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March 28th, 2026 02:55
15 DC15250, display flickering with gpu driver installed
The display flickers like the hardware is failing. But when I uninstall the intel/arc drivers, I have no flickering of display. But as soon as I restart windows and reconnect to the internet, the driver is reinstalled by windows and the flickering returns. I've tried turning off automatic driver downloads in the old control panel hardware applet but that seems non functional. Windows update still installs a driver.
When I plug in an external monitor, the on board laptop display becomes completely invisible to windows and is just not seen sometimes. Or just flickers like mad. Or looks likes it's failing.
If I restart and reset the bios to factory defaults even though I changed nothing, it will start working temporarily. If I remove the driver entirely from device manager it doesn't flicker until windows update reinstalls it.
I reverted to an old 2023 driver and the problem still persists. But if I turn on dynamic refresh rate, or change it from 120 to 60 hz, the problem goes away for a short while. This was not an issue on purchase in November through January.
It only happened in January and I believe it was after the January bios update.
I'm thinking this is a combination bios + gpu driver issue.
Also, the fans are running at full tilt for no reason sometimes.
Please help.
hedal
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March 28th, 2026 15:23
Block Windows from auto-installing Intel GPU drivers, use a 2023 driver, disable Dynamic Refresh Rate, set refresh to 60Hz, and roll back BIOS if possible.
spicyramentt
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March 28th, 2026 18:27
@hedal so I cannot find a method to block windows from updating the driver that works reliably. I rolled back to 2023 after using ddu. The Intel graphics control had an option to never update so I did that. Hopefully that one sticks.
The bios is another issue. It says rolling back is not an option due to a change in the tos, but I've done it in the past on other machines despite it not being officially supported, however I can't get a link for the last version. Support only has the newest one. Also, windows update is auto updating the bios and the bios has no option to stop that. A YouTube channel recently said that if you turn off "capsule updates" in the bios they would stop but I couldn't find that option anywhere.
Dell needs a fix for this ASAP.
Also, thank you for the response. Much appreciated.
(edited)
spicyramentt
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March 29th, 2026 14:46
So even after the gpu driver roll back. When using an external monitor, with the old driver, the internal monitor essentially disappears from the settings panel. And i cannot use duplicate or internal monitor only in the settings panel. This is bad. I think Dell has reached an all time low for me.
Between not wanting to replace my stolen in transit, alienware laptop, to my bluescreening on my 13" inspiron after a recent bios update, then a freezing issue on a 27" 1440p dell monitor i gotr for my mom, to this issue on this new dell 15 inspiron; I am deeply deeply disappointed in dell. After this i am fully switching to lenovo and HP until one of them disappoints me this many times in a row.