I searched the forum a bit yet couldn't anything really close to my problem, so here it is. I have a Gateway laptop (less than a year old with 1 gig ram and an ati 9600 price:about 1600 a year ago - it's the G550 or something). The monitor on it just recently started flickering. It'll flicker at seemingly completely random times for about 5 seconds at a time with varying delays in between. As far as I can tell, all of the RGB values remain unaffected when this flickering occurs, so I'm confident in saying it's purely a brightness fluctuation.
Just to get some possibly related facts/culprits/catalysts out there, I overclock the graphics card (unsupported function), use the (function)-F7 and F8 keys to toggle the brightness level (supported function), and don't regularly plug it into a surge protector (I'm in southern cali, power outtages are fairly rare, and one has never occurred while I was using the laptop). Considering this laptop is pretty new, I'm thinking the overclocking of the graphics card is the most likely culprit. According to other forums I've never clocked it too close to the rcorded limits (440(core) 220(memoryThe highest I went was 425 and 216.
Also, I got the 3 year warranty when I bought it at Best Buy. I just wanted to check here before taking it to them.
Any help or questions would be extremely appreciated.