Flickering Taskbar IBM T400 Thinkpad Win 7 32bit pro

I have a IBM T400 Thinkpad win 7 32 bit pro OS and the taskbar just recently started flickering in "heartbeat" type of rhythm. I have updated the display drivers as the only solution I have been able to glean from this forum and the internet. The driver update has not worked to date.

I would appreciate any other suggestions to fix this issue

TIA
jinx