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

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

65 answers

Sort by: Oldest
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2019-09-07T13:42:56+00:00

    I've got the same issue; you can see videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra6zLuTul9Y and here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpHECmmPhSY

    After about 30 minutes of usage when writing in OneNote on my Surface Go with the Surface Pro 4 Pen (the one with the clip and grey eraser), the Surface freezes and then every time I touch the pen to the surface to write, the entire screen flickers black. It also happens in other apps like Sticky Notes. The issue resolves itself upon restarting, but starts flickering again another 30 minutes of writing later.

    This basically means the device is useless for the main purpose I bought it for, to take notes in class, as I don't really have time to reboot every half an hour in a 2-hour lecture.

    Was this answer helpful?

    20+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2019-09-16T21:51:14+00:00

    I've been having the same issue with the special Windows 10 version of OneNote. OneNote 2016 works without issues.

    Supposedly, if you have this issue in 2016, you can disable hardware graphics acceleration in the advanced options, but that setting doesn't exist on the UWP version.

    For me, simply closing and reopening OneNote wasn't enough to fix it (it also happened in any other Modern app). Rebooting the computer worked, but that's a hassle. I did find a quicker workaround, though.

    Open up Task Manager and kill Desktop Window Manager. Windows will complain and all that, but once it's killed (it restarts itself automatically), my screen stops flashing.

    I really hope Microsoft fixes this...

    Was this answer helpful?

    30+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2019-10-09T20:19:17+00:00

    Ive been having the same issue with my Surface Lap2 and surface pen ...

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2019-11-14T07:49:23+00:00

    same here with surface pen and surface laptop 3 13.5"

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2019-12-02T14:29:40+00:00

    I have the exact same issue with Whiteboard in Windows 10 on the Surface Pro 7. I can use the highlighter without any issues (thanks for the heads up on that one), but none of the solid colored pens. I can't fix by restarting and I don't have the ability to stop the Desktop Window Manager service.

    I'd like MS to comment on it, let alone fix it.

    Was this answer helpful?

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments