[Solved]laptop screen goes wonky but only on battery power. Any advice?

[bbhaag]

Hey guys I bought a reburbed HP Elitebook 8460p off Newegg and I'm running into an issue with the display. It only happens when on battery power. When the power cord is attached and plugged in no issue. I've attached a pic to show what is happening. The problem is intermittent and can happen sporadically. Browsing, connecting to Bluetooth, watching a movie, ect doesn't seem to matter.
Anyway here is a pic of what it looks like. Any ideas what might be causing this?

 

[VirtualLarry]

My first question is, does that model have two different GPUs, an iGPU, and a dGPU, and it switches between then, based on if you are running on battery power, versus running off of the AC charger cord?

If so, then it appears that the VRAM or the GPU of one of them is bad.

If this occurs only on battery power, then it sounds to me like it's using an iGPU. What CPU is in this EliteBook?

If it's using the iGPU, you may need to re-seat or clean the contacts of the system RAM slots, or the system RAM could be partially bad.

Have you run a bootable memory test yet?

This is one of the reasons that I don't like HP Laptops. They tend (in my experience, I guess) to have mobo/GPU issues. I had one up and die on me, after running the BIOS HDD surface scan. I had it on a bed, though, but not a blanket, and it seemingly overheated, and now it won't boot properly.

Edit: Note too, that if the laptop does have both an iGPU and dGPU and switches between them, then chances are, you will have to use the video drivers provided by your laptop mfg only, and not the GPU or CPU vendor's drivers, as those will not generally properly handle the switching feature.

 

[bbhaag]

This an older SB laptop with the i5-2540M cpu and the only gpu is the integrated HD3000 gpu.
I haven't run a mem test yet but will and let everyone know the results.

 

[bbhaag]

Well after a couple hours of running a mem test nothing showed up...sigh. I appreciate the suggestion VirtualLarry. Anyone else have any ideas as to what might be going on?

 

[VirtualLarry]

What drivers are you using on there? HP's customized Intel iGPU drivers, or stock Intel drivers from their site? If these are the "newest" drivers, try some older ones. Intel's iGPU drivers have been, at times, hit or miss with me. (BSODs galore on one of my rigs.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-elitebook-8460p-notebook-pc/5056942

Note: Does NOT have Windows 10 drivers available. You might have to install Windows 7 64-bit on there.

Edit: It does seem to have Windows 8.1 drivers, maybe those will work in Windows 10.

Also, have you installed the newest BIOS update? Says Feb. 28, 2018. Seems fairly recent, given the age of the machine. Probably Meltdown + Spectre fixes.

https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/hp-elitebook-8460p

Although you can configure the EliteBook 8460p with integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics, our unit had an AMD Radeon HD 6470M card with 1GB of dedicated video memory. This GPU notched a 3DMark06 score of 5,032, which tops the category average by a wide margin (3,328). The Tecra R840 with AMD 6540M graphics (4,369) and LifeBook S751 with Intel graphics (4,809) also fell short of the EliteBook.

If you want to play mainstream games on the side, the EliteBook 8460p is up to the challenge. The laptop racked up 52 frames per second on World of Warcraft at 1366 x 768 with the settings on Good. That rate dropped to a still-decent 27 fps at the max settings. The Tecra R840 scored a lower 42 fps and 22 fps, respectively. We could even play Far Cry 2 at a fast 62 fps clip, albeit at 1024 x 768 resolution. The rate fell to an unplayable 21 fps at native resolution.

So some do have a dedicated AMD Radeon installed. I would double-check your particular configuration.

 

[bbhaag]

Yeah I saw the latest BIOS update but like you mentioned I figured it was because of the security issues with Intel chips so I decided not to install it. The F.42 BIOS is what I am running now.
Anyway, according to CPUID I don't have a dGPU and the iGPU driver is as follows. I believe it is the last version that Intel issued for the HD3000 gpu

 

[VirtualLarry]

I realized, HD3000 isn't even "officially" supported on Windows 10, none of the Sandy Bridge iGPUs are. So, what you've got is what you've got.

Again, maybe you should install Windows 7, on that vintage hardware.

 

[LTC8K6]

Mess with the power settings in Windows to see if dropping to a lower power state on battery power is the cause?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Yea, try disabling power saving for vga

 

[Smoove910]

Go into your BIOS and disable 'hybrid' graphics, then reboot and see if the symptoms are still there.

 

[bbhaag]

I realized, HD3000 isn't even "officially" supported on Windows 10, none of the Sandy Bridge iGPUs are. So, what you've got is what you've got.

Again, maybe you should install Windows 7, on that vintage hardware.

Vintage hardware...haha no this laptop is still applicable and usable today. I own several pieces of vintage hardware though including a DEC 486 upgraded with a POD83 and 32mb of ram it's even networked.

Anyway, I will look into the power settings a little closer and see what I can find. I did not see a "hybrid graphics" option in the BIOS but will continue to sift through the power options within Windows to see what I can figure out.

 

[bbhaag]

Mess with the power settings in Windows to see if dropping to a lower power state on battery power is the cause?

Yea, try disabling power saving for vga

You guys were right. Inside the advanced power settings was an option for the Intel igpu and when on battery power it was set to save maximum power. I set it to high performance when on battery power and that did the trick.
Big thanks to both of you I appreciate the help!