Pulsating LCD...

[guy]

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Recently the phenomenon of the LCD on my M8 "pulsing" during image review has got much worse. It's now constant, and occurs while looking at menus etc as well as when reviewing shots. The brightness of the screen pulses higher then lower. I used to see this intermittently. Then it was universal when reviewing the whole shot, but disappeared when I zoomed in. Now it's everywhere, all the time. It happens with both batteries I own, on all charge levels, and nothing cures it (not a battery reset, nothing).

 

As faults go this isn't the end of the world, but it does make reviewing shots on the LCD hugely irritating, and I for one am a big advocate of chimping (it's one of the several unique advantages of digital, and I do it a lot).

 

What I wanted to ask is if this is considered a "feature" of firmware*– and thus might be curable in time – or if it's some little hardware capacitor or diode that's just progressively dying on me and which would require yet another trip to Solms to be sorted. I seem to remember it being on some people's "to do list" for firmware upgrades, along with eg curing the venetian blinds. But is anyone else finding that it's recently got a lot worse?

 

PS Should've said that I'm on the latest firmware.

[Venkman]

Have you tried changing the LCD brightness?

Sounds a bit like it's "hanging" between two of the levels?

[guy]

Have you tried changing the LCD brightness?

Sounds a bit like it's "hanging" between two of the levels?

 

Hi Dirk. I just tried that, but it makes no difference. The variation when it's "pulsing" is much less than the variation between two steps on the LCD brightness scale – at a rough estimate, about a third of the difference. It cycles on a nice steady 0.7 secs (again, roughly – bit slower than two a second). It's really annoying!

[marknorton]

Sounds like the power supply for the backlight is current-limiting which suggests either a faulty power supply (on the main DSP board) or a faulty LCD module. Either way, it's a fault and needs to go back.

[guy]

Oh dear... okay. I'll steel myself for another "holiday" for the camera...!

[Venkman]

Check in with CS first. Maybe it's a known problem and they can give an rough estimate for turnround time.

[Shootist]

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Check in with CS first. Maybe it's a known problem and they can give an rough estimate for turnround time.

That will be the day. Even if they say it will be X days don't count on it.

[Venkman]

Ed,

 

I assumed that Guy is in England (Oxford), which would make a turnround statement by the CS far more reliable than the statements for US transfer - as I thought that it is mostly Leica NJ where the hangs occur?

 

Anyway, they give you an indication like "ok / swamped / lost any hope"

[guy]

I am indeed in England, so I might give Leica UK a call. They pass all M8 queries straight on to Germany since they don't have the facilities or staff (yet) to deal with them here, but the past couple of returns they've been good enough to send on their "professional service", even though I'm not a professional, which has generally meant a 2 to 3 week turnaround, so that's what I'd expect this time. Of course, the sooner they get the technicians and kit to look at M8s locally, the better.

[marknorton]

I think it will be a long wait before Leica UK rises to that particular challenge.

[dlc43]

I have posted several times about this problem on various threads, but nobody else unil now commented to verify they noticed it too. I'm glad that you are reporting it as I am not alone now. In my case, it's intermittent and not getting worse (so far!). I would like to pass along why it's happening when you do find out the cause. I am reluctant to send the camera back to Solms for obvious reasons as for now it's just annoying, though a real concern.

[Venkman]

I have posted several times about this problem on various threads, but nobody else unil now commented to verify they noticed it too. I'm glad that you are reporting it as I am not alone now. In my case, it's intermittent and not getting worse (so far!). I would like to pass along why it's happening when you do find out the cause. I am reluctant to send the camera back to Solms for obvious reasons as for now it's just annoying, though a real concern.

 

I saw that you posted about this in this year's May.

 

Have you ever thought about contacting Leica Customer Service via mail at all?

 

I tried that once, reply time was under 3 days and they were able to tell me exactly if that was a known bug or not and whether I should send the body in.

 

Dirk