I have a Samsung N120 netbook (upgraded to 2GB DDR2 RAM) and there has been a screen flickering issue for some time now. However, I have not been able to accurately determine whether it is a software or hardware issue. Here are some of the symptoms:

• The flicker is white-colored and shows up as vertical lines.
• Flickering or not, there may be occasionally some random blue patterns (no image distortion)
• The screen tends to flicker more when the screen is not tilted back all the way.
• When tilting the screen back and forth, the screen will usually flicker.
• Some images on the screen may randomly distort without full-on flickering.
• The screen will flicker only on certain websites, but not on others.
• A certain part of a webpage may constantly be distorted randomly, even when scrolling.
• While flickering, the mouse will not move though I'm moving my finger along the touchpad.
• A connected external monitor does not have any problems.
• The flickering is completely random and does not seem to follow any CPU/GPU usage trends.
• Flickering usually gets worse when the screen brightness is turned higher.
• There will be flickering on battery and while plugged in.

Search up "Samsung N120 - Screen Flickering" on YouTube for an idea of what the flickering looks like. However, there is no visible distortions and the flickering seems to stop when the screen has dimmed.

Since the problems started, I tried formatting and using Windows 7, then formatted again and went back to Windows XP. The screen was also replaced sometime during this past summer. The uninstallation of the Samsung Battery Manager (on the original install of XP) seemed to reduce the flicker partially, but eventually got worse.

So, what could possibly be the problem?