Acer 4530 screen flicker with USB wireless adapter

[chunkymonster]

Have an unusual situation with the wife's laptop and looking for any and all ideas or suggestions.

Laptop:
Acer 4530
AMD Turion dual-core @ 2GHz
3GB DDR2 667MHz
NVIDIA nForce MCP77MH chipset
NVIDIA GeForce 9100M integrated video
Atheros AR5B91 802.11b/g/n wireless nic
Windows 7 Pro 32bit

Steps taken to correct:
updated all drivers
high gain antenna on wireless router
New wireless router (from Linksys WRT54GL w/tomato to Netgear WNDR3700-100NAS w/DD-WRT)
g signal only
n signal only
USB wireless NIC

Situation:
Onboard Atheros wireless NIC getting poor signal, after taking some steps to mitigate the issue and increase signal reception, purchased and installed a USB wireless NIC, USB NIC solved reception issues but caused the screen to flicker to the point of being unusable, screen stops flickering as soon as I disconnect the USB NIC.

Also worth noting that I have no screen flicker or reception issues with either g or n when connecting my Dell D620 with either the onboard wireless of USB NIC. Get full signal with both onboard and USB wireless throughout the entire house (3 stories) a well as in the front and back yard (up to 120 feet straight line from router) without issue; so the issue is specific to the Acer 4530.

Any ideas as to why the USB NIC would cause the Acer 4530 screen to flicker? I understand that screen flicker is indicative of a bad screen or bad cable, but as noted the screen only flickers when the USB NIC is connected.

Suggestions and input are welcome, thanks!

 

[bor10]

i know this topic is a little old now but i have been experiencing the same sort of problem with my 2 year old compaq presario cq50 laptop. when i open the lid (wake) the screen flickers constantly until i unplug my usb n adapter and ipod. i can then plug them back in without problem until the next time i open the lid.
anyone have a solution for this or at least have the same problem? chunkymonster, did you find a solution?

 

[chunkymonster]

Sorry for the delayed reply...

Unfortunately I did not find a solution to the screen flicker, other than not plugging in the usb adapter.

Coincidently, the battery on the wifes lappy got to the point where it would no longer hold a charge, so I thought the screen flicker was power related and replaced the battery, but it did not resolve the issue.

Her Acer is running Win7 Pro 32bit, haven't convinced her to let me reinstall XP or install Ubuntu onto it see if it is a OS/driver/hardware compatibility issue...dunno at this point...maybe time to call Acer...

 

[yopyless]

To All My with a Acer 4530

Do you have the same black screen flicker and or power-off. Feels like lack of power getting to the laptop.
First try running without battery and running with battery. Still getting black screen flicker

Solved by replacing A/C adapter and battery.

No longer does the screen flicker nor does it power-off automatically.

To fixed the high temp problem my problem - Run K10state which under clocks the gpu and chip so it doesn't heat up too much. Also Run MSI Kombuster and Afterburner.


Other upgrades
-Win 7 Ultimate - (note lost builtin Bluetooth, let me know if it happens to you too)
-Replace AMD Chip with QL-65 (2.1mhz)
-SSD hardrive

In short replace battery and A/c adapter. No problems for a year and am able to run fine except all my upgrades cost me to only get 1hr 10 minutes of battery life but good be could it was a cheap battery replacement.