Surface Pen makes screen flash black

Anonymous
2019-08-08T17:39:38+00:00

I recently purchased a Surface Go to use for in-class note taking, along with a surface pen. I have been using it for approximately 2 weeks and have noticed an issue when using the pen. Randomly, about once a day when taking notes in OneNote, when I press the pen to the screen, the screen will flash black. Oddly, this only occurs when using solid colors for the the pen and pencil. The highlighter and rainbow colors do not do this. I can fix it by restarting it, but it is an inconvenience. Any ideas what is causing it and how I can prevent it from happening in the future?

Surface | Accessories | Surface Pen

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-02-18T17:30:23+00:00

    Selimrecep can you provide a link to the Intel iris hd driver you downloaded?

    Hi! Sorry for late reply. Actually I've used "Intel Driver & Support Assistant" to update my graphics driver. By the way, I am using I5 8300H which has Intel Iris HD Graphics 630 (with version of 27.20.100.9168, as I updated. You can check your driver version from "Device Manager" if you want) if you ask. But I don't recommend manual install though (I mean there is an assistant that does for you). I downloaded Intel Assistant thing, it asked me if I want to overwrite an OEM graphic driver (which might cause issues, in my case, it didn't), I confirmed dialog and updated my display driver. It was fixed. Actually in my case it was something about OEM driver. When I was using OEM driver, the HP web site was clearly saying ".... (Windows 10 v1709)" which makes sense to have a broken driver because I upgraded my Windows to 20H2. After that, the whiteboard bug thing happened I guess. I am not using surface pen though neither tablet, just a regular PC (if it helps, just a entry level gaming pc). I know this forum for Surface tablets, but somehow same problems applys for a lot of people....

    Such like, in Microsoft Whiteboard (in OneNote that happens too) when you have that bug, you can't use solid coloured pens , but you can use rainbow ones. In my case, I was able to use solid coloured pens when ruler was open (which is... weird. I saw this thing on uservoice website and tried it, it worked with ruler on).

    As a result, I think it is a compatibility issue about OEM drivers and Windows. Still strange Microsoft didn't fully address this issue...

    Edit: I also tried to install all Windows Updates, only updating iris driver helped me in this case. I also checked group policy thing, I already had that use (which has an username I don't remember right now), so it didn't help me either, I also tried to remove that user and add back, didn't help...

    Surface tablets might have another issue. I don't know. But, really, I am using a PC and I might not expect the whiteboard application not work or neither OneNote pen drawer because, well, my screen is not a touchscreen :D I don't use this feature much, but this issue wasn't addressed for long time as I see, Microsoft should find a solution for this I guess, especially for surface pc users (which has touchscreen and a pen).

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-02-18T09:22:29+00:00

    Great it worked for selimrecep and Erwin, but it didn't for me, I updated (against the Tablet's (Microsoft's) advice) to Intel graphics driver 27.20.100.9168.  Is that the same one that fixed it for you two? I had previously updated driver/firmware on windows update to 17763_20.020.2886.0. My issue only happens with whiteboard and as others have pointed out, only when using solid not rainbow colours - was that the same for you?
    I also have had screen brightness flitting whilst the auto-adjust brightness was set - so have had to disable that.

    I am not sure which version I have, but I can check in the night. 

    I just went to the intel website, click download drivers and there was a program that did all the detection and such... I only installed the new graphic drivers, not the other 2 options.

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-02-18T09:15:05+00:00

    Great it worked for selimrecep and Erwin, but it didn't for me, I updated (against the Tablet's (Microsoft's) advice) to Intel graphics driver 27.20.100.9168.  Is that the same one that fixed it for you two? I had previously updated driver/firmware on windows update to 17763_20.020.2886.0. My issue only happens with whiteboard and as others have pointed out, only when using solid not rainbow colours - was that the same for you?
    I also have had screen brightness flitting whilst the auto-adjust brightness was set - so have had to disable that.

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-02-18T08:10:17+00:00

    Okay, I think I found the solution (at least for me), I had a Intel Iris HD Driver Upgrade but I didn't upgrade because I didn't want to leave my Intel OEM Graphic Driver, but when I upgraded, the issue was solved somehow, gpedit things didn't work for me...

    I think you are right selimrecep, I updated the non OEM drivers using that Intel installer, and no more issues.

    I am not going to touch it anymore! because it works fine now. 

    :)

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-02-17T19:22:00+00:00

    Exactly same issue, updated drivers/firmware whiteboard on a very recent Surface Pro 7. Also tried the latest Intel display driver.

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