Symptom

Flickering or blinking will occur on an external monitor when using a dock between the ThinkPad or ThinkBook and the monitor. The monitor's connection is made using a DP or HDMI cable. The monitor may display as black momentarily and then return to standard operation.

Applicable Brands

ThinkPad and ThinkBook

Applicable Systems

Applicable on following Intel and AMD generations:

• Intel TigerLake CPU (11th gen) or later
• ThinkPads with AMD Ryzen CPU

System Is Configured With

• Thunderbolt 3 Workstation dock
• Thunderbolt 3 Gen 2 dock
• Thunderbolt 3 Gen 2 Workstation dock
• Thunderbolt 4 Universal dock
• Thunderbolt 4 Workstation dock
• USB-C Gen 2 dock
• Universal USB-C dock
• Intel TigerLake CPU (11th gen) or later

Operating Systems

• Windows 10
• Windows 11

Solution

Using the following steps to resolve flickering may impact external monitor graphics abilities by disabling DSC (Display Streaming Compression). Please refer to https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/solutions/pd029622.  This opens the link in a new window. It provides updated resolution information for each dock based on Thunderbolt/non-Thunderbolt devices for DSC-disabled configurations.

This solution may be run using the following commands either in person or through remote updating tools. Please also note that this solution will also remain on installed ThinkPads/ThinkBooks independent of any docking stations attached. Any user experiencing flickering on a particular dock will need to run this utility on their ThinkPad/ThinkBook.

1. Download the DSC utility tool version 4.1 and save it to a removable drive or to the target computer.
   1. https://download.lenovo.com/km/media/attachment/DSC_Control_v4.1.exe
2. Open Command Prompt as administrator.
   1. In the start menu, enter Command Prompt and select Run as Administrator.
3. Navigate in the command prompt to the location where the utility was saved.
4. Run DSC_Control_v4.1.exe q to verify if the DSC utility applies to the target system
5. Run DSC_Control_v4.1.exe with the desired switches.
   
6. If the utility can be run successfully, the user will receive a statement stating "DSC enabled" or "DSC disabled" based on selection.
      
7. If the utility is not applicable for the target system type, the user will receive a message stating, "No need to apply DSC control patch on this ThinkPad model."
   

Additional Information

If failure persists after following the workaround steps, please click here to open a support ticket.

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