and lean way over - I fall." Clearly a design problem.
[Nexus 7 General] adamhlj:
Every night. Which is when the flicker is most noticeable because I don't turn the lights on in my room when I read. And the brightness is turned down to the lowest setting. And the autobright is turned off.
[Nexus 7 General] porkovich:
Hi all, i can confirm that it's somehow software related. What i mean is not that the hardware is OK, but that software can fix it.

My problem was s small amout ot flicker. Whe you open an app , lets say MAPS, the screen flickers , with intervals of several seconds. Now wIth 4.1.2 the problem was only here and there, mostly when the screen was dim and was showing a yellowish color (like the one on the MAPS app)

After updating to 4.2 , the screen was changing brightness 4/5 times on every app i opened, even on the Main Screen, and than settles down.

I tought it''s somewhat related to the Nvidia Prism Technology inside the tablet, trying to setup the screen and optimising something. And guess what ? it is related to this in my case. I rooted and used an app on the play store to stop the that feature. Now i can tell you that both 4.1.2 and 4.2 are flicker free. Somehow on 4.2 this process is much more agressive and i think that Prism is on all the time, not only when you are watching videos, even on the homescreen.

If this is a driver problem, or it's a deffect on the hardware (the one controlling the process) i cannot say, but turning off the option makes the flicker (or brightness changing) of the screen disappear. Turning off the feature gives you even more contrast, and remove the washed color problem of the nexus 7. This is visable even on the Home Screen , turning off Prism makes the screen instatlly crispier and rich.

PS: one more test i made and the results: i turn off prism , all is fine, the screen brightness is constant. When I turn it ON, the main screen begins to dim, slightly, look like flickering, and after 4 /5 seconds it stops on the brigthness it thinks it's OK. Now the brightness is around the one you set manually , but the Prism Feature optimise the screen, and it really saves battery .... but you have some screen problems.
[Nexus 7 General] eastcoastsurfer:
Still flickered at one point while on lowest brightness and crappy wifi
[Nexus 7 General] Armpowered:
I still seem to be getting flicker with the 4.2.1 update on my 32Gb N7, I didn't use it for long enough on 4.1 to notice it happening, it does seem less frequent though. I never saw the issue with my early 8Gb N7.

I wonder if it's a hardware issue that can be masked by the software? You can work around the problem using "Velis Auto Brightness" which allows mapping of sensor level to screen brightness, just set it so that all low levels map to minimum brightness.

However it was using this software that I noticed the light sensor reporting varying levels when in the dark or completely covered. If I use "Sensor Kinetics" and cover the light sensor, it reports levels varying from 0 to about 16 lux, trying this on an early 8Gb N7 at work or my N4 results in a constant readout of 0 lux.

Does anyone know if the varying reported levels is considered normal and it's up to the software to ignore/smooth the readings? If not and a definite hardware issue then I might have to go back to the retailer.
[Nexus 7 General] snarlytaz:
I am not sure what has started to fix my WiFi flicker. I use PA 2.99 for my ROM and Faux kernels. I am updated to latest. I am not sure 4.2.1 has fixed the issue or not. I had also removed my back cover to check screws since i have some minor Light bleed. Haven't fixed that yet but once cover back on my WiFi flicker reduced over a good 80 percent now. White screens have very little now even in low signal areas.

Has 4.2.1 done anything for anyone else? I cant think the kernel did since i have continued with Faux...

?
[Nexus 7 General] merrywhq:
I'm using 3G version with latest 4.2.1, flicker is quite obvious for the stock rom, then I flash with franco's kernel, it gets better, but still sensible. And if I turn off auto-brightness, it did vanish. So I think it still a SW issue, most likely in driver. Expecting google to fix it soon.
[Nexus 7 General] eastcoastsurfer:
This is what seems to be the goldilocks zone to eliminate flicker without getting a sunburn from the bright screen:

Auto-brightness off

Wifi-optimization off

Brightness over 25% (still too bright for use in the dark IMO)
[Nexus 7 General] danton47:
Hi,

So, has anyone succeeded recently with replacing their Nexus 7 with a defect-free one?

Mine is 32G WiFi version, bought in MediaMarkt Switzerland one week ago.

I'm wondering if I should even bother trying to replace mine, risking running into other defects, like e.g. dead pixels.
[Nexus 7 General] michi491:
That's exactly what happened to me...first I got a flickering device, then exchange it for a lifted screen device, then I had a device with a dead pixel...

I took a refund for now....waiting for a better batch of devices...
[Nexus 7 General] OddJack:
Do what I did guys, return it and get a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7". After opening up the nexus and seeing how flimsy the cover is and comparing it with samsung construction I say the galaxy is a better value. Ignore the cpu speed difference and the resolution, you cant even tell.
[Nexus 7 General] ToyTinker:
My report

Tried the "tape" trick no luck. Then did some experimenting.

Just wanted to give my 2 cents on this.

Been through this thread – and there is lots of back and forth on software vs hardware. I can predictably get my screen to flicker by going from screens with lots of white to non whites. For example my home screen is a blue patterned/repeated wallpaper with a few icons. I can swipe to another home screens with similar setup (same wallpaper and a few icons – no issue)... but then when I swipe to a home screen that has nearly a full screen white calendar on it – I notice the display brightness appear to go “up” 3 steps then settles. When I flip off that screen... and it steps down 3 steps. Same thing every time... 3 steps up... 3 steps down... predictable.

I am still holding onto hope that this is a software thing. I have not rooted – and don't plan on it – so I cannot speak to the disabling of “Prism”.

I think we have a few things going on..

- There is flicker from truly faulty displays (lines of pixels/panels going out, fluttering ect)

- There is flicker from Prism or some type of dynamic contrast.

All of this of course is subject to personal experience and the ability to observe the flicker... and even the ability to describe the flicker when they call Google.

I recall a buddy of mine and I going back and forth on “60 frames per second” vs “30 frames per second”... he's was trying to tell me that the human eye cannot see the difference. We'll, I know I can.. but he said he couldn't. Sure – this is a whole other argument... but it just shows how people have different tolerances / perceptions / vision.

I really hope this is fixed via a OTA software update. Part of the appeal to me buying a Nexus 7 was I would not have to root it to get 100% stock android goodness.

I personally am still hoping this is software - and I think it is... because of the predictability in which I can make it occur. Wifi on or off does not affect my device or observations. To me – this is some dynamic contrast thing going on (Prism?)... and I wish I could turn it off without rooting it.

Please Google... give us an OTA ability to adjust this.
[Nexus 7 General] cvillalta:
What app did you use? My 7 has this faint flickering issue and it's really annoying. I don't think it's a hardware issue cause of the way it happens, it's more like the screen trying to optimize the brightness than anything else.
[Nexus 7 General] TimmyUK:
Has anyone tried disabling hardware overlays in the developer options?

landoftechnology.com/2012/fix-for-the-screen-flickering-on-devices-running-android-4-2/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
[Nexus 7 General] englefield:
That does seem to fix the issue some what, however it makes the gui noticeably less fluid or less buttery for me.
[Nexus 7 General] cvillalta:
Well, this is interesting... I disabled WiFi optimization and the flickering was still there. Since that didn't work, I enabled the option back and my screen no longer flickers.
[Nexus 7 General] Oscar-Mark:
Well, as long as it doesn't harm the hardware I'm okay with it.
[Nexus 7 General] magalaxy:
I just bought my nexus 7 about a week ago and I have noticed a screen flicker. It's particularly annoying because I read in low lights a lot and it gets to be very noticeable.

My device SN # begins with CAOK.

Anyone else with a new Nexus 7 experiencing this as well?

I'm hoping the replacement I ordered won't have the same problem.
[Nexus 7 General] kennynguyen20:
I got my nexus 7 a few days ago, i noticed the flicker but it only happen to me when i turn on auto brightness, turn it off and it should be fine.
[Nexus 7 General] xateeq:
I recently had a minor screen flicker (light flickering) and the reason was that i changed my kernel and that didnot played good with my nexus 7, so might be the reason why i had that issue. changed back to my old kernel and no problems as of yet.
[Nexus 7 General] Richieboy67:
Does anyone have video of this flicker? No problem here..
[Nexus 7 General] Zhoene:
I had this problem and a rom I tried seems to solve the problem for me, maybe it could be looked into top figure out what fixes the problem: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2116431

AOKP Stops Screen Flicker
[Nexus 7 General] tigran123:
It's been more than a week since my Nexus 7 returned from ASUS repair centre in Netherlands and so far I am unable to reproduce this screen flickering problem any more, I.e. they seem to have actually fixed it! What they did was to replace the screen (which also made me happy for a different reason --- I accidentally scratched the screen, so now the scratch is obviously gone :) and also they replaced the "top cover". I don't know what they mean by "top cover". Presumably they mean what I would call "bottom cover" which has the WiFi aerial.

Anyway, I thought I would share this good news here, so that people don't despair about their chances of having it fixed by ASUS.

My tablet's serial number begins with CAOK and was bought in Dec 2012.
[Nexus 7 General] chas1723:
My screen flicker went away after upgrading to 4.2.2.
[Nexus 7 General] tigran123:
What??? I thought 4.2.1 is the latest? How come then nothing happens when I click on System updates/check now in Settings? How did you manage to upgrade your Nexus 7 to 4.2.2? Please, do tell.
[Nexus 7 General] chas1723:
There are a ton of threads on this site about it. I was able to upgrade mine at the version number page.
[Nexus 7 General] norbi113:
Confirmed, after upgrading to 4.2.2 flickering issue has sailed away

Check this thread for upgrading to 4.2.2 or wait for OTA update. It should be available now or in following days. I got mine yesterday.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2144330

//EDIT

It was just temporary, flickering is still present :(
[Nexus 7 General] Chaw Rash:
You have to wait till Google pushes it to your phone! If you are not patient enough then just flash it manually!

Google : Google factory image and search for nexus 7 and download the factory image 4.4.2
[Nexus 7 General] Jack Barrett:
I said many times, flicker is caused ONLY by prism.

Disable it with toggle app. (Dont use other apps since most of them dont work)

Why you never read?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.widgets.big.tegra.prism.toggle
[Nexus 7 General] czesiu:
no.
[Nexus 7 General] tigran123:
You are wrong. The flicker is caused by interference from WiFi. The solution is to send Nexus 7 back to ASUS and they replace the screen and the problem goes away, read my earlier post.

Besides, that toggle prism PAID app on the Market requires the device to be rooted, which is unacceptable as it voids the warranty.

I agree that a device like Kindle should only be used in a jail broken state, so that people can use our FREE kindlepdfviewer PDF/DjVu viewer. But Nexus 7 is a much more complex beast than a Kindle --- a thousand things can go wrong with it, so voiding the warranty is not such a good idea, IMHO.
[Nexus 7 General] androidkid311:
Regarding the rooting thing. You're pretty wrong.. Complex.. This thing can be rooted in 5mins. Its even simple to unroot it back to factory settings. Having your nexus rooted is a BIG plus! Unrooted....just becomes...well a bit boring
[Nexus 7 General] Jack Barrett:
No, but yes. Tested on 10 devices.
[Nexus 7 General] jtrosky:
While I agree with you that there is an actual flicker problem with some Nexus 7's (it's not just the prism setting in all cases), I don't agree with you "rooting voids your warranty" - it does not. Rooting is 100% reversible - it does not void your warranty.
[Nexus 7 General] tigran123:
Thank you for correcting me about rooting. I did not realise that it is reversible (just like jailbreak on Kindle). I will look into this closer. Being a Linux (but not Android) kernel hacker I should be able to figure it out :) Thanks again!
[Nexus 7 General] hemligt:
4.2.1 -< 4.2.2 flickering worse?

Hello,

I have got a flickering with the automatic brightness switched off with 4.2.1 on my nexus 7, especially when starting Chrome, Goggle Maps and a wether app. I did the upgrade from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2 and have the impression, that flickerung got even worse. Now it is more noticable not only at starting Chrome and while using it, but also in firefox with mainly grey start screen, not that white as in Chrome.

regards
[Nexus 7 General] jtrosky:
Have you tried disabling the Prism setting (assuming that you are rooted)?

Personally, if rooted, I'd recommend the "Tegra Prism Toggle" app from the Playstore - it's not free, but it works well and automatically disables it during bootup as well.
[Nexus 7 General] presslab:
I fixed my auto-brightness flicker by deleting /data/lightsensor/AL3010_Config.ini as I described below.

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=39841#c115
[Nexus 7 General] jtrosky:
Interestingly, the value in the file you speak of is actually set to 1099 on my 4.2.2 Nexus 7... So, if what you say is true, my light sensor would be even less sensitive than normal, but yet the auto-brightness re-adjustments continue to occur. Autobrightness worked just fine in 4.1..

I don't understand how they can screw up such a simple, basic feature! If it never worked, I may blame Asus light sensors, but like I said, it used to work just fine on 4.1, so it's a software issue.
[Nexus 7 General] GedBlake:
cf. my extensive post on this issue.., and a possible solution...

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=38207942#post38207942

Rgrds,

Ged.
[Nexus 7 General] presslab:
I'm on 4.2.2 as well. I wonder why there are different values for this? You could try making it even less sensitive, maybe 5000 or something. You'll need to reboot after changing.

Also the change log for al3010.c shows a few things that are different.

https://android.googlesource.com/ke...5b9eb913cc08cccaf8020^/drivers/hwmon/al3010.c

Previously disabling smart dimmer did nothing for me.
[Nexus 7 General] jtrosky:
Thanks, but we are in no way referring to the Prism setting - I always disable that immediately. This problem is that the auto-brightness keeps fluctuation - even if you are not touching the device at all in the exact same lighting - I'v had to completely disable auto-brightness.

But, like I said, this is one of the most basic functions and should wok properly! You should even be ableto easily "tune" the auto-brightness with a slider (like on iOS). There is no excuse for the poor auto-brightness functionality in Android.
[Nexus 7 General] phillip1953:
4.4.2? :)

Sent via my Nexus 7, Amiga 3000 or HTC EVO 3D
[Nexus 7 General] brfsa:
Setting the filter value to 880 stopped my flickering.

File is /data/lightsensor/AL3010_Config.ini as stated in the comments on the bug report.

I used terminal on a rooted nexus 7, open terminal, type 'su' and press enter.

The type:

echo 880 > /data/lightsensor/AL3010_Config.ini

And press enter. No more flickering here.
[Nexus 7 General] jtrosky:
Just curious - what was the value originally on your N7? Also, what version of Android are you running?

Thanks.
[Nexus 7 General] feynman.jr:
I have heard about this issue on different websites. How can you be sure if it is a software issue or a hardware? I have not heard any confirmation about it. Is it something that happens to all of the devices?
[Nexus 7 General] unclesem:
You would need to test at least 6000 devices out there given at IO to be sure they all affected :-)

But I would not be worried about it. Just put brightness a bit higher and its ok
[Nexus 7 General] soccerwuedo5:
Just to check in, I'm on my third device with the same issue. Google has been fantastic with these returns/exchanges and even told me to continue swapping until the problem disappears, but I think it's a software issue. The odds of three random units all having identical hardware defects seems slim.

This tablet is awesome, I use it daily. The flicker is dependably present (chrome, loading page, low brightness) and I believe this will be fixed with a software update. This does not render the device unusable.
[Nexus 7 General] hullbay:
I've never understood the logic behind just ignoring a problem like that. I like others, will wait to see the problems either confirmed / fixed until I place my order.
[Nexus 7 General] amdfanTO:
odds are its the auto brightness limiter algorithm. its just like dynamic contrast for a plasma, except it generally will reduce contrast when there is alot of of white or bright images on the screen. it makes sense that the flickering or fluctuating brightness is noticed when viewing medium to dark images. the algorithm is aggressive and doesnt work like it should. if the abl worked properly we would never notice it. but these companies still turn it on by default, and often don't give the consumer a choice, even though it barely improves battery left at a significant loss in image quality. we should have the choice - better image quality or slightly better battery. im sure most consumers will take the better picture, as we use these devices for entertainment and leisure most of them.

---------- Post added at 11:29 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 AM ----------

if google doesnt patch the issue, a developer or ocd person like me will figure out how to disable it, by navigating the system files and finding the random "1" that needs to be "0".
[Nexus 7 General] jptech:
let's explain some basic technical information. LEDs do not have a dimmer built in. They use pulsing to appear dimmer. They flash on and off at a set interval, perhaps 30-60ms. Some people can see that pulse especially if you move the LED while you're watching it. If this is the case, it's completely normal and a limitation of the technology. Perhaps the n7 is too bright at its lowest setting with a single LED on.
[Nexus 7 General] ock:
I'm wandering if this is related in any way to the power saving DIDIM feature of Tegra 3?
[Nexus 7 General] RY4N75:
I have noticed it does this on the Gnex aswell when auto brightness is ticked
[Nexus 7 General] Glod:
I dont have this issue, i tried different brightness levels as well and auto.
[Nexus 7 General] 18t:
while i havent heavily scrutinized it yet. i havent seen anything obvious
[Nexus 7 General] wiithepeng:
lol my screen flickers on chrome also. Mines a production unit. Only on low it seems.
[Nexus 7 General] norazi:
on mine, anything below 30% brightness is pretty much = "backlight off".... i think thats whats causing the flickering if you have it set to auto... it will auto lower the brightness to say 20% which is "off"
[Nexus 7 General] Rich_RH:
I have a similar issue, at first i thought it was just a once off thing or just my eyes tripping out but I just saw it again. Mine one is near the 3/4 down my screen a line flickers on and flickers off. However its not the whole screen, I dont have it on highest brightness, around 1/3.

My copy is a retail vers.
[Nexus 7 General] Brac20:
Again just to put people's mind at ease this is almost certainly something they can fix via a software update as they did with the One X.
[Nexus 7 General] demandarin:
that's good to know. we already have someone taking this as gospel in another thread and telling everyone their tablet will be broken when they receive it....lmfao.