Troubleshooting a Flickering Monitor

The time we spend staring at a monitor has been increasing exponentially in the past decade so any issues with the display could be a source of great frustration. One common problem encountered by users is noticeable monitor flickering. The first step when having this issue is to determine whether the problem lies with the monitor itself or is it brought on by a specific application installed on the system.

To start, check the cable connecting the monitor to the computer. Make sure that both ends of the cable are plugged in correctly and firmly. Then run the length of the cable while looking for any breaks that could cause interference in the transfer of data. You might also want to connect the monitor to a different system or bring a different monitor to see if the problem will appear there as well.

If everything seems fine on the hardware side of things, then it is time to move on to software causes. Open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc on your keyboard simultaneously and see if its window will flicker will the rest of the screen. If the Task Manager window is unaffected then the reason for the issue might be an application present on the computer. Microsoft has identified the following three applications to cause such issues - Norton AntiVirus, iCloud, IDT Audio. You can either update the applications to their latest versions or start uninstalling them one by one to see if the flickering will disappear.

The display driver for your GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) could also be a potential culprit. Go to the official website of your GPU manufacturer and look for new driver versions that might have been released. Install them and check if the flickering will disappear after that.