[General Questions and Answers] giacky98:
Hi everyone, I need some help with this tablet I got a couple of days ago and that I'm trying to fix. I just need some opinions from someone that maybe already had an experience with such a problem or someone more expert than me. On the back it says it's a Mediacom tablet, but I don't think it really is... It says "SmartPad 7.0 S2 3G", however the model number written below says M-MP7S4A3G, which is the model number of the SmartPad 7.0 S4 3G. And this thing doesn't look like a SmartPad S2, it's black and doesn't match the pictures of the product from the manufacturer. It also has a clean Android ROM in it, without any Mediacom customization or app (maybe someone replaced the ROM... I don't know... but that model number discrepancy doesn't convince me).

By the way it runs quite well, and I would like to keep and use it, however it has an annoying screen flickering problem that shows up and increases its "blink-rate" the more I use the tablet. If I put it in standby mode and let it cool down, the problem disappears, until it gets hot again of course (please note that I'm just guessing when I say that the screen flicker is related to the temperature, it could easily be another kind of problem). The flicker also appears in recovery mode so I think it's hardware-related.

When it occurs, the colors quickly change and then come back to the correct ones, with a variable frequency that seems related to the temperature (again: just an assumption, better to say the frequency is related to "how much time you have been using it", from what I can understand). I can also see horizontal lines when the blinking occurs. If I keep using the device, after a couple of minutes, the wrong-colors state takes over. If I'm viewing a black and white page the problem isn't noticeable.

I opened the tablet and tried to move the display connector, also disconnecting and reconnecting it after cleaning the contacts, but without success. I also tried quick-freezing various parts of the board with liquid nitrogen, but that didn't affect the blinking (this is why I say that the relation between the flicker and the temperature is just an assumption... I mean, I cooled almost everything under 0°C and it was still flickering).

Then I read online about people having screen flickering problems after software updates or ROM changes, so I'm a bit confused. Do you think that this problem could be software-related? Maybe the display drivers in the kernel are messed up? I would really like to flash a clean ROM but I'm not feeling good about that, I don't know what device this really is... On CPU-ID it shows an MT8312 platform, but the MediaTek Flash Tool identifies the chip as an MT6582 (uhm...). I'll attach a couple of pictures of the device with the CPU-ID screenshots. I'll also attach the screenshots from a genuine SmartPad 7.0 S2 3G that a friend of mine has (they're the ones taken with a camera capturing the tablet screen).

So I'm asking a more expert person, how should I proceed? Maybe I can backup the whole MMC and try to flash something? What ROM should I flash then? Or would it just be a waste of time because it's certainly hardware-related? If so, is there something I can do with the board? Maybe I can try to reflow the SoC or the display controller IC (in case it's not integrated in the SoC) with an hot-air gun?

Any suggestion will really be appreciated. Thank you very much in advance and sorry for my english if I made any mistake, and also sorry for the long post.