i bought a new laptop in march and recently the screen started flickering really bad, it only stops if the screen is in a certain posistion. is that a fault or just a loose connection? i do tend to pick it up by the lid while its open alot!

could be the ribbon for the screen thats loose, are u confident enough to take it appart??

Is the screen going off, or the backlight (ie. is the screen completely blank when it happens, or is there display information still on the screen, but no light)? Could be the inverter, common problem, but thankfully easily and cheaply fixed. If its the actual screen, could be a number of problems, but most likely to do with a connection from the counds of things.

Either way, given that you purchased it in March, either telephone the manufacturer, or if its a DSGi brand (Advent, Packard Bell, Ei Systems - purchased from PC World, Currys Digital, Currys or Dixons) take it into PC World Techguys desk and see what they say.

The fault will be repaired under warranty, so it's not worth touching it.

Nah it dosent go off just flickers and distorts it was an acer i bought it from argos. if its such a small problem id rather not send it back for repair coz i need it for work and cant really afford to be without for a week or however long they take to fix it

Gutted it's Acer, sometimes you will get pretty good service, other times you will get shoddy service (I puchased an Acer Advantage Pro warranty for my old Acer laptop, which included "priority support and repairs" and a 5 day pick-up and return guarantee, and once they decided to replace my DVDR drive when I sent it in for a HDD failiure, and they took 3 months to source the DVDR, well thats what they said - not to mention them using refurbished HDD's for replacement, that kept failing within days of getting it back, in the end I just bought my own!).

Get on the blower to Acer and see what they say; the likelyhood is they will need to repair it, simply because the problem is likely to get worse over time, and it certainly does sound like a hardware fault.

Though unlikely (but hopefully), it could be a BIOS or driver problem that has been resolved in a newer release - have you checked the Acer support site?

Acer UK Support
Acer UK Download Area - check that your BIOS and display drivers in particular, are up to date.
Acer UK Online Repair Booking Service - You will have to wait until Monday most likely for a reply, but it will be cheaper and less time-consuming than phoning them (they tend to have 1 hour queues from the minute their switchboards are turned on, in my experience).

If you bought it in Argos then your legal contract is with Argos - NO MATTER what they say. The machine is less than 6 months old any fault is presumed to be inherent therefore you are entitled to a replacement or refund WITHOUT you having to prove that the fault is in any way connected with you or your handling of the machine. If Argos say different then the onus is on Argos to prove otherwise.

If you leave it until the machine is over 6 months old then the onus is on YOU to prove that it is an inherent fault - difficult because to do that you would likely have to get an independent examination of the machine (costs ££)

It may well be that Argos will tell you to contact the manufacturer. You DO NOT have to accept that ie you can say NO, and that in the first instance they should replace/ refund or if they want an opinion from Acer then THEY should send the machine to to Acer. They will point out that such action will take longer than if you contact Acer - it will, BUT the law says a response must be in a "reasonable" time and typically that can be interpreted as maximum 4 weeks. If Argos cannot give a guarantee of 4 weeks maximum then my advice would be to say - "in that case I want a replacement or refund, NOW please".

If you do opt to take advice from Argos and deal directly with Acer then you should ASK ARGOS FOR A STATEMENT IN WRITING signed / dated by an authority on behalf of Argos saying that it is their advice that you deal with Acer. Your "report" of the fault then dates from the date of that document.

Snod