Is your Chromebook screen glitching, causing discomfort and disruptions? You might not know that incompatible display drivers are often to blame for this common issue. This blog will reveal easy steps you can follow to tackle these pesky glitches effectively.
Let’s dive in and put an end to the frustration of a troublesome Chromebook screen!
Possible Causes for Chromebook Screen Glitching
Display drivers that are incompatible with your Chromebook can be a main culprit for screen glitching. Often times, these display drivers fail to keep up with system updates leading to graphical bugs and flickering screens.
This is especially true when you move the mouse or hover over website elements on your Google Chrome web browser.
Another significant cause of screen glitching in Chromebooks could be linked to animated backgrounds and slideshow backgrounds. The dynamic changes in such features may lead to instability in screen rendering, causing it to flicker.
Additionally, hardware acceleration – a feature designed to improve performance within Google Chrome, might paradoxically exacerbate the issue by introducing conflicts between software and CPU resources.
How to Fix Chromebook Screen Glitching
To fix Chromebook screen glitching, try updating your graphics drivers, turning off hardware acceleration, disabling smooth scrolling, resetting Google Chrome, or uninstalling and reinstalling the browser.
Fixing Your Desktop Background and Color
Adjusting your desktop background and color settings could resolve the screen glitching issue. Here’s how to do it:
- First, right – click on an empty area of your desktop.
- Select “Personalize” from the context menu that appears.
- Click on “Background” in the left – side menu of the new window.
- Here, choose a simple, static wallpaper instead of an animated one or a slideshow background. Animated backgrounds can sometimes cause flickering on your Chromebook screen.
- Next, visit the “Colors” tab in the same menu.
- Set a basic system color rather than a custom one as custom colors might cause graphical bugs leading to flickering.
Updating Your Graphics Drivers
Graphics drivers play a pivotal role in how our Chromebook communicates with the display hardware. Outdated or incompatible graphics drivers often lead to screen flickering and glitching issues. Here is a step-by-step guide to updating your graphics drivers successfully:
- Navigate to ‘Device Manager’ on your Chromebook system settings.
- Expand the ‘Display Adapters’ category by clicking on it.
- Right – click on your graphics card and select ‘Update Driver Software.’
- Choose ‘Search automatically for updated driver software.’
Turning Off the “Use Hardware Acceleration When Available” Feature
Disabling the “Use Hardware Acceleration When Available” feature is a proven method to resolve screen flickering issues on Chromebooks. This method can be helpful for users experiencing this issue, particularly because it involves adjusting the settings within the Google Chrome web browser, which controls much of the device’s operation. Here are steps on how to do it:
- Open your Google Chrome web browser.
- Click on the three – dotted icon in the top right corner that reads “Customize and Control Google Chrome”.
- Navigate through “Settings” and then go to “Advanced Settings”.
- Scroll down till you find the “System” section.
- Uncheck the box next to “Use Hardware Acceleration When Available”.
Disabling the Smooth Scrolling Flag
Screen glitches on your Chromebook can be minimized by disabling the Smooth Scrolling flag. Here are simple steps to follow:
- Launch your Google Chrome browser.
- In the address bar, type in “chrome: //flags” and hit enter.
- Search for “Smooth Scrolling” in the search box provided.
- When it comes up, select “Disable” from the drop – down menu next to it.
- Finally, restart your browser for changes to take effect.
Resetting Google Chrome
A feasible solution for Chromebook screen glitching lies in the process of resetting Google Chrome. Here’s a concise method to do so:
- Open the Google Chrome web browser on your device.
- Click on the three vertical dots in the top – right corner, which indicates ‘Customize and Control Google Chrome.’
- Scroll down and click on ‘Advanced settings.’
- Go further down to find ‘Reset and clean up.’
- Click on ‘Reset settings to their original defaults.’
- Confirm by clicking ‘Reset.’
Uninstalling and Reinstalling Google Chrome
Uninstalling and reinstalling Google Chrome provides a fresh start, often eliminating screen flickering problems. Here are the steps to follow:
- First, close all open Google Chrome browsers on your device.
- Navigate to the ‘System Settings’, and click on ‘Apps and Features’.
- Scroll down through the list of installed apps until you find ‘Google Chrome’.
- Select ‘Google Chrome’ and click on ‘Uninstall’. Confirm that you want to uninstall the program if prompted.
- Wait for the uninstall process to complete; this should only take a couple of minutes.
- Visit the official Google Chrome website using another web browser, then download the latest version of Chrome.
- After completing the download, locate the installer in your files and run it.
- Follow the installation prompts until Google Chrome has been successfully reinstalled.
Conclusion
In conclusion, screen flickering on Chromebooks can be caused by incompatible display drivers or animated backgrounds. Disabling hardware acceleration and keeping graphics card drivers up-to-date are effective solutions.
Resetting Google Chrome or reinstalling the browser may also resolve flickering issues. Ensure to disable hardware acceleration and consider using D3D9 or OpenGL as ANGLE backends to eliminate screen flickering problems when watching videos in full-screen mode.